McDonald’s Realizing Now Is Not a Great Time to Have a Creepy-Ass Clown as Your Mascot

It has been less than two months since this whole creepy clown thing started, just eight weeks since a couple of dickheads with a spare jar of greasepaint started trying to lure children into the woods in South Carolina. Since then, there have been an increasingly large number of clown sightings—and hoaxes—in cities and suburbs across the country and even across the Atlantic.

When these idiots finally wipe off their makeup and we're able to objectively look back on this period of clown-driven paranoia, we'll recognize one real low point. It wasn't when a North Carolina man was arrested for filing a false clown report. It wasn't when someone in Arizona tried to turn #ClownLivesMatter into a real thing. No, it was the moment when McDonald's had to announce that it would be limiting the number of appearances by Ronald McDonald because it didn't want its own smiling weirdo to be mistaken for one of the bad smiling weirdos.

"McDonald's and franchisees in the local markets are mindful of the current climate around clown sightings in communities and, as such, are being thoughtful in respect to Ronald McDonald's participation in community events for the time being," McDonald's spokesperson Terri Hickey told NBC News. (Hickey then probably put her head down on her desk, counted to a hundred, and wondered what her life had become). MUNCHIES has reached out to McDonald's for comment on the matter but has not yet received a response.

It seems like Ronald would be exempt from being lumped in with the other clowns. We've seen his face—or some variation on his face—for more than 50 years and he seems incapable of doing anything more dangerous than giving your children diabetes. (OK, in retrospect…) Until Ronald is released from whatever undisclosed location in McDonaldland where he's being kept, let's look back on a few classic commercials that show why we don't have to be afraid of him.

OK, maybe that's a bad example. When I see wild-eyed Willard Scott wearing a to-go cup on his nose and insisting that he likes to do "everything that boys and girls like to do," my first thought isn't "YAY HAMBURGERS!"

Yeah, that's no good either. If your parents aren't home, do not let Ronald and his kleptomaniac friend rummage through your closets.

Ronald's attempts to beatbox are a war crime.

Actually, maybe McDonald's should've done this a long time ago. Somehow, those blood-drenched clowns across the street don't seem so bad right now.