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.