Coffee mugs branded with your morning TV show’s logo are so… how shall we put this? Stale. Unsatisfying. The new thing to do, apparently, is open a teeny tiny McDonald’s location in the TV studio so you can feed your guests Egg McMuffins before they go on camera to chat about whatever currently interesting thing is being discussed.

Advocates in Australia are going after a network there that’s installed the two-person McDonald’s operation on the set of a new breakfast show, saying it’s not going to help the nation’s obesity problem.

“Will they stop at nothing?” one nutritionist tells the Sydney Herald (via BurgerBusiness.com). “It becomes part of the furniture, it normalizes this whole idea that it’s perfectly normal to have McDonald’s for breakfast — and that is not normal, nor is it desirable.”

Members of the public won’t be able to waltz in and buy food there — the small staff is only serving up grub to guests and presenters while they’re on the air. Because nothing goes with idle chatter like greasy fingers and potentially awkward on-screen eating mishaps, right?

A spokesman for the network said parents can switch the channel if they don’t want kids getting a morning dose of McDonald’s marketing, saying it’s not a children’s program “and parents have a range of options for children’s programming at that time.”

No word on whether this special McDonald’s will also deny breakfast orders at 10:30 on the dot, despite plaintive cries to “just give me some hash browns, for the love of all that is good in this world.”

McDonald’s on set to serve Ten’s Wake Up guests [Sydney Herald]
McDonald’s Opening Unit in TV Studio [BurgerBusiness.com]

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