Unlike his rival Jared Fogle, whose message of wellness has helped Subway overtake the Golden Arches as the largest restaurant chain in the world, Ronald McDonald doesn’t look Unlike his rival Jared Fogle, whose message of wellness has helped Subway overtake the Golden Arches as the largest restaurant chain in the world, Ronald McDonald doesn’t look like the picture of health these days. When a report recently surfaced that the 48-year-old clown was being retired, Ronald haters everywhere felt vindicated. Last year, the watchdog group Corporate Accountability International called for Ronald’s banishment, and down-with-the-clown sentiment outside the U.S. is so extreme that one Finnish group beheaded the hapless mascot in effigy in an especially gruesome piece of political theater. Ronald’s apparent dismissal seemed less like an attempt to placate progressives than a reaction to increasing pressure on the chain to stop marketing high-fat, processed food to children, whose escalating girth has become a major concern in the U.S. In 2009 a New York City councilman proposed a ban on fast-food chains within one-tenth of a mile of any school; San Francisco has outlawed the Happy Meal. And while McDonald’s subsequently issued a clarification that Ronald might still be called on now and then to speak for the brand, the company confirmed that he had become less important to its overall marketing plan. Asked when Ronald was last featured in a commercial, Danya Proud, director of U.S. communications for McDonald’s, told TIME, “I don’t even know. I’d have to look into it … We use him differently today than we have in the past, but he continues to have a role that’s right for him in our business.”
