'Mac and Me' at 30: 'Ronald McDonald' remembers his infamous 1988 movie

[Ubiquitous]

In 2018, Pennywise and his razor-sharp grin would be front and center
on the Mount Rushmore of famous clowns. Rewind the clock by three
decades, though, and a kinder, gentler jester dominated the pop culture
landscape — one who served up hamburgers rather than nightmares to
billions and billions of children. His name? Ronald McDonald, of course
— the red-haired spokesclown for the McDonald’s fast food empire.

Good ol’ Ronald has been less visible in the company’s marketing
campaigns in recent years, but back in the 1980s, it was next to
impossible to escape his blinding smile and equally blinding yellow
jumpsuit. The clown’s face beamed at kids from Happy Meal boxes, TV
ads, animated shorts and even 8-bit video games. Thirty years ago this
weekend — Aug. 12, 1988, to be exact — Ronald made the leap to the big
screen in Mac and Me, an E.T. homage (or, if you prefer, rip-off) that,
to this day, merits its prominent position on the list of terrible
kids’ movies. The movie’s status as a go-to punchline is confirmed
every time Paul Rudd goes on Conan and plays a clip of Mac and Me
instead of the actual movie he’s there to promote.

But don’t take our word for it — just ask the clown himself.

“It was kind of a disappointment,” admits Squire Fridell, the actor who
wore Ronald’s white facepaint in nearly 50 commercials that aired
during the height of his ’80s ubiquity, from 1985 to 1991. That’s also
him in Mac and Me, popping up during a sequence in which the movie’s
handicapped hero, Eric (Jade Calegory), smuggles his extraterrestrial
friend, Mac (as in Mysterious Alien Creature), into a birthday
party/dance-off held at his local McDonald’s franchise.

The fast-food giant was closely involved with the film, having been
convinced by producer R.J. Louis to lend the brand to a major motion
picture as a way to boost both the box office and burger sales. And as
the face of McDonald’s, Ronald also served as the face of Mac and Me;
in fact, the trailer opens with Fridell in full makeup, boasting about
being “on the set of my very first motion picture ever.”

https://youtu.be/vNjACYfQlbI

The trailer turned out to be a bit of a bait-and-switch, and not just
because it made the movie look halfway entertaining. While Ronald
presents himself as an equal co-star with the titular bug-eyed alien,
his actual role in the Stewart Raffill-directed movie is little more
than a glorified cameo.

As Fridell tells Yahoo Entertainment, early drafts of the script did
grant his alter ego a bigger piece of the action. “[In] the first
script that we got, Ronald was featured all the way through,” says the
now-retired actor, who these days oversees the GlenLyon Vineyards &
Winery in California’s Sonoma Valley. “He became this kind of
otherworldly support for the little boy. Then, as time went on — and
whenever you have committee meetings — things changed drastically.”

While Fridell can’t remember the specific sequences that fell by the
wayside, he says that the original script justified Ronald’s presence
in a way the finished film doesn’t. “I didn’t understand my role in the
thing,” he says of his appearance, which amounts to roughly two minutes
out of the movie’s 99-minute runtime. After pulling up to the
McDonald’s where the birthday party, which is in full swing, Eric and
Mac — who is not so cleverly hidden in a teddy bear outfit — are
briefly greeted by Ronald with a cheery, “Hiyah coach, how’s it going?”
The clown then heads off to announce the start of the dance contest,
just as the movie’s alien-chasing FBI bad guys, Wickett and Zimmerman
(Martin West and Ivan J. Rado), enter the restaurant. The joint is soon
jumping with dancing teenagers and McDonald’s employees, inspiring a
disguised Mac to cut the rug himself.

https://youtu.be/tPgRnFg8ZTU

Ronald’s primary function in the scene is to be the hype man who
encourages everyone else in the place to join in the fun. Nevertheless,
Fridell does remember learning the dance choreography so that he could
perform it if required. “I’m not a professional dancer, but I can move
well. I wanted to make sure that I looked like I was in control and
that I knew what I was doing.”

