Mad Men's Inevitable RFK Moment

Played perfectly, I thought. This guy hits it pretty good:

Oh, good, I'm not the only one who fell for the Bobby bit. I agree, Michael, that the joke was a clever one, and not just on Chaough's part. It played on Don's expectations, but on the audience's, too—I believed it was the real Bobby because I've come to expect each season of Mad Men to have its Kennedy-ex-machina moment: Season 1 had the episode structured around JFK's surprising defeat of Nixon in the 1960 election; Season 2 ended with the Cuban missile crisis; last season, there was the terrific episode dramatizing the assassination. No wonder we thought Bobby would swoop in to save the day for SCDP, even if he did sound like Mayor Quimby.           

While it was clever to upend our expectations—something the Mad Men writers excel at—like you, Michael, I found the move highlighted how tightly focused this season has been on the life of the firm. History has rarely intruded on the proceedings. The Beatles come to town, but it's a minor plot point (and we hear nothing about the actual concert. Did Sally faint?). Peggy narrowly escapes a raid at a beatnik party. Dr. Greg, a character whose fate no Mad Men fan loses sleep over, gets shipped off to Vietnam. What else? This season, the series seems to have shied away from building episodes around major historical events and instead allows history to seep into the story.

The American Dream (eyeroll)

I rolled my eyes HERE a few months ago re: the lie that is "The American Dream" and how much its actually fucked over people for hundreds of years. And now we see a new article about Mad Men anticipating the decline of this so-called American Dream:

Finally, there are the two Donalds – Draper and Trump. When Mad Men ended, the idea of a Trump presidency was still the stuff of a wise-ass comedian’s after-dinner turn. It is tempting to conflate these two narcissistic, weak, manipulative, pathologically selfish, deeply insecure and eventually slightly pitiable men, given how much they seem to have in common.

But the show’s creator Matthew Weiner does identify a fault line that continues to be gallingly exploitable in American public life – there is always room for a talented grifter if he knows which buttons to push. Don Draper would probably have found Donald Trump crass. But he would have found a line, if ever Trump had wanted to open his chequebook. Because business is business. After all, what is advertising if not the ultimate fake news? Mad Men was ahead of the curve all along. But, like the best period dramas, it was a warning from history too.

Maybe not as spot-on as my own analysis from before, but you get the picture.

You Gottsta Be Shitting Me du Jour

Of course as a product of The Harvard on the Appomattox I am used to a more serious academic setting, but I am amused that this course exits at Middlebury College, in some place called "Vermont:

HIST 1017 - Mad Men and Mad Women      
Mad Men/ and Mad Women*
Are you a Don, a Roger, or a Pete? A Betty, a Peggy or a Joan? Using AMC’s Mad Men as a visual and narrative foundation, this course examines masculinity and femininity in mid-20th century America. We will focus specifically on the connections between postwar mass communication and formation of gender roles, consumption and cultural expectations. Our inquiry will then extend to recent discussions regarding the politics of historical representation. In addition to the television series we will use a variety of both primary and secondary sources -- including novels, magazines, sociological studies, and scholarly monographs – to achieve a multi-dimensional perspective.

My Favorite TV Shows of the Decade

Scripted shows only, and in no order. Enjoy!

TRUE DETECTIVE - and by this I mean the first season, of course. This isn't my genre and I have no idea how I even ended up watching it, but McCaughney and Harrelson were absolutely spell-binding. Add in an insanely creepy plotline and a setting that is a character itself, and you have magic. 
PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT TRUE DETECTIVE:

You think Rust kept himself alive while bleeding out on the ground by telling himself "You just gotta keep livin' man, L-I-V-I-N."?

MAD MEN: simply put, this is the Cadillac of prestige television that studios have repeatedly tried to copy over & over without succeeding. 
PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT MAD MEN:

The episode of Mad Men last night might've been the best tv I've seen in a long time. The jolt of the plane crash and it's ensuing inappropriate and unchecked jokes, Draper showing both a semi-compassionate side and a hard-ass one, the dude that plays Pete Campbell's awesome vacant performance as well as his family's blue blood Gatsby awkwardness. Great episode. Oh, and just for kicks they threw in some racism and a 5 year-old girl mixing drinks. After last year's mid-season stumble, looks like the show has recovered nicely.

IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA - what can you say about a show that with the exception of one season has been THE most consistently flat-out funny sitcom of all time and include a character who is forever in the pantheon (Charlie)?
PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA:

I'm fairly shocked that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia hasn’t done a straight-up parody of Rocky. Charlie as Rocky, Frank as Mickey and the Waitress as Adrian.

