Alec Baldwin, the Oven King

Did anyone catch the debut of 30 Rock last night? The series stars, among others, Alec Baldwin & Tina Fey, of Saturday Night Live fame. Fey wrote the funny, sharp script; and Baldwin did a bang-up job of acting.

When Baldwin's character, Jack, is introduced -- he boasts of how his rise up the corporate ladder as the new Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming is due to his ultra-effective hyping of the Trivection Oven that can cook a 22 pound turkey in only 2 hours. Funny stuff.

Cut to tv commercial. Commercial hypes a real Trivection Oven by GE -- that cooks a 22 pound bird in only 2 hours.

GE owns NBC, which produces the new series, 30 Rock. So I'm thinking -- wow, Baldwin's Jack delivers real big hype for GE's new oven right in the context of the show, and then it's followed by a real, full-blown tv commercial for it...although it was beyond plain old, blatant product placement, which is usually so offensive -- I was struck by how it seemed so well done -- very clever, funny and effective.

So I was curious about the "back story" of the script development -- was this placement of the Trivection Oven a contrived, corporate move on GE's part, or the result of Tina Fey's organic, creative writing process? Tina serves up the dish here. /m