And when he wasn’t on camera, he was pondering the logic of Ronald’s
presence in the film. “If you watch the film objectively, you say, ‘Why
is Ronald McDonald in this thing? Is he one of the field Ronald’s
around the United States that just happened to be in the store?’ What
is it? Because Ronald, of course, was fictitious; he’s a character.
Ronald McDonald didn’t just walk into a real live McDonald’s store and
say, ‘Hey, how do you like the fries?’ That wasn’t Ronald at all!
Ronald had a degree of magic to him. I thought the film was going to
make Ronald a real-life human being, [but] the powers that be said,
‘No, but we still want Ronald in the film because we put all this
mileage into promoting it.'”

Criticizing the realism of Ronald McDonald’s presence in a movie about
a kid who befriends a rambunctious alien may seem like a minor nitpick.
But that commitment to character is one of the reasons that Fridell —
who had a lengthy career on episodic TV and commercials before
McDonald’s came calling — excelled in the role during his six-year
tenure, during which he became the Ronald McDonald for a generation of
kids. The actor downplays his own contribution to Ronald’s legacy,
insisting that he mainly followed the example of his direct
predecessor, King Moody. “He was a very good actor, so I simply took
what he had done and did what I could to emulate that. The greatest
compliment you can pay to an actor after seeing him on stage or in
front of a camera is, ‘That was really a clean performance.’ That’s
what I’ve always kind of prided myself in — cutting those right angles
and making a clean performance. This is not method acting.”

Fridell’s unfussy approach made Ronald the solid center of McDonalds’s
mid-’80s television commercials, which leaned heavily on fanciful
mini-stories that cast him as the smiling guardian of a colorful
supporting cast of costumed characters. In one memorable commercial, he
helped his winged pal Birdie learn how to fly. In another, he helped
the McNuggets crack a case involving missing BBQ sauce. And in yet
another, he chased the burger-pinching Hamburgler through a series of
doors, in a nod to silent screen stars like Buster Keaton and Charlie
Chaplin.

https://youtu.be/5Xi-kKMBNe0

“Of all the commercials I did for McDonald’s, that’s probably the one I
enjoyed the most,” Fridell says of the burger-chase spot, pointing to a
holiday-themed ice-skating ad as another favorite. “There’s a little
kid that can’t ice skate and he’s sitting all by himself. Then Ronald
appears, sees this poor little kid and goes over to him, picks up the
little boy and skates with him. It’s a wonderful piece of editing,
directing and acting. Right after that, the corporate powers that
decided that Ronald McDonald — for whatever reason — can no longer
touch a child in a commercial. It was [about] making Ronald safe —
corporate. They finally got to the point where they got so safe and so
corporate that I don’t even think Ronald is a character in commercials
anymore.” (The current Ronald, Brad Lennon, has been an infrequent TV
presence, no doubt because McDonald’s has reduced the character’s
visibility as clowns have taken on a more sinister edge in pop
culture.)

Looking back over his time as McDonald’s signature clown, Fridell
understandably prizes the work he did on television more than his brief
appearance in Mac and Me. That said, the film did gift him with an
award that no other Ronald before or since can boast about: a Razzie.
Mac and Me received four nominations at 1988 edition of the Golden
Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay. It lost
both of those statues to the Tom Cruise bottle-flipping classic,
Cocktail, but Raffill shared the Worst Director prize with Hollywood
legend Blake Edwards, who had descended from the heights of Breakfast
at Tiffany’s to the depths of Sunset. Meanwhile, Fridell-as-Ronald beat
out the talking horse from the Bobcat Goldthwait non-classic Hot to
Trot and Jean-Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport for the title of Worst New
Star.

Apparently, Fridell’s invitation to the 1988 Razzies got lost in the
mail, though, because he erupted in laughter when Yahoo Entertainment
informed him about his victory. “God, I won a Razzie! That’s great. I’m
just tickled pink,” he said. “I wish they’d sent me a little trophy — I
would proudly display it. That film was strange. I remember seeing it
and I thought, ‘Gee, this is kind of a rip-off of E.T.’ That was
obviously a much better film!”

Mac and Me is available for purchase on DVD — if you dare.

--
Dems & the media want Trump to be more like Obama, but then he'd
have to audit liberals & wire tap reporters' phones.

[jmfabi...@gmail.com]

There was an E.T. vs. Mac movie after this! I remember seeing it!!!!!