Geoffrey Giuliano is a former Ronald McDonald (and Burger King) who had a change of heart whilst working there. He gave a witness statement for the defence, and is vocal in his condemnation of his former employers.

Geoffrey Giuliano was interviewed in 1997 by One-Off Productions for their TV documentary, McLibel: Two Worlds Collide.

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Are you the "original" Ronald McDonald?

No. The first Ronald McDonald is a weatherman on NBC called Willard Scott.

How many years did you do it for?

It was basically a year and a half.

Was being Ronald a full time job? Oh, yeah. It was full time. I worked at an ad agency in Toronto. I was way up on the 30th floor and had my own window office. One of the first things that struck me was that the executive core of McDonald's and their advertising agency don't eat McDonald's food. They had a cordon bleu chef - you called them up and they would make you whatever you wanted! I also had to do a lot of travelling to gigs.

What was the background to you being Ronald McDonald and was there a particular moment or time when you realised that you'd had enough?

When I went I was pretty much fresh out of drama school and I really had big ideas, that the Ronald McDonald Safety Show would help children not to drink bleach and set themselves on fire and things, so I learned it and I did it.

And then one day, as I was getting dressed in the dressing room I found a memorandum from one of the McDonald's executives and it said: 'To all personnel re: The Ronald McDonald Safety Show, the purpose of this show is to increase the public's awareness and especially the young peoples' awareness of McDonald's goods and services'. I thought, gee, I thought it was to help kids.

'The purpose of this show is to increase the public's awareness and especially the young peoples' awareness of McDonald's goods and services'. I thought, gee, I thought it was to help kids. The whole act was pretty corny and unbelievable from the start. The story as we told it was that hamburgers have nothing to do with a dead cow, that they grow in a happy little patch and you just go and pluck them away with the purple guy, (Hamburglar) and all the other characters. They cloaked this wholesale slaughter of innocent animals in fairytales and PR. I once went to the McChicken plant where they "prepare" the chickens to make McNuggets. The chickens at one end are live and come out dead at the other end. It smelled terrible. And there was something slippery like goo on the floor and you knew that this was a place of death.

I remember taking a ride with George Cullen, the President of McDonald's at Canada from gig to gig because I was sort of something he liked to show off, "the" Ronald McDonald.I had a big fat book of unlimited account cards and such, the best make up, the best everything. Including this goofy 30th floor office with a secretary named Lynne, and I used to go in the office, I had absolutely nothing to do, but I had the office and I had the executive washroom. It was just madness, cheap and sullied and dirty. You could feel the dirt, and everybody just took with both hands. After a while it got to be too much, my conscience got the better of me. These things started to eat away at me, and over a few months, I decided "I can't do this anymore, this is just sick and pointless".

I realised that there would be a lot of consequences for me if I stayed with that job. One of them would be that I would make a lot of money. In fact, my mother was once standing with one of the big executives at McDonald's of Canada and he said to her "We expect great things from Geoffrey". I just said, "look, after about a year and a half, that's it, that's enough, take this job and shove it. I was out of work for a long time, which was tough, but they gave me a golden hand shake. Since I've 'come out of the closet', they make the other Ronalds sign a document promising not to tell, and they'll give you some money if you keep your mouth shut. They gave me five thousand Canadian dollars and I just took off.

As for my personal campaign against them, I was lying at home unemployed one day, I saw the Marlboro man one day on TV. He was dying of lung cancer from the smoking and he was doing an anti-smoking ad. I thought "wait a minute, what a great thing this is." When I did a speech up in Toronto at the vegetarian food fair up there, I did my usual bit of rabble-rousing. The next day Simon Halls, the spokesperson for McDonald's of Canada said in the Toronto Star "Guiliano has a right to his opinions. In fact we like vegetarians, we serve chicken and fish on our menu." Chicken and fish! Now, the last time I checked they were not vegetables. Half the time they don't even know what the hell they're talking about, but they don't care. I was talking to one of the marketing guys once and I said "Do you think this is really good enough, do you think people will like it?" He said "You don't get it, don't you understand how it really works? We put shit out there and people buy it if you put enough money in the advertising."

