Willard Scott as the first Ronald McDonald
In Japan, Ronald McDonald is known as Donald McDonald. Name and other variations aside, he’s probably the most famous clown on the planet.
While doing research (yeah right) on a job we were doing, we came across several bits of trivia which were quite funny. Like the time in 1996 when a television commercial was shot and for some reason the actor playing the clown lost it (who wouldn’t?) and threw a plate at the director, who had probably earned the actor’s ire by calling him Bozo or something.
In response, the director attacked a life-sized cut out of Ronald McDonald, thinking it was the actor.
Life-sized statues of the clown have always been targets of pranksters, and at uni, freshies were always tasked to ‘kidnap’ Ronald from the neighbourhood McDonalds and placed in various other locations, the most popular of which was the taxi stand outside campus. It was fun watching cabs slow down, thinking a big haired man in baggy clothes was flagging down a ride. This happened so often (but the cabs still stop) we never recalled the Maccers’ staff calling the cops, because Ronald was always returned to his rightful residence after Orientation Week.
Apparently, after the Super-Size Me controversy, the company has decided to revamp its marketing, and Ronald’s friends The Hamburglar, Grimace and Birdie are going to be killed off as they eliminate marketing at children under 12. Ronald himself will be made an ambassador for healthy living, and was recently named “Chief Happiness Officer”, which is probably what the Japanese had in mind with their campaign:
You’ll want to eat her burger
Technorati Tags: McDonalds, TVC, Ronald McDonald, Super-Size Me
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