Ronald McDonald was created by combining a clown costume with a food-tray belt in 1963.
The early Ronald McDonald design used recognizable McDonald's items as costume elements. A tray functioned as part of the character's clothing, while a cup and food packaging helped connect the clown directly to the restaurant's products. This made Ronald visually distinctive in television advertising and immediately linked him with McDonald's.
Willard Scott played the first televised version of Ronald in a Washington, D.C., advertisement. The character's appearance changed over time as McDonald's refined its national advertising and developed a broader family-oriented identity.
Ronald's product-based costume is sometimes mistaken for a general clown design or confused with Speedee, the earlier logo mascot. Speedee represented rapid service, whereas Ronald was designed as a colorful television personality. The food-tray belt was an early branding device that made the mascot itself function like a moving advertisement.