There was a local paper in western New York that did a story on me, and the owner of two McDonald's, one of the biggest concerns in the area, threatened to pull all his advertising if they did. What do McDonald's think of you now? Well, they have publicly said that "Mr Guiliano has a right to his opinions and his views and we obviously have a right to conduct our business", which is absolutely correct, I guarantee you. Perhaps I flatter myself, my suspicion is that I'm public enemy number one in the US. The big problem is I haven't had as wide an access to the media as I might have if the McDonald's advertising dollar wasn't so powerful within that field. For an example, there was a local paper in western New York that did a story on me, and the owner of two McDonald's, one of the biggest concerns in the area, threatened to pull all his advertising if they did.

Yeah, that stuff goes on, you know, this is like a war at times, I've had death threats at my house. I've had kidnapping threats. Of course, I'm not suggesting they came from McDonald's but it came from someone with a vested interest in keeping this game going and not being exposed for the murderers that they are. Come on, just say what you really think.

Could I ask you to give a brief summary of your act? Yeah, I can do something like that. I used to come on stage and I loved it because I took my degrees as a Shakespearean actor. It's kind of a dip down, you know, from being the youngest actor in repertoire in the United States to ever play Macbeth to have my first professional gig as Ronald McDonald. I used to come on, "Hi everybody, this is Ronald McDonald, and boy oh boy, we're gonna have a lot of fun today, we're gonna sing songs and tell stories and we're gonna learn something about safety too. Would you like that"? You know, I put everything into that character that any respectable actor would put into playing Richard III, it was important to me to do a good job.

One thing I should tell you, no expense is spared in training Ronald. I'm a graduate of McDonald's university in Chicago and I'm also a graduate of Mark Wilson Productions (an old magician from the 50s), first for Burger King, then for the McDonald's corporation. I had dance teachers and I had the best theatre people training me.

I had to undergo unofficial psychological testing, when you sit that kid up on the knee they don't want to find out later that you were a child molester. Amoral promoter of wholesale slaughter, no problem, but just don't touch the kids knees. I'm happy to report that I passed all the tests with flying colours.

I once went to a town called Bellevue, Ontario and they had let school out for the day and there were literally 15-20 thousand kids, my road manager called it Ronaldstock. I had one little microphone and did corny little 'needle through a balloon' magic tricks and stuff. Nobody could see or hear anything but, I mean, it was like a national hall, it was as if the President had come to town. For Ronald McDonald. That's the kind of hero worship that takes good money to buy, you have pay for that, it's called brain-washing, and you gotta start young. It's like what the Jesuits say "Give them to us before they're five years old and they'll be ours for life." It was as if the President had come to town. For Ronald McDonald. That's the kind of hero worship that takes good money to buy, you have pay for that, it's called brain-washing, and you gotta start young.

Do you think McDonald's have a specific strategy in appealing to kids?

I was never allowed to eat the food, because that would be sort of unseemly and could smudge the make-up to look at. They don't really like you to think of it as food, it's fun.

One thing they did say to me is that the people who control the disposable income aren't mummy and daddy, it's the kids you have to appeal to. They are the ones that say "We want to go to McDonald's.' The majority of the kids I ran across were not aware that what they were eating had anything to do with a ground up dead animal.

OK, so you weren't allowed to advocate McDonald's products, how then did the kids relate to them? The McDonald land characters, I've forgotten all their names, it was so stupid, but we were told that if they asked where the food came from that the hamburgers grow in a patch with the French fries next to them, it was just wacky, it was really whacked, and the McDonald land characters were as close as we were allowed to get to the facts. In fact the only grain of truth in those characters was the one called the hamburglar - he was a criminal who used to steal all the hamburgers. Maybe that was some sort of perverse reflection of the corporate McDonalds mentality, I don't know. They were all subservient in the court to Ronald, the king, the monarch, myself. I was the only one allowed to talk - you had to be highly trained to talk.

