It’s finally October, which means it’s spooky season, which also kinda means it’s clown season. Of late, we’ve seen the second and final chapter of IT, some closure for Zach Galifianakis’ sweet clown series Baskets, a visit from Wrinkles, and, who can forget, the anxiety surrounding Joker’s opening weekend. It could be worse, though. We could be cursed with a sexy Ronald McDonald with French fry pubes.
This past week, Twitter discovered sexy Ronald in a Japanese advertisement for what was assumed to be a McDonald’s ad.
Well, they were wrong. This iteration of our clown Ronny actually comes from an ad for a Japanese tapas/pub chain, Yotteba, that, according to Medium blog Unseen Japan, loves using offbeat imagery to advertise their restaurants. The company’s mascot can be seen at the top right of the image, next to the skinny “i’m lovin’ it,” text. The copy on the left side of the ad states, “Of course, we serve them in Yotteba’s original container.” And, as one Twitter user points out, the idea came from the chain presenting “naked ingredients” as a pun on McDonald’s “fresh ingredients.”
The actual artwork itself, however, can still be appreciated. It stems from New York-based artist Wizard Skull, who created this sexy Ronald character in 2011 and has since seen an influx of the piece being replicated and reproduced for various reasons, Japanese pub chain advertisements apparently being one of them. According to his website, the design has also been sold as merch around Thailand, Indonesia, and South Africa. The pube fry entering the world’s cultural consciousness is so powerful.
And before you even think about stealing this artwork for a sexy Ronald McDonald costume yourself, just know that it’s already been done before.
27 Comments
Thanks so much for that last image, really, I needed that in my head.
Topical porn parody cover for “Poker”
And here i was hoping that the Fry Guys were finally making a comeback
The fry guys have seen some shit.
You would look like that too if it turned out that you were really a clowns pubic hair given life!
expected curly fries tbh.
Have more stars.
Canjun spiced ones!
It’s all about the merchandising.
It’s gone mainstream.
That fucking pic has been around for about ten years. Ever with your finger on the pulse, AVclub.
It’s making the rounds again being cited as an actual Japanese McDonald’s ad, so I’m actually glad they put some context around it that I can hand back to my friends who perpetuate the “weird Japan” line.“It stems from New York-based artist Wizard Skull, who created this sexy Ronald character in 2011 and has since seen an influx of the piece being replicated and reproduced for various reasons…”
In my book, “Ronald McDonald” and “French fry pubes” doubly-negates “sexy”… YMMV, and TGIFF!
NSFW warning please.
What part of an ad prominently visible on Japanese streets (and showing nothing that can’t be seen on a CK ad) is “NSFW”?
Some business don’t like clowns
At least we know the OP doesn’t work at McD 🙂
Maybe he works at BK. I’m sure there is some bizarre fan art showing that the King’s butt crack hair is really onion rings or something
I LOLed at each of your sentences (although I’m not going to start googling for the latter, that’s for sure.)
Well I know what I’m NOT having for lunch today.
I didn’t even read the article. I just read the headline and my head was filled with screaming.
I expect there to be a crossover promotion with Red Lobster for crabs.
Tell me about that sexy scorpion.
Very disappointed to learn Ron’s carpet doesn’t match the drapes.
Why did I click on this link? WHY did I scroll down. ALL the way down.
I need this on a t-shirt.
Back in my traveling days I did a month project in Japan. On the weekdays we kept similar schedules to the local team we worked with and every night they took us out to a Izakayas place to eat after. There is a reason so many die in Japan of heart attacks fairly young. Working a 12 hour day and then eating awesome(but also greasy and heavy) bar food and drinking for hours after every night was to crazy. By the time my first weekend rolled around, I had all these plans to go sight seeing or take a train to the country and instead just spent most of the weekend sleeping and recovering from what felt like a 5 day hang over.