Willard Herman Scott, Jr. (born March 7, 1934) is an American media personality and author best known for his television work on NBC's The Today Show and as the creator of the Ronald McDonald character.
Scott grew up in the Rosemont section of Alexandria, Virginia, and attended George Washington High School. He showed an interest in broadcasting as a 16-year-old, working in 1950 as an NBC page at WRC-AM, NBC's owned-and-operated radio station in Washington, D.C. Scott then attended American University, where he worked alongside fellow student Ed Walker at WAMU-AM, the university's radio station (1951–1953). Scott became a member of Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity while at American University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy and religion.
From 1955 to 1972, Scott teamed with Ed Walker as co-host of the nightly Joy Boys radio program on WRC-AM. (This was interrupted from 1956-1958 when Scott served on active duty with the U.S.Navy.) Scott routinely sketched a list of characters and a few lead lines setting up a situation, which Walker would commit to memory or make notes on with his Braille typewriter (he was blind since birth). In a 1999 article recalling the Joy Boys at the height of their popularity in the mid-1960s, The Washington Post said they "dominated Washington, providing entertainment, companionship, and community to a city on the verge of powerful change". The Joy Boys show played on WRC until 1972 when they moved to cross-town station WWDC for another two years. Scott wrote in his book, The Joy of Living, of their close professional and personal bond which has continued to the present, saying that they are "closer than most brothers".