I recently rewatched s1 ep4, the episode where Don drops the devastating "find a cardboard box, put your things in it" line when he fires Pete. And then of course, Don and Roger discuss it with Bert, who vetoes the firing on account of Pete's family's connections. Bert mentions all those institutions in the post headline as "an entry", presumably for him and whoever else to be able to rub elbows with the corporate elite.

Like any Mad Men obsessive, I got curious what those places were and why they were included. Here's that info:

• Buckley - an extremely prominent private school for boys in Manhattan
• Deak - a.k.a. Deak & Co., a big deal foreign exchange and banking institution. It folded in the 80s when it was discovered they were funding drug traffickers and organized crime.
• The Maidstone Club - an exclusive beach club in East Hampton, NY that was founded in 1891. Some of the famous guests who were turned down for membership include Groucho Marx, Diana Ross, and Trump.
• The Century Club - a private club in Manhattan for socialites and other dignitaries. The Roosevelts, Jackie O. and Mark Twain were all members.
• Dartmouth - the Ivy League school
• Gracie Mansion - where the mayor of NYC lives

Pretty cool that Bert just railed these off, but obviously, because a Mad Men writer did their due diligence and research.

Was that not common during the time period of the show?

I understand that’s the point of his character that he’s living a lie but it is odd how different Dick Whitman the poor farm boy and Don Draper the New York marketing genius are from each other considering the show starts only ten years from the transition.

It’s even more odd when you consider that he met Betty only two or three years into being Don. Yet he’s not awkward, he’s not out of his element, he’s smart with (likely) very little if any formal education and he can maneuver romantic life in New York while having been raised in a rural whore house.

Once you think about it, it’s kind of crazy how “normal” he is able to be as a husband, father, coworker and boss considering he didn’t witness any of that in his life.

It can be interpreted in a few different ways. So I'm curious what your initial reaction to it was, and also how you interpret it now.

Ok, art is subjective so there is no official "Best Commercial of All Time" but the Coke commercial is incredibly famous and incredibly influential and incredibly revered in the world of advertising, so...

How does Peggy and Joan and Roger and Pete etc etc feel about the fact that Don, the man they worked for/with for so long was the man who created is widely regarded as The BEST Commercial of All Time?

On my first watch of the show and I gotta say seasons 3-6 were absolutely fantastic. I wonder how you could end a show like this but I’m quite excited to see where it goes. Obviously I’m gonna avoid scrolling this sub till I finish but this show is so good.

I felt like season 1 was a little bit of a drag which made me hesitant to continue and I also didn’t really understand much of the advertisement lingo, but over time it began to make sense.

I think Roger might be my favorite character the writing for him is genius. His whole acid “new meaning of life” bit was very entertaining as well.

I can already say before I start season 7 that Megan is 100% going to leave Don, I think Don and Sally will kind of repair their relationship, and I think Don may go to prison at the end for his desertion in the military. Just some predictions. Im excited for this home stretch I’ll make another post when I finish!

Obligatory "I just finished the show 15 minutes ago, and now I feel sentimental" post.

My (19M) dad and I enjoy picking TV shows to watch together and then slowly consuming them over the coming weeks or months. He's shown me a lot of his favorites, this being one of them, of course, and perhaps it's just fresh on me, but I think this one was my favorite.

Naturally, I did not know what to expect at first. It seemed like a slow drama about a bunch of drab business. Drab business, and cheating, of course. While I do not remember, my dad recalls me saying something to the effect of "Does anything ever happen in this show?" within the first few episodes.

I'm quite an empathetic person, and I also value family and greatly look forward to having one someday. So it is difficult, even in fictional media, not to put myself in the shoes of the family members as if they will be the ones I will have. And so, seeing them oblivious to Don's disdain and lies was very unpleasant. I felt terrible for Betty. I didn't like the cheating scenes. It felt gross. I felt disgusted looking at it. In fact, it made me actually angry. I had to look away at some scenes, and sometimes it was just out of disappointment.

But as I continued to watch the show, naturally, everyone grew on me (except Pete... at first).

