Ronald McDonald

• 1. Introduction

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  Ronald McDonald first appeared in 1963 under a longer name: "Ronald McDonald, the Hamburger-Happy Clown." He turned up in three separate local television advertisements, and nobody watching could have guessed what came next. Today he is the primary mascot of the McDonald's fast-food chain, and he has played the lead in comics, cartoons and video games. Yet his origins are surprisingly hard to pin down. Who actually invented him, and why does the company's own official history decline to say? How can a single character be played by dozens of people at once? And what did a street protest in Hong Kong, an Oscar-winning cartoon and a group of physicians all have against one clown?

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• 2. Bozo's Successor

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  The advertising agency of Oscar Goldstein produced those first three commercials. Goldstein also owned a McDonald's franchise in the Washington, D.C., area, so he had a direct stake in how well they worked. His star was Willard Scott, who was on his payroll at the time. Scott had played Bozo the Clown on the Washington station WRC-TV from 1959 to 1962. He later became the weatherman on NBC's Today Show.

  Scott told his side of the story in a book called Joy of Living. "At the time, Bozo was the hottest children's show on the air," he wrote. He claimed that almost any famous cartoon animal could have done the job, but he happened to be the one available. In his telling, "There was something about the combination of hamburgers and Bozo that was irresistible to kids." When Bozo left the air, the local McDonald's people asked him to dream up a stand-in. "So, I sat down and created Ronald McDonald," he wrote.

  McDonald's itself tells it differently, or rather does not tell it at all. Its official statement of the character's history names no creator. The company's thanks came much later. On the 28th of March 2000, Henry Gonzalez, the McDonald's Northeast Division President, thanked Scott for creating Ronald during a taped tribute on the Today Show.

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• 3. Going National

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  The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade of 1965 gave Ronald his first moment in national television advertising. Spots during the 1965 NFL Championship Game followed soon after. The clown who had started as a local salesman for one region was now being shown to viewers across the country.

  In 1966 McDonald's hired a circus performer known as Coco the Clown, whose real name was Michael Polakovs. His job was to revamp Ronald's image. The costume and make-up he created are the ones people still recognize as Ronald's. The list of primary American performers credits Polakovs with playing the role from 1965 to 1968.

  He was not the only one in the part at that moment. In Southern California, an actor named Bev Bergeron began playing Ronald in 1966, the very year Coco's redesign began.

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• 4. Many Actors, One Clown

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  King Moody wore the costume from 1969 to 1985, the longest stretch of anyone on the list of primary American Ronald McDonald actors. Squire Fridell followed from 1985 to 1991, then Jack Doepke from 1991 to 1999. David Hussey took over in 2000 and stayed until 2014. After that, Brad Lennon began a local run in 2014.

  Those names are only the most visible performers. At any given moment McDonald's keeps dozens to hundreds of actors on hand to appear at restaurants and events. At the character's peak there may have been as many as 300 full-time Ronalds. Many spend their days visiting children in hospitals and attending regular events. The company assumes that only one actor at a time plays him in national television commercials.

  The character also reaches families through the Ronald McDonald Houses. These are places where parents can stay overnight while their sick children are treated at nearby chronic care facilities.

  McDonald's registered various forms of the name, along with the clown face and costume persona, as trademarks. It trains every performer to copy identical mannerisms and dress the same way. The goal is the illusion that all of them are one person.

  That illusion was tested by an actor named Joe Maggard, who said he played Ronald from 1995 to 2007. Those years overlap with the terms of both Jack Doepke and David Hussey. In a 2003 article, The Baltimore Sun quoted a McDonald's spokesperson who said Maggard had only stood in for Ronald during one commercial shoot in the mid-1990s. The spokesperson was blunt: "he is definitely not Ronald McDonald."

  While the company guarded his identity at home, the character was already adapting to audiences abroad.

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• 5. Around the World

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  In Thailand, Ronald greets customers with the traditional wai, pressing both hands together. The local franchise, McThai, created this version in 2002 as part of a campaign called "McThai in the Thai Spirit." The same figure has since been exported to India and to other countries where a similar gesture is used.

