The Mickie-D placement was perfect for the character, the actress and the situation!

In bed:

Jack: These McFlurries are amazing.

Salma Hayek: I know. The soft swirl of vanilla and the hard crunch of candies and cookies. You'd think they would fight each other, but no. They are perfecto. . . .Let a McFlurry be what it is; the world's greatest desert.

"The logo for McDonald’s is the golden arches of the letter M on a red background.

"The M stands for McDonald’s, but the rounded m represents mummy’s mammaries, acccording the design consultant and psychologist Louis Cheskin. In the 1960's McDonald's was prepared to abandon this logo, but Cheskin successfully urged the company to maintain this branding with its Freudian symbolism of a pair of
nourishing breasts. " see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1616_fastfood/page6.shtml

several bloggers report that:

"We here at AdAges, for once, actually picked up the phone and made a few calls! As it turns out, the McDonald's inclusion was really part of "30 Rock's" script; McDonald's didn't pay for it, according to
Jennifer Lane Landolt, director-entertainment alliances for
McDonald's."

Tina Fey said it wasn't:

http://www.tvguide.com/News/30Rock-Fey-McDonalds-1002943.aspx

All this and it was never a product placement lol. Fey said that is wasn't and if anything, hoped that they wouldn't get sued for making fun of the golden arches.

It never crossed my mind that it was one in the first place, I saw it as making fun of McDonald's.

I'm OK with it because 30 Rock will never get great ratings, it needs this kind of thing. And if this is what it takes to stay alive ten so be it.

Damn if it didn't work. I watched 30 Rock early this afternoon and just couldn't get the thought of "the world's greatest dessert" out of my head. I had my wife pick me one up on her way home from work. I am such a schmuck.

Look, it's all outlined in the episode where Liz befriends an old "revolutionary" writer and vows that she'll never sacrifice her money for her principles.

Product placement and Tina Fey's willingness to work with it keeps 30 Rock on the air. I get the impression that when the network asks her to do something, she tries hard to accommodate them. And she tries her best to make it still be fun for the viewer. I respect the hell out of her for that. Out of the different ways she could go, she's chosen the hardest possible one so she can keep putting on a high quality show.

I'm pretty upset about this. 30 Rock has done other product placements so brilliant in the past, be it Snapple, Verizon or Bee Movie but this was so in-your-face it annoyed me to no end. As if Jack would go to McDonald's and as if he'd praise that stupid softiceswirlie so much...

I was under the impression that they presented McDonalds a a restaurant for poor immigrants

Was this discussion had about "The Office" and Chilli's?

I had no problem with the product placement whatsoever. It was a clever part of the plot. Besides, I absolutely hate it when shows use a generic version of a product in order to appease the company that makes the product or to overtly use something that is close but not quite the product you know they're talking about. It's like back on the Seinfeld episode, "The Rye," when they had Kramer feed the horse Beef-A-Reeno instead of Beef-A-Roni. Everyone knew what he was really feeding the horse, anyway. It would have been more authentic with the real thing. I don't care if shows make some money when they mention products in a good light, either, as lone as it has to do with the story. Everyone has to make money somehow.