"I'm not buying Bozo morphed into Ronald, though."
Neither am I. I watched Bozo the Clown as a kid in Chicago in the 1960's.
Wiki says it actually started in 1946:
and
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Unlike many other shows on television, "Bozo the Clown" was mostly a franchise as opposed to being syndicated, meaning that local TV stations could put on their own local productions of the show complete with their own Bozo. Another show that had previously used this model successfully was Romper Room. Since each market used a different portrayer for the character, the voice and look of each market's Bozo also differed slightly. One example is the voice and laugh of WGN-TV Chicago's Bob Bell, who also wore a red costume throughout the first decade of his portrayal.
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Further:
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The Chicago Bozo franchise was the most popular and successful locally produced children's program in the history of television. It also became the most widely known Bozo show as WGN-TV became a national cable television Superstation in 1978. Chicago's Bozo debuted on June 20, 1960 starring Bob Bell on a live half-hour show, weekdays at noon, performing comedy sketches and introducing cartoons. It evolved into Bozo's Circus on September 11, 1961, as a live hour-long show with additional cast members, a 13-piece orchestra, circus acts, games and prizes before a 200+ member studio audience.
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but
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Immediately following Willard Scott's three-year-run as WRC-TV Washington, D.C.'s Bozo, the show's sponsors, McDonald's drive-in restaurant franchisees John Gibson and Oscar Goldstein (Gee Gee Distributing Corporation), hired Scott to portray "Ronald McDonald, the Hamburger-Happy Clown" for their local commercials on the character's first three television 'spots.' McDonald's replaced Scott with other actors for their national commercials and the character's costume was changed. One of them was Ray Rayner (Oliver O. Oliver on WGN-TV's Bozo's Circus), who appeared in McDonald's national ads in 1968.
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So it looks like there may be some truth to the Bozo/Ronald connection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozo_the_Clown