Ronald Mcdonald

Everyone knows that McDonald's serves up a pretty quick meal. Now it's serving up a quick classic of literature, a 30-minute animated version of Treasure Island that takes Ronald McDonald and his fellow registered trademarks (Hamburglar, Grimace and Birdie) from McDonaldland to a place that might be called Robert Louis Stevensonland. Just so no one confuses the two, this episode is called McTreasure Island, $9.95 from Hi-Tops Video. It's a well-intended tradition to render great literature more accessible to young readers, but this tape must be the ultimate in reductionism.

Seven-year-old B.J. Goodwin of Langhorne was among the crowd at Neshaminy High last week that came to be entertained by Ronald McDonald and a basketball exhibition by Philadelphia Eagles football players. The event was to raise money for handicapped children.

Moms and dads, tell your kids Kool Cat is coming back to school in Philadelphia next year, and that they can thank Ronald McDonald. They'll know what you mean. In case you're confused, Kool Cat is the cartoon-character mascot of a highly successful anti-litter education program that's being run at 50 public, private and parochial schools by PhilaPride Inc., the city's anti-litter advocacy group. The PhilaPride program has been given glowing testimonials from teachers and students, plus it earned the top award given last year by Keep America Beautiful Inc. in a national competition among similar education programs.

AMERICANS ARE outraged that McDonald's Monopoly game they thought might make them millionaires was rigged by an employee, of the firm the food giant hired, who set up a scam to claim the prizes. But that's nothing, compared to the real scandal: how fast food like McDonald's has contributed to an epidemic of obesity in the country. We in the United States have the highest obesity rate of any industrialized nation; more than half of all American adults and close to a quarter of all children are now obese or overweight.

Sometimes what you don't want is what you get at McDonald's. Ronald McDonald, dressed to the teeth and in full makeup, got it right in the face yesterday when a couple of animal-rights activists - one dressed in a cow costume - threw a cream pie at him to protest the corporation's dependence on beef. McDonald's uses 100 percent ground beef for its renowned Big Mac's and Quarter Pounders. During the brief scuffle around dinner time under the golden arches at 101 South 52d Street in West Philadelphia, Mr. McDonald, who was on a publicity stop, was approached by two hecklers.

Ronald McDonald lost his head in Bensalem last weekend. Vandals used a saw to decapitate a statue of the hamburger chain's famous clown early Sunday at the McDonald's outdoor play area at 1930 Street Rd. Bensalem Township Police Capt. Jack Robinson said an officer saw six teenagers around the restaurant at 3:45 a.m. When the officer investigated, he discovered the beheaded clown and a smashed plate-glass window near the drive- through area. Two animal figures that are part of rides in the restaurant's outdoor play area also were damaged.

Wednesday night is date night for Abbe Horswill, who is almost 4, and her father, Charles Horswill of Upper Gwynedd. On most Wednesdays, while Abbe's mother, Lynn, a speech pathologist, is working, father and daughter can be found eating cheeseburgers at McDonald's in the North Penn Market Place. And for a year and a half, it also was a safe bet that Abbe would be asking franchise owner Tom Frank of Ambler to build a playground at the restaurant at Sumneytown Pike and Valley Forge Road.

Before biting into why McDonald's recently decided to put its super sizes on a diet, let's all give a hearty "I'm lovin' it" to the fast food giant. This week, word leaked the chain was through with the big thing. Soon, say ciao to the Super Size (7 ounce, 610 calories) fries and Super Size (41 ounce, 410 calories) soft drinks at 13,000 McDonald's outlets in the United States. The changes are part of a nutritional transformation so radical, you wonder whether there soon will be ads showing Ronald McDonald doing Pilates.

More than 7,000 people are expected Sunday to attend the township's family picnic - the second annual Fall Festival at the middle school playing field. The event features food vendors, games, entertainment and contests. Co-chairman Mike Squyres, who started the festival, said a larger crowd was anticipated now that "residents know more about it. " About 6,000 attended last year. "We are holding the festival in the spirit of a township picnic," said Squyres, proprietor of the True Value hardware store in Wayne.

Flanked by the gilt-edged facade of a furrier's shop and the chrome and neon interior of a fashionable hair salon, the restaurant with the circus- yellow arches seemed an especially ironic target for a protest. And that irony was not lost on at least one speaker. "The golden arches of McDonald's are certainly not golden arches for those people working for the minimum wage," Thomas Paine Cronin, president of District Council 47 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said yesterday.