VEEP - the natural descendant of the BBC's brilliant Yes, Minister, this show popped and crackled like nothing else until the end, when for some reason the jokes dragged out a beat too long and it found itself competing with Trump for absurdity, which is a no-win situation. Unique show in that there's a ton of spin-offs featuring aide characters I'd love to watch.

PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT VEEP:

Finally seeing the second season of Veep. An A+ show that adds Gary Cole automatically becomes an A++ show. 

COUNT ARTHUR STRONG - Graham Linehan was already a genius thanks to Father Ted, Black Books, and The IT Crowd when he wrote this show. For three seasons it delivered great laughs, which made the few poignant scenes that much more heartfelt.

PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT COUNT ARTHUR STRONG: none really, so enjoy this video!

CUCKOO - classic cozy BBC sitcom that brilliantly showcases the hilarious Greg Davies, who squeezed every laugh out of his few lines on The Inbetweeners. The old "I'd watch him read the phone book" is way overused, but applicable to Davies.

PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT CUCKOO:

- When Cuckoo began, just like everybody else I'm sure I thought oh, this is a platform for Andy Samberg. And if you had told me it'd get even funnier when he left and Taylor Lautner joined the cast, I'd have said you're probably out of your mind.

- Greg Davies is a British National Treasure, even he never does anything other than Cuckoo and his Hall of Fame character on The Inbetweeners. And if you spot hm on The Graham Norton Show, do yourself  favor and watch.

- I always hafta catch myself from demanding more Steve, as he's one of those perfect side characters where a little is perfect and juuuuust a tad more is too much.

- Is there a more delightful family to go down to the pub with?

- Ben was one of sitcom's all-time dull characters (as designed so), but how happy are you when he actually finds his true love?

- I'm assuming there will be 6th season! (fingers crossed emoji)

GIRLS - watching Girls could be maddening and only one of them was actually likeable, but people never stopped watching it, even if only to bitch. Lord knows I bitched about it plenty here. I watch from time to time just to be able to inhale my old neighborhood Williamsburg.

PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT GIRLS:

What the problem of Girls is, to me, that it's the first show (in my mind) that sounds like a blog, in that it feels more of a need to cram in it's pithy observations on XYZ than it does in developing a story or characters we care about; you can feel Lara Dunham not listening to anyone else's lines as she's counting down to her next "BOOM!" statement about boys/her vagina/Williamsburg. A blog can be compulsively driven by getting things off one's chest since there doesn't necessarily need to be a connection from one post to another, but a television show needs to organically flow.

This could/should change as the show progresses and Dunham feels less pressure to blurt out the first 100 things she's ever thought of (particularly as "the mind of her generation"); hell, Whitney began with Whitney tripping over everybody else to cram in as many clumsy-fitting one-liners from her stand-up as possible, but became mildly watchable once she calmed down and the other characters were given lives of their own, not just existing as receptors for Whitney's  endless "The difference between men and women..." schtick. 

MOONE BOY - somehow both laugh-out-loud funny and humbly delightful, featuring a main character who was so funny partly because I'm not really sure he knew he was acting (like Theo Huxtasble before Malcolm Jamal Warner realized he was an ACT-OR!) And of course anything featuring the universally beloved Chris O'Dowd.

PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ON MOONE BOY: I've written plenty about it but would rather watch this video over and over.

DERRY GIRLS - another Irish show, featuring a group of four distinct archetypes: the wanna-be alpha, the troublemaker, the nervous rule-follower and the looney. A brilliant way of showing that vents in history happen while people are trying to navigate their own daily lives.

PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ON DERRY GIRLS:

Available NOW on Netflix! A rare show in that every character is really funny. Also the best example of a show that spends the entire series making you laugh over and over & then punches you in the gut in the final minutes since Blackadder Goes Forth. Awesome. Can’t wait for the next series!

THE WRONG MAN(S) - James Corden wrote and starred in this with his Gavin and Stacey cast mate Mathew Baynton, a wonderfully unique spy thriller spoof that unleashes Corden to be at his most Corden-y. Also, extremely well-made for a comedy, it looks like a movie. Bonus for have Dawn French in a small role!
PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ON THE WRONG MAN(S): a video instead YOU'RE WELCOME!!


SCHITT'S CREEK - I snobbishly turned my nose up at this for years because of the name and then tumbled into all at once and didn't top until I had seen every episode. A brilliant cast - everything the parents say is funny, and the kids go from being over-the-top hate-able to people you urgently root for. Can't wait for the next season, which will sadly be its last.
PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ON SCHITT'S CREEK: None. Well. This really fizzled out, didn't it?

