According to official company statements, Ronald McDonald is “second only to Santa in terms of recognition”. While this may or may not have been true at one point in time, you might have noticed of late that the formerly prominent fast-food mascot has almost completely disappeared from the lime-light. So how did Ronald McDonald come about in the first place and where has he disappeared to in recent years?
The original idea behind the character of Ronald McDonald was to more or less capitalize on the popularity of the iconic Bozo the Clown, with initial efforts on this front simply advertising on that children's show in the Washington D.C. area. When this succeeded in getting kids to drag their parents to McDonald's, in 1963 McDonald's decided to create their own similar character, with the first to portray the Bozo knock-off being none other than Willard Scott, who would later go on to much more prominent fame for his decades of work on The Today Show.
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