Ronald McDonald in Clown Alley

In his autobiography Clown Alley Bill Ballantine tells of how the Ringling clowns had fallen on hard times during the Sixties, their walkarounds nothing more than advertisements for Kellog’s Cereal and Silly Putty. He rejoiced when Irvin Feld took over and got rid of such travesties.

This disdain for commercialism in clown alley was still strong when I joined up twelve years later. So when Art Ricker the show publicist worked out a deal with the local McDonald's franchise in Nashville to have a Ronald McDonald in clown alley and asked for one of the First of Mays to volunteer to wear the makeup for a week we initially balked. No one wanted to stoop to such depths of depravity. But when Ricker threw in an extra twenty-five dollar bonus for whoever would do it, Anchor Face immediately stepped up. The quisling.

Many a lip curled in disdain when he put on the McDonald’s makeup and costume, but somehow he managed to survive our collective scorn and was twenty-five bucks richer than the rest of us at the end of the week.

A few years later the same thimblerig operation was put over on the Red Unit clown alley, only this time the Ronald proxy was none other than the inimitable Peter Pitofsky  --  he who had once put on a green leotard, painted all his exposed skin green, and run through the audience during come in yelling “I’m a pickle! Who wants to put me on their hotdog?”  

I got the story second-hand, but apparently Peter-as-Ronald somehow acquired a Burger King cardboard crown to wear with his Ronald McDonald outfit. No one noticed the first few days, but then one of the local franchise owners spied the offending headpiece and had kittens. Large, screaming, clawing kittens. Ronald was never allowed in clown alley again after that.

As irony would have it, many years later when I needed a clown job to keep my family together my old pal Steve Smith, the Little Guy, arranged for me to interview with Aye Jaye -- the man who ran the Ronald McDonald program for the McDonald’s corporation. Aye Jaye was a Midwestern Falstaff; when I met with him in Milwaukee he took me out on the town for a series of feasts that left me feeling like the Hindenberg dirigible, but didn’t slow Aye Jaye down at all. He made free with a Chinese wine he called Wan Fu, guzzling it from a porcelain bottle like spring water. He had a bevy of lithesome blonde assistants that would have turned the head of a eunuch. Luckily, I was there strictly to schmooze him up and get an assignment to one of the lucrative Ronald McDonald regional franchise positions, so had no eyes for alluring pulchritude. My zeal was rewarded with a one year contract with the McDonald’s franchise out of Wichita, Kansas. I would travel the Sunflower State touting hamburgers. The salary turned out to be so handsome that we bought our first house in Wichita. It didn’t have a basement, and when the first tornado warning of the spring arrived we found out that the storm cellar in the back yard had been built too close to the sewer line; the seepage was not nostril friendly. Other than that, we settled into our new life with gratitude and contentment.

As the corporate mascot I and my family were allowed to dine for free at any McDonald’s in Kansas. My wife and I thought of it as a heavenly bonanza -- no more cooking and messes at home! But my children have never forgiven me, now that they are grown up and brainwashed, for the unending procession of Egg McMuffins, Big Macs, french fries, and Chicken McNuggets they were fed at a tender age. Today whenever one of them has to go to the doctor for something, they invariably notify me of the dire consequences of my ersatz parental abuse. I doubt I’d be hearing this much vituperation if I’d raised ‘em on beer and pretzels!

I only worked about six days a month. Not because there was nothing for me to do, but because the different franchise owners were an ornery bunch of former farmers and oil rig wildcatters who had bought into the McDonald’s franchise early, when they were cheap, and now had more money than they knew what to do with; consequently they argued with each other at their board meetings about how to save money, and forgot all about giving me work assignments.

It just so happened that the show Ronald McDonald was supposed to put on for the kiddies had been scripted by none other than Steve Smith, and was called The Big Red Shoe Review. It featured a lot of magic tricks, like linking rings, which I found impossible to do, especially since I had to wear thick yellow gloves. As with the unicycle in Clown College, I found my skills as a magician woefully inadequate. So I snuck my musical saw and some pantomime bits into the Ronald McDonald act, to replace the harder prestidigitation, and no one was any the wiser.

Since my contract gave me an assistant, paid by the franchise owners, I used my wife Amy -- keeping the income in the family. And since all our kids were still below school age, we took ‘em with us to every appearance. At the stores they were happy to sit still stuffing their faces while Daddy did his funny stuff. But when I visited schools or libraries or ribbon cutting ceremonies, the little ones grew quickly bored and developed an amazing wanderlust. They could be found in boiler rooms throwing janitors into the furnace or in civic flowerbeds cutting a large swath of hydrangea to give to Mommy. And the littlest one was still nursing, so when Amy would hear a lusty cry during my show she would simply desert me and go take care of business. I didn’t mind her leaving me in the lurch like that; I just pulled out my old Irish tin whistle and tootled on it until she got back.

The crowds were happy to see me and the franchise owners, when they could stop bickering long enough to visit with me, seemed pleased with my work. So I was thunderstruck when they did not renew my contract at the end of the year.

I immediately called Aye Jaye to tell him the outrageous news, but he was far from surprised or sympathetic.

“I knew this would happen” he told me over the phone.

“Why? What did I do wrong? They never once complained to me about anything! Did they talk to you about me?”

“No, but I talked to them. I told them not to rehire you.”

I was sure I had not heard him right. I asked him to repeat what he had just said.

“I was the one told them not to rehire you. You weren’t following proper corporate procedure.”

I thought he meant the changes I had made in the Big Red Shoe Review, and started to explain. But he cut me off.

“It’s not any of that. You forgot about my birthday.”

“What?”

“I always get a very nice present from each of my Ronald McDonalds on my birthday. You disrespected me and the company by not sending something. After all, I know how much you make and that you can afford to be generous.”

This was a shakedown, pure and simple. Aye Jaye expected a kickback. I was on the point of finding out just how much of a birthday present he needed to get back into his good graces when my good sense dissolved in an eruption of indignation.

“You go to blazes, you piss ant!” I yelled at him, and hung up.

Eventually I found work out on the road with another circus again, but not before we lost the house in Wichita. I never told Amy about my conversation with Aye Jaye; I was afraid she’d kill me for putting our family in such financial straits when a little toadying would have saved my job.

On the plus side, I’ve always been rather proud of myself for coming up with the phrase ‘piss ant’ as part of my last words to Aye Jaye.

From the New York Times:  The United States has long been the dream destination for many Latin American migrants, whether fleeing poverty, political unrest, natural disaster or violence. But now a growing number of migrants are putting down roots in Mexico, legally or illegally, instead of using it as a thruway to the United States.

Del Norte no longer appeals

To those who must take to their heels

To flee the unrest

Of their little nest,

Cuz Trump does not share their ideals.