Is Ronald McDonald Getting Phased Out?

by Jason Best, Posted Mar 4th 2011 @ 3:00PM

Ronald McDonald Photo: Ben Hider / Getty Images

It's the fate of celebrity icons everywhere: One minute you're adored by legions and the next thing you know, you've somehow drifted into middle age and the tepid waters of cultural obscurity.

It's downright tough these days to be clown in the fast-food biz. Just ask Ronald McDonald. As Bloomberg reports, the 48-year-old face of all that's supposedly happy in Happy Meals is finding it harder to land work these days.

Blame it on the changing times. McDonald's is undergoing a dramatic re-branding of sorts, launching its uber-popular line of Starbucks-style coffees under the McCafe label and committing upwards of $1 billion to renovate hundreds of restaurants to make them look less like one big Playland and more like...well, again, Starbucks. And it appears that Ronald doesn't exactly fit in with the aesthetic of the latte-sipping, iPad-toting crowd.

"He kind of represents the old McDonald's, with the high-fat content foods that are kind of falling out of favor," one advertising exec told Bloomberg. "It's clear that McDonald's is advertising coffee, they're not advertising burgers."

Add to this the fact that McDonald's is facing growing pressure to stop marketing it's "high-fat content foods" to kids, and what's a guy with a penchant for showmanship and a creepy perpetual smile supposed to do?

I dunno..."Dancing with the Stars"?