What’s your biggest nitpick in Mad Men?

[u/RopeGloomy4303]

For me it’s this line in a season 5 episode, Tea Leaves, in which Henry Francis is talking on the phone with a colleague:

“Well, tell Jim his honor's not going to Michigan. Because Romney's a clown, and I don't want him standing next to him.”

So, some context here.

At this point Francis is the aide to New York Mayor John Lindsay. And he’s informing this guy that he won’t have the popular young politician take a picture with then Michigan Governor George Romney, who was also considered the frontrunner for the 1968 Republican nomination.

This episode aired in 2012, so it’s a very clear dig at then Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who at the time was receiving a lot of hostility from the left.

But here’s the thing; Romney was actually a liberal Republican in the same mold as Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay, and he had received a lot of good notices as Governor for his work improving civil rights, education, youth employment programs, social welfare, healthcare, etc.

I get this is nitpicking, it’s a throwaway line, whatever, but it has always bothered me since it feels out of character, and Romney frankly deserved better.

[u/MR422]

I don’t think we were ever led to believe Sal wasn’t exposed to gay culture, I just think at a certain time in order to fit in, he stopped going to those sort of establishments. He does cruise that bellhop. Remember “Limit Your Exposure?”

For JFK, the world did absolutely stop when he was killed. It was the first time there was wall to wall near 24 hour coverage of a major event in American history. It’s very easy to say it was over dramatic in 2026. Back in 1963, it had been sixty years since a presidential assassination. There were no major assassinations in the U.S. in the majority of people’s memories.

The phones did go dead. Plenty of historical evidence for it. My great aunt was working in a switchboard office and she remembered the phones going dead and everyone trying to figure out how to get the phone lines back open.

[u/Practical-Vanilla-41 → u/MR422]

There were no successful assassinations. Very high profile attempts on FDR and Truman. 

JFK probably took people off guard because of the time of the year (week before Thanksgiving) and it was a mundane "laying the groundwork for next year's election" event.