Ronald McDonald was the first McDonald’s character to appear in a national television campaign.
Ronald debuted in a 1963 television commercial in the Washington, D.C., area, then became the focus of a national U.S. campaign. The character’s clown identity gave McDonald’s a highly visible personality that could appear consistently across television, restaurant signs, packaging, and live appearances.
Willard Scott played the first televised Ronald. His early costume looked different from the familiar later design, using McDonald’s food and drink containers as costume elements. The character was subsequently refined into the red-haired clown recognized around the world.
This fact is easy to confuse with the creation of McDonaldland. McDonaldland and its larger group of characters came later, in 1971. Ronald therefore predates Mayor McCheese, Grimace, and the Hamburglar as major figures in the company’s national television branding.