(The television show about a Madison Avenue advertising agency, not actual pissed off males.)
When Ali and I decide to do something we do it to the extreme. Especially when it comes to television shows.
We decided a while back to kick all of the movies out of our Netflix queue and only put in TV shows in there that we wanted to catch up on and start watching on TV regularly or just watch shows we missed. Over the years we’ve done this with Entourage, The Office, Scrubs, and recently Battlestar Galactica, Bones, and Ali is watching True Blood right now (I didn’t dig it all that much.) We got all the DVDs that we could, buy an episode or two on iTunes, DVR shows whatever we needed to do to get all caught up.
One of the latest shows we did this for was Mad Men.
From Wikipedia:
Set in New York City, Mad Men begins in 1960 at the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on New York City’s Madison Avenue. The show centers on Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the agency’s creative director, and the people in his life in and out of the office. It also depicts the changing social mores of 1960s America.
The first season opens up at the tail end of the 50’s and as the blurb says focuses on Don Draper, the ad agency and his family life. As the show goes on more characters are developed. There is Don’s wife Betty, who is struggling with life as a housewife and who later finds out her husband is cheating on her. Peggy, who starts as Don’s secretary/assistant who rises the up the ranks to become a copywriter in not only a male dominated company and industry, but a male dominated world. Pete, the young account executive looking to make a name for himself in the agency. Sal, the closeted art director afraid of losing his status and job if his secret got out, Roger Sterling, co-owner of the Sterling Cooper agency who “lives like he’s on shore leave.”
Of course most of the characters smoke and drink (even the pregnant women!) and quite a few of the major characters cheat on their wives (Don, Roger, Pete)
The cinematography is gorgeous, and very much fits into the style and time period of late ’50’s early ’60’s films.
The set design and costume designs are incredible. You can watch the years tick by over the first two seasons. I want to say that the first season takes place in 1958/59 and the second season has news clips and stories from 1962 and Sunday’s (August 16) season 3 premiere kicks off a few months after season 2 ends.
There are product placements throughout the show and because Sterling Cooper is an advertising agency you’d never know what is a paid ad, and what is just story. There were whole arcs dealing with American Airlines, Heineken, Clearasil, Utz as well as others. They spent a whole episode discussing the Volkswagen “Think Small.” magazine advertisement. Was it a good idea? Was it bad? One member of the team exclaimed something about all the empty white space. (See the real ad here.) As it turns out the ad was revolutionary and was recognized by Advertising Age as the top advertising campaign of the 20th century.
Then there’s the mystery of Don’s past that they hint around at for a few episodes and then give you something. Then they hint some more and give you something.
What I love most about the show is when the creative team is together working on some pitch. What’s the product? What’s the angle? Who’s the key demographic? As a creative and someone who is very interested in the way advertising and marketing works and the way they affect consumers, these parts of the show mesmerize me.
The other part I love about the show is seeing our country in a snapshots through this show. There was the campaign of Kennedy and Nixon, Red Scare and the Soviets moving into Cuba, and we may see the assassination of Kennedy this season depending on how much time is covered.
Ali wants to make sure that I mention that she thinks Jon Hamm is total sex. Whatever.
Mad Men also has an awesome theme song by RJD2 called “A Beautiful Mine.” Here is the full version: A Beautiful Mine
I can’t recommend this show enough. If you don’t watch it you need to start DVRing the current season, and buy season 1 and 2 on DVD, rent them from Netflix or get them on iTunes. Do whatever you need to do to catch up and start watching this show.
Now.
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