Jewish Santa brought bagels. Joseph Hassman arrived at the Ronald McDonald House of Southern New Jersey in Camden slightly after 9 Christmas morning, bells jingling on his head-to-toe St. Nicholas outfit. Surrounding the family physician turned Santa were six family-member "elves," bringing food for guests in what has become a Hassman clan tradition. "Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas!" Hassman, 77, said as he visited three floors of bedrooms, encouraging children and their parents to have "breakfast with Santa.

For families of ill children, a night or two or even more at the Ronald McDonald House is one way to help focus on their ailing kids without having to shoulder the burden of hotel costs. It's a lesson that the gang in Riverdale - including Archie, Veronica, Jughead, and others - will learn firsthand this week. The national network of homes, which provides free or inexpensive lodging for families near hospitals, is making an appearance in the issue of Archie Comics being released Wednesday.

Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders is on tour, but it's not rock. It's an anti-McDonald's campaign for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. At noon Thursday, she'll be outside the McD's at 40th and Walnut Streets in University City for an "i'm hatin' it" blitz, which will include billboards contending that McDonald's U.S. operation has not adopted the less cruel slaughter standards that it uses in Europe. She'll hand out PETA's "Unhappy Meals," which include a Ronald McDonald cutout, a mangled plastic chicken, and a "blood"-filled packet that urges McDonald's to "Ketchup With the Times.

Fact: You're not going to bench Adrian Peterson. Or Reggie Wayne. Or Ray Rice. (With your physique you're not going to bench what Ronald McDonald does.) But still, c'mon man. Stud players with rotten eggy Week 13s?!? That's not the fantasy you signed up for. This is the playoffs. (Playoffs?!?) Timing is everything. What you need are hot hands. What you need is to feel (feel, feel) someone's heat. Hold onto your skinny jeans. Here are six hot moves that will win you your fantasy!

If the Taller Puertorrique?o has fallen off your usual gallery itinerary, its current exhibition should make it a destination once more. Miguel Luciano's intensely felt paintings and sculpture make up one of the most rewarding shows in Philadelphia. Hurry, though - it's up for only eight more days. Luciano's art takes its inspiration from the mutually convenient relationship between Puerto Rico and the rest of the United States, and in particular from Puerto Rico's still tangibly colonial status.

For Maria Perez, the Ronald McDonald House of Southern New Jersey is more than just a place she stays occasionally - it's another home. Perez, who lives in South Carolina, has traveled back and forth to the house for 16 years as her son, Juan, has been treated for retinoblastoma, an eye cancer, at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. "In the recent years, I've really enjoyed coming here," she said. "This is where my home is. " Now, families like hers can look forward to even greater care as part of a $2 million expansion announced at a news conference yesterday.

There's a song on Kevin Michael's debut CD called "Too Blessed," in which the 22-year-old soul-pop phenom from Chester announces that there really is nothing that can get him down. "I'm too blessed to be stressed," Michael sings, over old-school hip-hop scratches, and alongside a cameo by rapper Q-Tip. "And I'm too fresh to be depressed. " On this rainy afternoon in Philadelphia, however, Michael has a bit of concern. Because, while the weather might not dampen his spirits as he closes in on the day he's been waiting for all his life - the release, last Tuesday, of Kevin Michael - it just might dampen his 'do. He blows air through his lips in frustration when asked how he tends to his halo of curls in trying conditions.

His Hodgkin's disease diagnosed just weeks before his senior year of high school, Andrew Dressnandt focused on a single train of thought: Could he still do an Eagle Scout leadership project? What would it be? His inspiration came during chemotherapy treatments at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He would make things easier for other children and families going through the experience. He would help the Ronald McDonald House. "I now understand that I have a very big family - not only my relatives but also my friends, and especially my fellow scouts," Dressnandt said yesterday, his cancer in remission 1 1/2 years after it was found.

IF MORGAN Spurlock couldn't convince the world with his film "Super Size Me" that consuming increasing amounts of fast food has important negative health implications, I'm not sure what will. Despite the wealth of knowledge concerning good nutrition, fast-food restaurants continue to feed millions of American children daily. Now the New York Times has reported that McDonald's and Disney are planning to develop kid-sized portable media players so, when kids come in for hamburgers, they can acquire segments of movies, music and games instead of those plastic Happy Meal toys.