11-Year-Old Slams Ronald McDonald for Being an Ass-Clown

By Gabriel Beltrone of Adweek

Amid all the uncertainty over the impending apocalypse, rest assured that some things will always stay the same. Yesterday, doctors (again) blasted Ronald McDonald for making America's children fat, but McDonald's (again) defended its clown. Kids love him, and he stays, said CEO Jim Skinner, according to the Wall Street Journal. But while the grownups are busy fretting about the health of their offspring, the nation's more affluent tweens seem sharply uninterested in the mascot. In their precocious and world-weary view, he's a lame Pollyanna. "It's very fake, the whole, like, all his commercials, where he's jumping up and down, where he's always happy. You know that no one's always happy. It's silly," Mollie Kerr, an 11-year-old girl from the suburbs, tells the Journal. She adds: "We have, like, problems, we have earthquakes and tornadoes, we have money problems and financial problems. But in Ronald McDonald World, we have no problems, it's just happy all the time." Plus, his pants aren't anywhere near tight enough to be in line with the times, the young hipster notes. Given Mollie's acumen, and generally gloomy outlook, it's probably safe to guess she wouldn't think much of the brand's creepy talking lemon, either. UPDATE: Mollie may not be as much of a novice in media relations as we thought. She's the daughter of Drew Kerr, the PR executive and founder of Four Corners. Drew clearly has his hands full. He says: "Being the daughter of a PR consultant, all I can say is she has mastered the sound bite pretty well without my help. I'm looking forward to her debate with Christiane Amanpour next week on whether the Burger King is too happy in a world of unemployment and global warming."