DOWNTON ABBEY - what can I say that hasn't been said a million times?
PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHTS ON DOWNTON ABBEY:
Too many gems to choose from, but do yourself a favor and read THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS, and THIS.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Spy
Rev.
Whites
Master of None
The Crown
Catastrophe
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Tremé
Friday Night Dinner
The Trip
Detectorists
Chickens
Vicious
Still Open All Hours
Uncle
A Young Doctor’s Notebook
The Big Bang Theory
Modern Family
Miranda

I'm sure I'm missing something but oh fucking well.

Mad Men

Like everyone else I've been blazing through seasons on Mad Men, gearing up for Sunday's season premiere, and I must say, I'm struck as always by how downright likable Ken Cosgrove is.

Here's a reverse chronological listing of all my Mad Men posts since the beginning. You're welcome, Earth.

More Mad Men

The more I find myself doing the ol' "stand around and wait for something awful to happen to Don Draper" thing like everybody else, the more annoyed I am. I don't think anything is ever gonna happen to him; so far I don't really see him as having to pay for his "sins," certainly not in any way he particularly cares about. Hell, a coupla years ago Pete Campbell found out about his stolen identity, tried to blackmail Don and then presented the info to the president of the company and was met with a resounding "who cares?" I mean, we're talking about a guy who disappeared to California for two weeks without telling anybody, and when he got back he was reprimanded by...being told he had just made half a million dollars. Meanwhile Betty obviously is about to find out about him not being the "real" Don Draper; other than her usual moping around what the hell is she gonna do? Divorce him? She KNOWS he's been a coozehound for years and she's stuck with him, and now she's gonna decide to be a single mother in the early '60s over this? Doubt it. And even if she does, what does he care? He's Don Draper, dammit!!!

I know we like our tv shows to be wrapped up nicely with a bow with the ol' "oh, he'll get his!!" and in the end leave Don broke and alone, living in a ditch somewhere, but more and more Don is looking like the little boy in Mark Twain's The Story of the Bad Little Boy.

And he grew up and married, and raised a large family, and brained them all with an axe one night, and got wealthy by all manner of cheating and rascality; and now he is the infernalist wickedest scoundrel in his native village, and is universally respected, and belongs to the Legislature.

So you see there never was a bad James in the Sunday-school books that had such a streak of luck as this sinful Jim with the charmed life.

The opposite, of course, of The Story of the Good Little Boy.

Also, people are still bitching that nothing seemed to happen to Tony Soprano at the end of The Sopranos.  And guess what show Mad Men creator Mathew Weiner worked on before Mad Men, including it's next-to-last episode? So I think it might occur to Weiner to cackle with glee at all of us wringing our hands, waiting for a fall that will likely never come. Comeuppance doesn't always come. Sometimes, that's life. Hell, it's in the news every day.

ALSO:

Did Pete Campell die? I mean, wtf - at the beginning we had this young buck who looked like the type to undercut his own grandmother to find the most eggs on Easter Sunday; so much so that he was willing to try to blackmail Draper. Seriously, if two years ago you were told that one day he would hafta split the accounts with Ken Cosgrove, wouldn't you assume he would lend Cosgrove a blanket with smallpox? But no, all we get now is him going "Damn you, Cosgrove!!" a lá Seinfeld/Newman, (only not even to Cosgrove himself) and then disappearing for another week. Wtf? The Castration of Pete Campbell is another sign of "oh, let's just not worry about the other characters, let's just follow Don around while Betty mopes and crap." Grrrr.

Mad Man Speck

Hiding under the bed (or couch in Sally's case) was a theme on Sunday's Mad Men, with the references to the Richard Speck murders:

On the night of July 14, 1966, Speck showed up at a house at 2319 East 100th St. in Chicago's South Side. There lived several nurses, many of them Filipino, who studied at the South Chicago Community Hospital School of Nursing.

"He bound all nine women with strips of bed sheets. He led eight of them, one by one, to other rooms in the town house. He raped one and killed all eight by strangling or stabbing them, or both."

Only one of his victims would survive:

"Corazon Amurao, a visiting exchange nurse from the Philippines, survived by wriggling under a bed while he was out of the room. After Mr. Speck fled, Miss Amurao alerted the authorities by climbing onto a ledge outside the town house and screaming: 'They are all dead! My friends are all dead! Oh, God, I'm the only one alive!'"

Have fun sleeping tonight!

When I was a little kid I dropped the lid to a Play-Doh (or, more likely, a generic knockoff, like "Fun-Doh!" or "Fuck It, You're Poor-Doh!"...real Play-Doh was for rich people) container in the radiator in my bedroom and couldn't get it out; as it got hotter and started melting, curling up, I thought "Well. The house is going to burn down. I'm gonna be in deep shit for this one." And so what did I do?

