Flashback: the world's first Ronald McDonald commercial

Eons ago, when the family television was a grainy box with three stations and rabbit ears, my mother made me put on a blazer and tie and took me down to the local NBC-TV studios in Washington, DC to appear, with about a dozen other kids, as an extra on an obscure and short-lived TV show starring Ronald McDonald. (I think it was called “The Ronald McDonald Show,” but I’m not sure.)  The star, of course, was Ronald himself, played by the inimitable (and later legendary) Willard Scott — a big star in the suburban Washington television galaxy back in the early 1960’s.

I don’t remember much about the experience, except that I was the only kid in a jacket and tie (thanks, Mom) and that McDonald’s hamburgers and milkshakes were mentioned often.

This came rushing back to me when someone posted the commercial below online — the very first Ronald McDonald television commercial.  It is, in a word, creepy.  And weird.  And delightfully, idiotically innocent.  A grown man wearing a serving tray on his head and a milkshake cup on his nose?  And serving endless hamburgers from his belt?  Nothing wrong with that.  Is there?

Anway…enjoy this little flashback.