# McDonald's "Ran Ran Ru" Commercials A series of Japanese McDonald's TV spots featuring Donald McDonald chanting 'Ran Ran Ru' became fuel for Niconico Douga MAD video remixes starting in 2007. The chaotic edits, especially one set to a Touhou boss theme, broke out to YouTube and spawned one of the defining Japanese internet video fads of the late 2000s. ## Origin Between 2004 and 2007, McDonald's Japan aired a series of short spots titled 'Ronald Rumors' (ドナルドのうわさ, Donald no uwasa) in which Donald McDonald asked trivia questions about himself and struck his 'Ran Ran Ru' pose. The ads were aimed at children and pointed viewers to answers on the McDonald's Japan website[5]. One commonly circulated example of the original ad has been archived on YouTube[1]. The meme format itself started on Niconico Douga. On May 3, 2007, user すこぺん posted a mashup of one of the 'Ran Ran Ru' spots with footage from the tokusatsu show Ultraman Mebius, which the KYM entry identifies as the earliest known 'Ran Ran Ru' edit[4]. The original Niconico upload is still listed on the site[6]. - **Platform:** Niconico Douga (NND) / YouTube (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown (earliest known remix by Niconico user すこぺん; viral YouTube reupload by mrhorseshoe) - **Date:** 2007 ## Overview 'Ran Ran Ru' (らんらんるー) is a nonsense catchphrase paired with a two-fingered hand pose used by the Japanese version of Ronald McDonald, called Donald McDonald, to express happiness in a run of early-2000s TV spots[1]. The meme itself is the MAD video genre that chopped those spots into surreal, often terrifying mashups, usually by cutting Donald's dancing and chanting against unrelated anime, game, or music footage[2]. The formula is simple: isolate Donald's uncanny grin, voice samples, and 'Ran Ran Ru' gesture, then loop or sync them to something incongruous. Later edits leaned harder into horror, speeding him up, drowning him in bass, or syncing his movements to boss themes from games like Touhou and EarthBound[3]. Western viewers who found the videos through YouTube reuploads mostly read them as nightmare fuel rather than kid-friendly ad parody, which is a big part of why they stuck[4]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is McDonald's "Ran Ran Ru" Commercials? It's a Niconico Douga and YouTube video remix genre built from Japanese McDonald's TV ads in which Donald McDonald says 'Ran Ran Ru' and strikes a happy hand pose[1]. ### Where did McDonald's "Ran Ran Ru" Commercials come from? The source ads are the 'Ronald Rumors' (ドナルドのうわさ) spots McDonald's Japan ran from 2004 to 2007; the first known remix was posted to Niconico on May 3, 2007 by user すこぺん[6]. ### What does McDonald's "Ran Ran Ru" Commercials mean? 'Ran Ran Ru' (らんらんるー) is a made-up expression Donald uses to signal happiness, so the videos riff on that gimmick by cutting him against unrelated and often unsettling music or footage[4]. ### How do you use McDonald's "Ran Ran Ru" Commercials? People make their own MADs by syncing Donald's dancing, voice samples, and 'Ran Ran Ru' pose to game or anime audio, as with the Touhou mashup 'Ronald McDonald insanity'[3] and the EarthBound-themed 'McGiygas' edit[8]. ### Is McDonald's "Ran Ran Ru" Commercials still popular? Peak activity was in 2007 and 2008, but thousands of related videos remain on Niconico and YouTube, and the mrhorseshoe reupload still shows massive view counts[3][4]. ## References 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiwxMxzCPNg]() 2. [https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm1705089]() 3. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q16KpquGsIc]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/mcdonalds-ran-ran-ru-commercials]() 5. [https://mcdonalds.fandom.com/wiki/Ran_Ran_Ru]() 6. [https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm233905]() 7. [https://mugen.fandom.com/wiki/Ronald_McDonald]() 8. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q9HKgowOMI]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/mcdonalds-ran-ran-ru-commercials Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library