Crawled under my bed and hid.

And yes, somebody of somewhat importance was born on that very date of July 14 six years later but I won't say who; you know I like to keep things about anything but myself, so. Shit ain't always about me.

Here's the room, via Mad Men Unbuttoned:

Mad Men

I have a sneaking suspicion that Mad Men has jumped the shark. What started out as (supposedly) an inside look at the Machiavellan shark-infested waters of the male-dominated business world backed beautifully by the decor of the era has turned into a weekly "Something horrible is going to happen to Don" deathwatch, with rare moments in the office seemingly put in as afterthought. Camon. So whenever this great fall does happen, either the show is then over forever, or we're supposed to then re-focus on characters we've been led to believe aren't very important? Really?

Mad Men Thoughts. I Have Them.

Like a lot of folks today I re-watched the first Mad Men episode and it strikes me that the first time we see the building at all it's from a downward vantage point. Usually when introducing BIG! BUILDING! BIG! CITY!!!! cameras like to start at the bottom and look up, but Matthew Weiner did the opposite here.

I assume there's a reason - the downfall of America? Or a play off the whole "the intro avatar is Don Draper before he jumps out the window" nonsense? 🤔🤷‍♂️

Depressing Mad Men Thoughts du Jour

1) If you didn't already feel old af, this July will mark the 15th anniversary of the debut of Mad Men. So...that's kinda depressing.

2) Was the entire point of Don's 40th birthday party to make sure we realize he has no real friends? So...that's kinda depressing.

Mad Men

For the first time, tonight's episode offered outside of the office stuff that I found interesting. Not the least of which it looks like Betty Draper is maybe open to the idea of starting an affair with a 10 year-old. Hmm.

Also, found this incredible collection of Mad Men-themed illustrations on Flickr (via The House Next Door.) Awesome. This one's my favorite (at this moment)



Tho big propers to the London Calling shoutout here

Mad Men Hate Black People

Matthew Yglesias and Ta-Nehisi Coates are 2 of several people I've seen recently wonder why Mad Men hasn't spent any time marveling that it's characters are living in the middle of the Civil Rights era. I don't know why they'd expect an office of supposedly machiavellan, would cut Grandma's throat for the bottom line, upper class Northeastern white guys to really pay attention to the plight of black people; particularly when they're still at such an early part of the decade. I think it's a lot more realistic to show that Pete Campbell has more interest in finding out what kind of tv a black person may buy than whether or not that person can use a white restroom in public. He's not Brandon Walsh, he isn't interested in ending racism in 44 minutes.

More so, people live their lives to a daily grind that does not often give them the time nor historical perspective to stand around saying "boy, can you believe we're in the middle of the Civil rights Era!?? Awesome!" I don't know if a tree alone in a forest makes a sound, but I do know that it's probably only vaguely aware that he's in a forest.

My grandma kept a journal of every day of her life, and I distinctly remember seeing that her December 7, 1941 entry spending more time listing what she had for breakfast than mentioning Pearl Harbor. There's a reason it's called "history," not "hey, right now!"

So relax!

Mad Men

My problem with Mad Men is I don't care about any of the shit outside of the office. I like it in the office - the dealings, the shadiness, the snapping etc. Plus, it lends itself best to the colors and decor that we like to look at re: the 1060s.

I don't care about the wives, the homes, whatever. Yes, I know they're supposed to be a way of showing us more of the main characters' depth etc, but who cares. Just gimme office scenes! Plus, it seems like all these ancillary characters are just reasons to show different types of neuroses. Gee, housewives get bored? REEEEEEEEEEEALLY???!!?!! You can't just have a normal housewife; no, it's gotta be housewife who does things like inexplicably breaks a dining room table in the middle of the day. Camon.

MORE OFFICE STUFF!!

Thank Fucking Christ.

I bitched HERE and  HERE and HERE and HERE   about Mad Men needing to get back to the office, instead of having to pretend we give two shits about how mopey Betty Draper can be every week. And thankfully, Matthew Weiner is a huge Xmastime fan and is listening to me:

But those cues also hold out the promise that the coming season will once again pivot the story on the workplace. It’s where “Mad Men” started and where it was best. A fresh start at the rat race is just what the series needs.

Hey look, anybody remember my nifty little vaginoplasty joke???!

Mad Men

I just saw this post HERE about Matt Yglesias being wowed by TNC's thought's on how Mad Men doesn't deal with the Civil Rights Movement that is happening in it's time. Which reminded me of THIS POST by me over a year ago EXPLAINING TO BOTH OF THEM why the show wasn't going out of it's way to explain "today, in Civil Rights history!!" while Yglesias and TNC were both scratching their heads about it.