  In China, children do not call him by his first name. Out of respect for him as an adult, they say "Uncle McDonald," written 麦当劳叔叔 and pronounced Màidāngláo Shūshu.

  Japan took a different route. Because Japanese has no clear "r" sound, the clown there is known as "Donald McDonald." That name even reached a cartridge: a game called Donald Land, developed by Data East for the Famicom console, was released only in Japan in 1988.

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• 6. McDonaldland on Screen

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  Ronald's home is a fictional world called McDonaldland, shared with Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie the Early Bird and The Fry Kids. That cast supplied the supporting players for a long list of licensed projects.

  Charlton Comics held the license for four issues of a Ronald comic sold on newsstands in 1970 and 1971. Over the years, several giveaway comics were also made. In 1984 Ronald appeared with Grimace in a Little Golden Book titled Ronald McDonald and the Tale of the Talking Plant, written by John Albano and illustrated by John Costanza. By 1991 he had become a nature show host and tour guide in the Discover the Rainforest activity book series.

  Animation came next. In 1987, an eight-minute short called Ronald McDonald and the Adventure Machine paired him with Birdie, the Hamburglar, Grimace and the Professor. It was shown only at birthday parties held in McDonald's restaurants. In 1990, DIC Entertainment produced a 40-minute film, The Adventures of Ronald McDonald: McTreasure Island, which Hi-Tops Video released on VHS. From 1998 until 2003, Klasky Csupo made a series of episodes called The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald. Participating restaurants worldwide handed them out on VHS.

  He starred in three video games. Besides Donald Land, there was McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure, which Treasure developed for the Mega Drive and released in 1993. A third, Ronald McDonald in Magical World, was made by SIMS for the Game Gear in 1994 and sold only in Japan. If you put that cartridge into a Western Game Gear, it switches to English and restores his original English name. He also featured in M.C. Kids and Global Gladiators, which were released on a spread of home computers and consoles.

  His film career was shorter. In the 1988 movie Mac and Me, he shows up for a few seconds in a birthday scene set at a McDonald's. Squire Fridell played him but was credited as "Ronald McDonald as himself." Footage was shot exclusively for the film's theatrical trailer too. The brief role won him a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst New Star.

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• 7. Symbol and Parody

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  In 2000, protesters in Hong Kong put on Ronald McDonald costumes to object to the labor policies of McDonald's in China. They chose him because his fame had grown beyond the restaurants. He had become a symbol of McDonald's, and of Corporate America, capitalism and globalization all at once.

  Protesters and artists often borrow his costume and imagery to deliver an anti-corporate message. In 2010, the Oscar-winning animated short Logorama gave the idea a sharper edge. It showed Ronald McDonald as a criminal on the run from the police.

  A different kind of attack came from people who objected to what a clown was selling, and to whom.

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• 8. Calls to Retire

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  In 2010, Corporate Accountability International suggested that Ronald McDonald should retire because of childhood obesity. McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner replied that there were no plans to do so.

  The next year, McDonald's announced that Ronald would reappear in its commercials. The research firm Ace Metrix countered that his ads were no longer effective. Corporate Accountability International renewed its campaign by running ads in major newspapers and launching several web pages devoted to his retirement. In 2011, a group of 550 physicians and other health professionals also took out newspaper ads saying he should go. Critics argued that using a clown to market fast food to children was unethical.

  Skinner defended the mascot as an ambassador for good and said, "it's all about choice." Shortly afterward, McDonald's announced that Ronald was "here to stay."

  In 2014 the company gave him a whole new look. The jumpsuit was dropped in favor of yellow cargo pants, a vest and a red-and-white striped rugby shirt. His classic clown shoes stayed. New commercials arrived with him, along with a presence on social media sites such as Twitter.

  Then came the clown sightings of 2016, after which Ronald made fewer appearances. As of 2025, though, he was still turning up at live events and on social media.

  On the 5th of August 2025, McDonald's published a press release announcing that Ronald and the other McDonaldland characters would return after two decades since their last appearance. Their comeback vehicle was a new commercial promoting a single meal.

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