UPDATE - Adventures in Product Placement: 30 Rock

My bad.

Apparently the press, the blogosphere, and yours truly jumped the gun a little bit when accusing 30 Rock of shameless McFlurry product placement (see previous post below). The outcry was getting loud enough, that showrunner/head writer/star Tina Fey felt the need to clear things up:

"“It gives me great pleasure to inform you that the references to McDonald's in last night's episode of 30 Rock were in no way product placement. (Nor were they an attempt at product placement that fell through.) We received no money from the McDonald's Corporation. We were actually a little worried they might sue us. That's just the kind of revenue-generating masterminds we are.

Also, the upcoming story line where Liz Lemon starts dating Grimace is just based on a recurring dream I have.

Seriously, though, it's not product placement.

Also, whoever is writing my Twitter account is pretty funny, but it's not me.” - Tina Fey

Again, my bad, but your reputation does precede you. Next time I'll give you benefit of the doubt. Read more!

Adventures in Product Placement: 30 Rock

From early on in its now 2.5 year lifespan, 30 Rock has been an adapter of shameless product placement. I give Tina Fey and crew credit, though, because they are fully aware they are "selling out to the man" and they try to poke fun at it. Usually their product placement is followed by a meta wink to the audience, or in the case of one episode, literally looking into the camera and saying, "Can we have our money now?"

Last night's episode included a shameless plug for McDonalds and their McFlurry dessert. This time, however, I felt the plug was ever-so-slightly crossing the line of their typical clever/meta joke into annoying promotion. I almost missed all the jokes because I was paying too much attention to all the McShilling that was going on. I'll let it slide though. If I have to take the occasional shameless promotion in order to keep 30 Rock on the air, I'm more than willing to do it.


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