can we talk about MAD MEN on AMC on this NEW thread ('cause the original one's getting way too long)

Flo the Progressive Insurance lady as a switchboard operator!

...and Kristen Schaal (for one episode)!

I was inspired to jump back into my rewatch only to find that the episode I'm on features Roger and Jane's blackface party, Sally stealing money from grandpa Gene, and Joan hosting a dinner with her asshole doctor. I think the cringe level may be too high for me right now.

that episode is amazing!

three high quality music sequences

I'm not saying it's bad, just don't think I have the emotional fortitude for it right now.

Possibly leavened by Pete and Trudy's Charleston routine.

I'm into season 7--racing through. My big musical epiphany this time around--always liked it, but it hit me full-force this morning--is "If 6 Was 9" to close episode 3. It's the one where Don returns to work on Roger's okay, even though everyone is surprised and no one else wants him there. They read him all these humiliating conditions at the end--the old Don would have smiled, gotten up, and left--Don pauses, and derisively says "Okay." Cue Hendrix.

that's right, cuz things have been turned UPSIDE-DOWN DO U SEE

It's the visceral impact of the song, the weirdness. The literalness of the lyrics is an afterthought--there are no end to the songs that would get the same point across and would barely register.

So many thoughts on this latest re-watch...would invariably repeat myself if I wrote them all down.

"If 6 Was 9": I think I figured out why I like it so much. It's not the lyrics--the literalness of them is interesting but incidental. It's that the song somehow captures the bottomless mix of contempt and disbelief in Don's "Okay."

If you made a list of the dozen most heartbreaking moments of the show's entire run, ten of them would belong to Peggy, there'd be the last couple of sentences from Betty's posthumous letter to Sally, and there's the last time Don says "Birdie" during his final call to Betty. And I guess you'd have to make room for Leonard. But Peggy kills you time and time again.

Funniest line in the final episode: either Meredith's "There are a lot of better places than this" (needs context) or Joan's "Spectacular--what a mess!" response to Roger's wedding plans.

Two things I wasn't quite sure of. I thought I remembered Arnold explicitly finding out about the affair, but I guess not. We're supposed to assume he did from his comments in the elevator, though, correct?

And I never quite understood the company's relationship to Chevy. I get the Viet Nam metaphor--which I think works well--but not what their whole business arrangement was.

I'm going to move on to Breaking Bad for the second time.

And I never quite understood the company's relationship to Chevy. I get the Viet Nam metaphor--which I think works well--but not what their whole business arrangement was.

Basically they were doing a bunch of advance work for the launch of the Chevrolet Vega, GM's first sub-compact car, which ultimately happened in the Fall of 1970.

However, what wasn't revealed until the last Bob Benson ep that GM planned to package up all the work the firm did and give it to a bigger agency who'd actually be handling the campaign.

The long-game joke being that the original Vega was a lemon, due to an experimental aluminum engine that couldn't stand prolonged exposure to...gasoline.

Maybe they didn't want to repeat themselves after the Conrad Hilton arc, but I was a little disappointed that they didn't feature John Z. DeLorean as a character, since he'd been involved somewhat with the Vega project during his brief time at Chevy. He and Don would have got on well.

I'm just getting to the part where Don is running around with Sally's teacher and Betty is confronting him about his past. Kind of a miserable run, but I'm looking forward to the split with the Brits and the beginning of SCDP. I feel like the show brightens up a lot at that point.

Oh yeah, definitely. Season three is completely stuck, by design. But there's the episode with Guy and the lawnmower...

That makes sense, CGM, thanks. And it supports the metaphor, too--we're working for them but not working for them.

There were a few things that never quite worked for me before but seemed fine this time around. Two examples: the Sylvia and Diana subplots. The whole Conrad Hilton thing still felt a little incomplete, though. I suppose it's supposed to.

I liked how season 7 begins with Freddie dropping a meaningful-in-hindsight "Om" into his opening Accutron monologue.

Made it through season 3, very bleak, had me in tears multiple times, but the finale is one of my favorite episodes.

Yeah, probably my favourite hour of tv this century.

Nothing like picking over the minutiae of a show that's been off the air for five years...I was watching a few minutes of Easy Rider the other night; I won't say that I forgot "If 6 Was 9" was in there--never a favorite film of mine--more like I just had forgotten all about that. Anyway, in addition to the discussion above, its appearance in Mad Men then also becomes an obvious reference to Hopper's film, probably in theatres when the episode takes place. Actually, seeing as that episode is titled "Field Trip"--Don's just returned from a trip to California (and will soon be heading on the road for good), the Hopper reference might be the main reason for using the song. But I'll stand by what I said above.