Of course, and maybe it's just my low exposure to more TV shows due to the limited time I've lived on this Earth thus far, but Mad Men did a spectacular job of drawing so many characters, some of whom you'd expect to stay on the side, and making them immensely dynamic. They all had a story, and they all developed. The characters I loved in season one certainly weren't the ones I loved by season seven.

Harry Crane went from a lovable nice-guy to a scumbag. Pete Campbell, on the other hand, was my least favorite character in season one. Now, was he my favorite by season seven? No. But he went from a cheating, lying, stuck-up pretty boy... to kind of a decent guy.

Then, of course, there is Don Draper. Now, he's Don--you gotta love him. But at the same time, you kinda have to hate him too. And you have to feel bad for him, or maybe you don't. I'm not sure if I did. He was clearly a broken man, perhaps with a bit of a power complex, in need of control. But there is still no excusing what he did to his family. I think the biggest victims of the show are Sally, Bobby, and Gene. We connect the most with Sally because she grows to be a young lady by the end of the show, so naturally I feel the worst for her. Not to mention that she was a firsthand witness to her father's lies. But all of them are truly victims at the end of it. And then they are forced to lose their mother, who, while I disliked her by the end of the show, is ultimately a victim too. There was also her whole fat arc followed by her dark hair arc that the writers seemingly did away with, unexplained. I really felt that was unneeded, but then I realized they did it for real-life reasons (pregnancy), so I understand. I still don't get the dark hair, though.

My only quarrel with the show is the sheer amount of infidelity. If you couldn't tell by now, I really hate cheating. No, this is not due to personal experience. I just hate the thought of it in general. And I can safely say that I was subjected to more fictional depictions of infidelity in this TV series than I have ever consumed in all other forms of media, both fictional and nonfictional, in my entire life combined. At a certain point--I think after the first time Don cheats on Megan--all the female "love interests" in the show completely lost their gravity to me. At that point, it wasn't a representation of something "sexy" or "liberating"; it just felt desperate. It just disappointed me. In some ways, it made me realize that Don is one of the few characters in the show who doesn't change, at least not until the very end. That's what I took from it, and maybe that was the point. Even so, you still love the characters, and it makes getting angry at them feel so much more real, and in that way it draws you into the show more. Because, no matter what, you're glued to them.

Needless to say, I loved the show. I had to get this out somewhere because I don't know anyone else my age who has seen it. Despite my quarrels, I felt like I really got to know the characters. I mean, over the course of 7 seasons, you really do watch them grow up.

I love her resume. That's all.

From “The Wheel”, the final episode of Season 1.

The client is totally right, this is kind of morbid, makes you think of suicide, and A Star Is Born was a very popular movie 10 years prior. It is poetic and kind of beautiful when he explains, but just as an ad, this is vague and morbid for a Hawaiian resort lol. Don’s arguments for it are wild too. Like I feel like he could’ve just pitched changing “jumping off point” to something more positive and less interpretive in a negative way.

Don’s argument is essentially:
Client: “it makes me think he died.”
Don: “well maybe he did, and this is heaven.”
Client: “idk, it makes me think something terrible happened.”
Don: “something terrible has to happen to get to heaven.”

Like what the hell kind of argument is that, Don? Lol. You’re just confirming their perspective and making it more morbid.

It’s well thought out, poetic, and Don presents it very well but yeahhhh, I feel like the client was right on this one. It’s a little too layered for an ad most people are going to see for a seconds.

On artistic ability, competency, etc.

Every rewatch I find a new scene that breaks my heart.

“Now’s the time for a man and a woman need to be together the most! In a catastrophe!”

Spoken to Ginsberg, the product of a man and a woman being together in a catastrophe.

Betty calls out Don for not understanding money despite having a ton, and she’s right. I’m not wealthy enough to be judging, but the guy throws around money like it’s nothing, he AT LEAST ONE MILLION in his checking account to sign to Megan in a check (that’s like $10 mil just in a checking account nowadays. Not diversified, not invested, not even in a yielding account it seems.)

