ABSTRACT
A remarkable salesman entrepreneur named Ray Kroc, and the clown (Ronald McDonald) created as his spokesman. The first Ronald made his local debut in Washington, and his national debut a few months later in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade—New York, November 25, 1963. As Ray and Ronald’s fame and fortune grew, so did the arguments of their detractors. The official spokesman for the McDonald’s Corporation, Ronald is the world’s best-publicized clown. Ronald loves hamburgers and children, and works magic. Ronald McDonald Houses host families whose children are hospitalized. Behind Ray Kroc stands Henry Ford and Fordism—the mass production of multiples of identical products from readily available materials. Ray Kroc himself got into the act, by writing a brief autobiography. The world’s largest McDonald’s opened on the busiest intersection in the capital of the world’s most populous country. Always a nontraditionalist, Ray gathered together a group of executives, many of whom had no college education.