I'm not telling you all this to show you that I'm a shitload smarter than both of them. Nor am I doing so because I have no woman, or children, or real reason to get the fuck out of bed in the morning; rather, I am telling you this to show you that I'm a shitload smarter than both of them.

BOOM!!!!

Mad Men Repost

I didn't really notice it because I flipped away as soon as the credits came up, but in viewing The Sound of Music right now I realized that the song over the credits of last week's Mad Men was Sixteen Going on Seventeen. Interesting. Was that intended for Don's young wife? Or Pete Campbell? Or the new young copywriter?

Ohh, just got a text from my high school football coach:

"You're watching The Sound of Music? I knew it."

Sigh. Takes me back to my favorite day of 2011...

A Few Thoughts on The Absurdity of Mad Men's Don Draper

I thought so at the time the show was on the air but assumed I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, but the more & more time since the end of Mad Men passes & the more I rewatch it, along with over a decade "in the biz", the more I come to terms with the fact that exactly nothing about the 1960s career arc of Don Draper, Genius Creative Director, remotely makes any sense or would’ve happened in the real world.

We’re led to believe that as creative director of a small agency in NYC he is not only “famous” within the industry, but openly feared. That's right: feared. None of that is plausible, but even if it is we’re supposed to believe this he just stays put at Sterling Cooper while fending off bigger companies with the kind of sexy clients he’s always bitching about wanting to work on. Jim Hobart is constantly showing up to beg him to accept the keys to a money truck & come work with him on the biggest, sexiest clients possible but Don always rudely dismisses him as if anybody’d be crazy to give up working on Glo-Pro bathroom products for McDonalds.

And then we’re supposed to believe that after his meltdown with Hershey he crawls his way back on his hands & knees, doing whatever it takes to get back to the top of SCDP or whatever it was called by then. Writing taglines, coupons etc, and oh yeah all this under the now-glaring eye of his mentee, a woman for whom only a few short years the job of copywriter was impossible to dream of, much less creative director or whatever title she is by then. None of this would happen on Planet Earth. Oh sure it’s explained away with some talk of non-compete clauses and such, but this is a multi-millionaire who has people like Jim Hobart throwing hookers through his bedroom window & who would be THRILLED to pay whatever legal fees it took to get “famous!” “feared!” Don Draper over to McCann Erickson. But no no, we watch Don bow and scrape to Lou Avery instead (don’t get me started on the TOTAL absurdity of Lou Avery being the CD there). I mean, really - Don has to sit at his desk like a child because Lou won’t let him leave to catch a flight? Really? Millionaire, famous & feared Don Draper?

And I guess towards the end we’re supposed to feel glad Don gets what he wants, which is…working for McCann? As just one of 20 creative directors, when at any moment in the 10 years before if he batted his eyes at Jim Hobart he’d be the King of the Beach at McCann? Really?

Ugh. I'm sure there's tons more but I'm tired of even thinking about it for now; I still love the show and always will but I mean come on already with this shit.

"Yeah sure but have YOU seen Joan walk into the office after getting caught in the pouring rain?"

Mad Men 720

Tonight's Mad Men there is talk of an eclipse, and then when I saw Don date his signature July 23, 1963 at the end of the episode I can see that the eclipse took place on July 20, 1963. First of all, that is something I'm sure will appear on THIS WEBSITE tomorrow. Also, July 20 is of course the day, 6 years later, man stepped on the moon. Cool.

Mad Men

Has Mad Men jumped the shark for me? Two things I thought that would never happen would be Don looking destroyed/giving a shit when Betty finally left him, and the show weaving so much 11/22/63 into an episode. These two things now happening along with the ceaselessly annoying shift from inner-office dealings to mopey relationship shit makes me feel like it's turned into a sell-out soap opera. Of course, I could be wrong. But I did invent the "make her eat out of a doggy dish while banging her from behind and slapping out the drums to Dizzy by Tommy Roe on her ass" move, so I can't help but think I know what I'm talking about.

I'm McLovin' It, Draper-Style

Mickey D's (omg I totally just made that up!!!!) is remodeling their uniforms based on Mad Men:

McDonald's has updated their uniforms, giving their employees a 1960s flair, with plenty of inspiration coming from Mad Men. (Perhaps this will help the customer travel back in time to when we really didn't know how bad fast food was for us.) According to The Telegraph, the new look will debut at the Olympics, and then get rolled out to all employees in the UK... but there's no word yet on whether they'll make it across the pond to McMerica.

That was not the official uniform when this fucking happened to me.