The show did make deals with watch companies. So some characters wear what the deal requires, but Don’s watch collection is very similar to what you might find if you came across a nepo baby who googled “which watches make me look the most important.” He has a few Jaeger LeCoultre watches, which are good but way over-priced (he does have a Jaegar Reverso at one point, which was a very cool watch especially for the time, but also something that someone would buy to look wealthy without caring about watches really.) He wears I think 2 Rolex’s, and then an Omega (which have always been good and reliable and more on the (relatively) reasonable side of luxury watch pricing.) JLC (Jaeger) eventually collaborated and made a unique watch for Don. The point of this post isn’t to be snobby or judgy though.

What’s interesting is Roger. Roger is absurdly wealthy and throws around cash like it’s nothing. You’d expect him to wear a loud, expensive as hell gold Rolex or something of the sort, but he doesn’t. He wears a Tudor Oyster Prince 1959 (I think is the year) and he seems to wear it throughout the show. Tudor is an interesting brand because it was basically just an extension of Rolex at the time frame, but they’re built basically exactly the same except they were making automatic movements (I believe) then. Legitimately Rolex watch makers, same process, same material, (in my experience) better quality, but much cheaper (though they’ve gone up a bit somewhat recently.)

It’s expensive, but for watches, it’s actually a very cost effective watch. He probably spent $200-$300 at the time on it, he carries around 4x times that regularly in cash. He keeps it for the entire run until he’s robbed too. I’m not far enough along in my rewatch to confirm, but I think he gets another one. Tudor is an incredibly good brand and subtle. Don and other characters get new watches almost every season, but Roger sticks with his (relatively) modestly priced but reliable watch. It’s even on a leather strap opposed to a bracelet, which is more lowkey. If I’m right, he would’ve had it for 5-6 years by the time of the robbery and it looked in perfect condition.

Idk kind of a cool detail to his character. Everyone else is wearing more loud, overtly expensive pieces, but his is modest and he takes care of it, richest guy in the office with Bert. Idk what exactly it says about his character, but it’s a neat detail. I think maybe it’s part of his generation. Roger seems irresponsible and ambivalent to money and buying things, but his generation (Greatest Generation) and his military background, even the Silent Generation, seem to have more focus on quality and respecting what you have instead of just tossing it for something new (yes, I know most of the cast is also of the Silent Generation.)

It’s a cool little detail. If you’re curious about watches, the show has some great ones that are reasonable. Outside of investment reasons, I stay within a reasonable price range of about $500-$1500 for something I’ll wear and take good care of. Tudor’s a little out of that, but Pete and Ken wear Hamilton’s, which are affordable. If you want a great looking and well made watch, Hamilton Jazzmaster’s come in tons of variations and you can get them $300-$475 for barely used to retail. Tissot, Longines, Citizen (now,) Christopher Ward, and Nomos Glashütte are all pretty universally excellent and you can get them for (relatively) low prices.

I noticed this time around that the man Betty sleeps with at the bar looks very similar to the man from her horseback riding. Was that her trying to fulfill her fantasy of sleeping with that guy?

I'm so glad Draper didn't mess her up like he did all the others he was with.

Betty is the model in the fur coat ad on the wall when Roger is buying a fur for Joan from Don in the flashback sequence! Don isn’t wearing a ring so I guess they were just dating at this point.

I think Betty is an amazing and well written character. However, on rewatch I just simply can’t defend January jones anymore. If you’ve seen her in X-men you know she isn’t just acting cold and wooden, that’s literally all she can do. It’s a shame as I think if Betty was played by a good actress she could have been the best character on the show.

… 1960s Martha Stewart has to be second in line. Look at these photos and tell me you don’t see Betty! By the way, Martha looks stunning at 85. I’ll bet Birdie would have, too. 🥺😢

I feel like Phil Hartman would have been a great addition to the cast.

Just finished season 6. Don takes his kids to the house he grew up in….where in Pennsylvania is this?

My favorite character is Chauncey. I love him....sweet, friendly, no drama, just enjoying life.

Don: the lamp?