I'm retired and living in the middle of nowhere and have nothing else to occupy my mind...One thing the show did really well, especially from the mid-'60s onward, was--references and allusions both big and small--pay tribute to most of the key zeitgeist films of the day: Easy Rider, Rosemary's Baby, 2001, Planet of the Apes, Blow-Up, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (partially--the retreat in the final episode is of course modeled on Esalen, but there's clear overlap with Mazursky's movie, too), The Graduate, etc. I don't think any of the references seem forced or out of character. (When someone--Peggy, I think--talks about having just seen Rosemary's Baby, and how it's going to be the basis for a new ad campaign, she might just as well be describing Night of the Living Dead for the first 30 seconds, before she gets more specific.)

fwiw I support you on your journey

It's slow going getting through this again. I am only several episodes into the 3rd season now (got distracted by Schitt's Creek). I totally forgot about Duck and Peggy's relationship and am dreaaading.

(xpost) It's the last of Erik Erkson's eight stages of psychosocial development: hope, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care, bizarre Mad Men obsession.

The yuckiness of the Peggy/Duck relationship is mitigated by the sweetness of the Peggie/Freddie friendship.

Peggie, Peggy, Freddie, Freddy, yucky, Duck, whatever.

Add to the list of heartbreaking moments: When Harry Crane tells Joan that he's hired a full-time Director of Broadcast Ops, and that she won't be needed to read scripts anymore. Really great subtle acting by Christina Hendricks here in her crestfallen-but-maintaining-composure reaction.

[extremely Don Draper voice] THAT'S WHAT THE SHOW IS FOR https://t.co/kE4ZR2QN0w

— andi zeisler (@andizeisler) July 1, 2020

I was waiting for something to happen with that episode

waiting for something to happen is what that show is for

I'm not complaining--I understand--but it is pretty clear from Don's embarrassed reaction (not to mention your own) that, as the tweet says, the context is already there. Roger also has cringeworthy moments involving the Japanese guys from Honda and (very first episode) the impending meeting with Rachel's Jewish-owned department store. And lots else...the blackface episode is indeed the worst of that. The world leaving behind a couple of Eisenhower-era guys is one of the show's central themes.

Think it's pretty clear in the ep: after the blackface skit, Don has a little talk with Roger, who bleats, "They're just jealous 'cause I'm happy!" Don: "No one thinks you're happy."
At a family member's behest, I've watched the complete run of The Division on antenna TV. Hamm (token male cop) is very good all through (good ensemble in plain clothes cop show, from early 00s)(with okay writing for a cop show).

it's *crystal* clear in the episode iirc. glad they settled for just an intro card. that should be the standard practice for such moves imo

Pete Campbell is the only person there who looks legit horrified iirc

You're right. I said Don, but his embarrassment was more mild; it was Pete who was mortified.

Pete being both generally the most "liberal" of the bunch (well, the men, anyway) but still a huge prick is one of my favorite things about the show

surely that accolade applies to Kinsey equally!

I guess I considered Kinsey a second-stringer.

I've posted about this before, but my favourite Mad Men moment related to race (like all huge topics of the day--the war, emerging feminist and gay rights consciousness--slowly and obliquely making its way into the antiquated, cloistered world of SC&P) was Roger's reaction to MLK's assassination. He has no conception of what MLK was saying (or at least chooses not to) and can only understand him in terms of advertising: "Man knew how to talk. I don’t know why, but I thought that would save him. I thought it would solve the whole thing." In terms of getting a character exactly right, brilliant.

Haven't checked this against what I remember, but "a list of almost every film that has been mentioned, referenced, quoted, and parodied in Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men."

http://letterboxd.com/ledzeppelin/list/mad-men/

One of the comments does give pause: "Where's Planet of the Apes?" A rather egregious omission.

Another re-watch, and again, will try not to post too much (mostly because I'll inevitably repeat stuff I've already said). Two-and-half seasons in, something I noticed for the first time: how often someone says "That's true," usually with a wry smile on their face--at least six or seven times thus far.

I've been periodically posting these movie-music Zoomcasts I've been doing with a friend. We finally got around to Mad Men for our 70th, which brings things full circle: the Zoomcasts came out of a book which came out of a blog which came out of Mad Men. We have another ~15 to cover and then we're finished.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjvN3j1poK4

https://x.com/seanfennessey/status/1728807255833985397?s=46&t=bJOqpCuQneT7ju08y55VSA

Just needs a WHO SAYS NO to be the most Ringer tweet of all time.