So what did you do if kids asked you what hamburgers were made of?

As I said before, you were never overtly allowed to mention food or where it came from.

It was cloaked in some kind of razzmatazz - hamburgers came from a hamburger patch and you picked them. Of course, kids know that if it grows in a patch and you pick it, it's a vegetable. What does that tell you? It tells you they know there's something distasteful there, so they sugar coat it so that people don't really put two and two together. How stupid are we as a society that we don't even kind a put two and two together that a hamburger is a dead cow? They've got pretty faces and things that just keep it one step removed from reality.

If they can keep you one step away from the truth and keep you stupid, you'll keep coming back.

In the end, when I left, the executives said "Well, go ahead, go, because you're not McDonaldised enough anyway." What the hell does that mean, "McDonaldised enough"? How did you get on with the McDonald's executives? The McDonald's executives by and large were goofy, nerdy guys and girls, uptight, square, penny loafers type human persons. They were just losers, I felt they were high class, high paid losers. They weren't hip, aware, inquisitive, introspective people. They were just surface little chatty wind up corporate monkeys. Hey, that was a good soundbite!

In the end, when I left, the executives said "Well, go ahead, go, because you're not McDonaldised enough anyway." What the hell does that mean, "McDonaldised enough"? It's like "not being enough of a Nazi" I don't know exactly what it means, but I'm glad I'm not and that I wasn't.

I felt like the Pied Piper, except that I was leading the kids into a life of bad food and bad health.

How do you and how did you see your relationship to these children? Well there's no question that I was manipulating these children. I was a highly paid, highly trained, highly polished actor. Every show was a performance and I had a mandate to to get that message out there and yeah, it was not too hard - anybody can manipulate a child you know. I just went home one night, and I said "I cannot do this, I can't live with myself if I continue to do this" Every show was a performance and I had a mandate to to get that message out there and yeah, it was not too hard - anybody can manipulate a child you know.

So do you feel that you were in turn manipulated by McDonald's?

I was a young guy on the make, I was just out of drama school, I was the hot shot actor in college, and I thought I was going to be the next Robert De Niro. It turned out I was the next Ronald McDonald. I won't say that they used me, exclusively - it was mutual, I was just looking for a job.

What do you think now when you see a Ronald McDonald on television?

When I see Ronald on T.V. now, the first thing I think is "that poor sap needs a job". I just think what a crying shame it is. We could at least lay it on the table, tell the kids what the food is, what they're really eating. Instead we get this fake smiling image. It's what McDonald's makes money on and that's all they're after.

Ronald himself, the deification of that meat eating Godhead, is a cover, just a cover for their greed. Like their charities, the Ronald McDonald Houses. They care about as much for dying kids as they do for live kids. They only care about the money, just the money.

It's commerce in it's most brazen, unfeeling, uncompassionate form. And they can hoodwink the public with their Ronald McDonald house for dying children and their families, but not me. It's just a hollow attempt to make money, for anyone with any insight. You can see that they're just trying to put on a good front, you know. It's almost like Nazi propaganda. Yeah, it could even be offensive to someone who sees this, for me to compare McDonald's corporation to the Nazis, but they didn't live it, I did. I saw it. It's very much like a religious cult. They have pep rallies, they have team songs, they have little goofy cheerleaders at the Ronald McDonald University and you get a ring after 10 years of being Ronald - a 6 hundred dollar ring with rubies and gold. It's just goofy and dumb, it's like high school gone really bad.

I was the figurehead of meat eating on the planet. Not only was I Ronald McDonald, but previous to that I was the Marvellous Magical Burger King. I believe I'm the only person with that dubious honour.

So what would you say if you could address the board of McDonald's now?

If I could attend a McDonald's board meeting now and speak to George Cohen, the President and Owner of McDonald's of Canada. Most of the Canadian stores are owned pretty much directly by George Cohen himself and he's in his 60's now. I'd say "George, you've got a lot to pay for, you know. You better tread carefully, because there is such a thing as karma and you don't have to be a guru to know that. It's cause and effect, pretty obvious. You do stuff like this, George, it's gonna come back to haunt you." If I were George, I'd be afraid to die.

