Sweatin' with Ronald

The topic has yet to come up, but I've always worried people won't believe me if I ever tell them that in the 80's, if you got up early enough, you could see an aerobics program on the Disney Channel where people bopped around in tights and leg warmers next to people in Mickey costumes doing the same thing.
But finally, finally, I have filmed proof this happened. Behold! I told you I was right....

It's time to MOUSERCISE! The second most bizarre offbranch of the aerobics craze, Mickey Mouse serves as your personal Richard Simmons(who was the FIRST most bizarre offbranch). The entire channel was bizarre back then, actually. It was premium like HBO, and it had no commercials...and consequently it had a lot of space to fill on a limited budget. Remember that cheesy Pooh show? You do? Baaaad.

Your instructor is Kellyn, the perky teen with the Cinderella hairdo. She may have to dress in weird frilly tights, but she should count her lucky stars she wasn't hired to be Donald or Goofy. They've got to do the same calisthenics, only within those 20-pound costumes. But the kids didn't care--none of us really thought about that. Nostalgia is not a rational emotion, and I was absolutely thrilled to see this come on at the end of an old videotape. Less than two minutes was recorded, but that was enough to capture the opening and create the coveted Internet Download.

....but if it's going to take you a while, I'd advise that you don't. There's a different film I've got down below that's a lot better than this, and I'd rather you spend all your time on that one instead.
"But Peter, that's not fair! I've been looking all over the Internet for months trying to find the Mousercise theme!" Hey, I feel your pain. But trust me, if you're on a slow connection, you'll be glad you decided to choose the other video first. I only brought up Mousercise to segue into what I really wanted to talk about....

Whenever you see a big corporation pulling something as ridiculous as Mousercise on you, it usually means they're making something that obviously contributes to bad health and they want to make themselves look good while still making that same something. Mousercise is the exception--it was just there because aerobics were hot.

With McDonald's, however, it's a different story. McDonalds has been getting a lot of bad press lately, due to the greasy glop it sells being very bad for you in large quantities. Whenever pundits gripe about obesity in America, the first business they point their wagging fingers at is Mickey D's.

The fast food chain has responded by dropping its Super Size menu and reducing the fat content of its deep fryers, but they can only do so much. They're stuck. If they made all their food healthy, no one would eat there. The only thing stopping McDonalds from getting worse is themselves...other fast food chains have introduced two-story burgers that have enough calories to sustain a starving third-world family of 11 for a week, and those have always sold high. But since McDonalds is the biggest fast-food chain, it gets all the blame.

McDonalds can't NOT be McDonalds any more than Philip Morris can stop selling cigarettes. They founded their franchise on junk food, and it's too late to stop without going out of business. So, if they can't MAKE themselves better, they have to settle for making themselves LOOK better...the ol' optical illusion.
Recent prime-time McD's ads have taken focus away from Chicken Selects and zeroed in on new salads. The ads are done in a hip cel-shaded fashion, but behind every pretty girl is a fat executive in a polyester suit pleading "PLEEEASE TAKE INTEREST IN THIS!!"

An even bigger problem are the accusations that McDonalds contributes to CHILDHOOD obesity. Killing children is something any company would want to distance itself from, no matter how slow the process. Ronald McDonald has been dancing with sentient Chicken McNuggets and bushes made of fries for decades, however. The proof is undeniable and impossible to erase. OR IS IT??

The end result of all this, and the source of the amazing download you've been waiting for, showed up late one June night as I sat in a hotel watching "The Tick" on their TV. The "Tick" episode, luckily, turned out to be my favorite episode, so I put in a blank videotape to record it. It was "Heroes"--the COPS parody with the Deadly Bulb, who has a pig for a leg. A PIG. For a LEG. "The Tick" is the greatest show ever.

On the first commercial break, Ronald McDonald showed up...and I witnessed what has to be the greatest act of desperation I have ever seen in McDonalds' 60-year history.

"HEY ALL YOU KIDS AND WELCOME TO THE ACTIVATION STATION!!! I'M YOUR WILD AND CRAZY HOST RONALD MCDONALD!! NOW GET UP AND EVERYONE DO JUMPING JACKS WITH ME!!! ONE TWO ONE TWO ONE TWO!! OKAY GOOD! HEY, TELL YOUR PARENTS THEY CAN COME IN AND JOIN ALONG! NOW, WE'RE GOING TO PRETEND THAT WE'RE....."

To find out what he's pretending, you'll have to watch the ad. I spent a lot of head-scratching over how much of this I should give away in the article itself. In the end, I decided most of it has to be experienced by the viewer him/herself, not explained in words.

Ronald is unusually active and perky to the point of scariness, and acting WAY out of character in this. McDonald's "big idea" to make themselves look better is a laugh riot. This is THE biggest trainwreck of an ad I have EVER seen from this company, and it lasts a full TWO minutes. I guarantee within three months, McDonalds will disavow any knowledge that this campaign ever took place. It's too late, though...it's been documented here. This ad is so hysterical you'll almost weep with happiness. The only way it could get better was if Ronald had a pig for a leg.