Ronald McDonald

Ronald McDonald is a character, created in 1963, as the advertising mascot of McDonald's fast-food restaurant chain. Depicted as a famous smiling, friendly clown in a village of food-related characters, he appeared in many vignettes creating a safe, pleasant fantasy for children. The highly successful advertising campaign still continues to draw in thousands of children and parents to purchase McDonalds' famous happy meal.

According to Fast Food Nation (2001), 96 percent of schoolchildren in the US can identify Ronald McDonald. Only Santa Claus was more commonly recognized.

Many of the restaurants are decorated with a life-size statue of the clown, holding out his hand to greet customers at the entrance, and children love to shake hands with him. Sometimes the figure is sitting on a bench allowing children to sit next to him or on his lap.

In television commercials, Ronald inhabits a fantasy world called McDonaldland and has adventures with his friends Grimace, Hamburglar, Birdie the Early Bird, and The Fry Kids. In recent years, however, the somewhat "childish" McDonaldland premise has been largely phased out, and Ronald is instead shown interacting with normal kids in their everyday lives.

Several people work full-time making appearances in the Ronald McDonald costume, visiting children in hospitals. There are also several Ronald McDonald Houses, where parents can stay overnight when visiting sick children in nearby chronic care facilities.

Due to the controversy over fast food, critics have likened Ronald McDonald to Joe Camel, the former mascot of Camel cigarettes.

Contents

1 Makeup 2 Trivia 3 Real Ronald 4 Actors 5 Quotes 6 External links

Makeup

• Putting on the Ronald Mcdonald makeup was a painstaking process of applied foundation, spirit gum, white base and detail makeup that would sometimes take 2 hours to apply. Actors were strictly selected by the Mcdonald's corporation and Leo Burnett Advertising for their ability to project energy, warmth and compassion that reflected the desired brand image.

• Ronald's wig was usually kept in a freezer before shoots to keep a uniform red look when applied to the actor's head.

• Ronald's nose is made from a wax parafin modelled from the actor's own nose.

• Ronald's boots were at times very painful for the actors to wear as they were injected with a special silicon gel to give them weight and a rubberlike appearance.

• The modern version of Ronald's pants have inflatable balloons in them to make them look oversized. The balloons are adjustable to conform to the actor's posterior.

Trivia

• The Mcdonald's Corporation have produced over 2000 commercials featuring Ronald Mcdonald world wide.

• In the spring of 2004, following the success of America's Army, a now shelved Ronald McDonald video game was under development. Trying to alleviate the negative brand image of the Super Size Me movie, the game featured the famous clown teaching kids to learn basic exercise routines and tips for a healthy lifestyle. The game used motion capture technology and the Truevision3d game engine. The project was cancelled later on in that year for unspecified reasons.

• There is no true accurate count of how many hamburgers are exactly sold, however, a general estimate is regarded as the signage standard.

• Ronald Mcdonald is never seen promoting the Mcdonald's salads as the salads are targetted at an older audience.

• The cost of a Mcdonald's hamburger wrapper is less than 1/10 of a cent. A Mcdonald's hamburger's cost is 18 cents.

• The new marketing campaign's message of "You gotta love it!" cost over $40 million dollars to develop and research.

• The color in Mcdonald's orange soda is not actually orange in its syrup form. It is actually a combination of FDIA color red no. 7 and FDIA color brown no 9. When it is mixed with carbonated water, the color lightens up to the orange soda that we know.

Real Ronald

Few people know that there is a real Ronald who is a member of the family that started McDonald's. Ronald Lee McDonald, the nephew of McDonald's founders Dick and Mac McDonald, is a successful businessman, consultant, and author. He really is. He currently resides in La Jolla, California with his wife and four children.

Actors

At any given time, there are dozens, or possibly hundreds, of actors retained by McDonald's to appear as Ronald McDonald in local restaurants and events. It is assumed, however, that the company uses only one actor at a time to play the character in national television commercials. Following is a list of such primary and secondary Ronald actors.

• Willard Scott (1963 – 1966)
• Bob Brandon (1966 – present)
• King Moody (1970s)
• Geoffrey Gulliano (late 1970s – early 1980s)
• Joe Maggard (mid-1990s)

Quotes

• "I feel badly about what I've done with young people. I was the happy face on something that was horrendous." —Geoffrey Gulliano, former Ronald actor who later embraced vegetarianism
• "For the last eight years I have documented coercion, threats, intimidation and manipulation by McDonald's and Leo Burnett Advertising against me due directly to my work as Ronald McDonald." —Joe Maggard, former Ronald actor, 2003
• "All the other actors that I will not mention by name have complained about their Ronald McDonald experiences. I, however, have not had a problem with the McDonald's corporation. It was just a job for me and I got my paycheck every week. This was before the Happy Meal came around, before Chicken McNuggets became a part of the menu, times back then were very different and you were grateful for what you got. I myself was very satisfied with my work with them and the perks were nothing to cry about either.—Bob Brandon, former Ronald actor, 2004

External links

• Ronald.com — the official website (http://www.ronald.com)
• Ronald's PlayPlace (http://www.ronald.com/ronald/index.html)
• Template:Imdb name
• TV Acres info about Ronald McDonald (http://www.tvacres.com/clowns_ronald.htm)
• Ronald L. McDonald's website (http://www.ronaldmcdonald-author.com/)