What about you? How do you feel about what you did?

Just like the old Sicilian Catholic, that I should be by my heritage, I gotta atone, I gotta do something. I gotta, just say whatever I can say and appeal to whomever on this issue, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. If you don't have to kill to eat, don't do it.

What's it for, is it so that we can all make a great living? No, it's for a few greedy evil men who are making the profits from this. It applied to me when I was Ronald McDonald as I was benefiting directly from this, and so what do you have to do to balance it?

What's it for, is it so that we can all make a great living? No, it's for a few greedy evil men who are making the profits from this. It applied to me when I was Ronald McDonald as I was benefiting directly from this, and so what do you have to do to balance it? Well you know I used to be Ronald McDonald, and now I've turned that into a golden opportunity, to take each and every chance that comes my way to decry what went on there. People might think that I'm overstating, they might think that this guy has got a chip on his shoulder or something, it's not that big a deal, but just go out to the plant and spend a minute there, and it will be a big deal. I don't think there's a human being with a heart that can look at the shit goes on there, that killing and that torture and the fear and smell of death in the air and not be affected by it. So I spend as much of my time as I can, and I'm available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to do anything that anybody wants me to do to fight this big Goliath.

How much effect do you think Ronald McDonald has? He's more recognised than Santa Claus?

Oh they love him, the kids love him. They don't know why they love him, they love him because they were told to love him, somebody paid somebody to make them love him, so it's all a very unthinking, unfeeling exercise. The whole message is like "this is what we're giving you, take it and shut up and put your hand deep in your pocket, and we'll take the proceeds".

Do you think it was smart of McDonald's to have come up with Ronald? Oh it's real 50's, not really very anything inventive. It's just pretty, a clown is a friendly, unthreatening thing. It's happy, it has a mask of makeup, it's not real. There's nothing hard, no hard edges, it's all soft and blurred, and you can embrace it. It's also safe and warm and like a big animated stuffed toy. It's all just part of the con job and it's not a very sophisticated trick at all, it's just been around for so long that it's familiar. Like what Hitler said; if you tell the lie long enough and everybody believes that it's the truth, it becomes the truth. Burger King got rid of the marvellous magical burger king but Ronald is still with us. I'll see that bastard into the ground before I'm done...

If you could turn round and look at the image of yourself in the Ronald McDonald suit, how do you react to that image? Is it happy or sad?

Well, there I am as Ronald. It seems that the image there seems somewhat duplicitous to me. it seems really in your face, but if you look into the eyes, there's a kind of guile there - the smile is painted on and it ain't real. I remember when we used to put the black mascara on around the eyeliner , they'd tell us to get it really dark to avoid 'pink eye', you know, they didn't want that pink, they wanted everything as definite as possible, as unreal as possible

I remember it was like the army, you know I'd have an kit inspection they'd come and look and say "zip that zipper up private", they wanted curls in the wig, but I was always a bit of a rebel - my zipper would be down when it was supposed to be up, that sort of thing.

So don't ever think that this is a waste, and don't ever think that we'll go away, and don't ever think that this is not going to work. It will work, one person at a time. What do you think of Helen and Dave's role in this? Anybody that does anything in this regard is a hero in my books, and you know what we have to do. What we are trying to do here is raise consciousness, you know we're not going burn down the restaurant or anything. It's all up here, in our heads.

This is one of the things the whole McLibel trial is about. All the people around the world are working towards this end. The consciousness changers and expanders group and that's how change comes, real permanent change. So don't ever think that this is a waste, and don't ever think that we'll go away, and don't ever think that this is not going to work. It will work, one person at a time.

Do you feel you've 'atoned' for what you did?

No. I'm in the process of atoning, and it'll take many years. One and a half years as Ronald McDonald is equal to about 30 years as an ardent, enthusiastic, animal rights activist, and then maybe I'll be able to die with a peaceful mind some day.

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