I know in the American Airlines debacle (is Duck gone?) that they did the pitch, but knew they weren’t going to get the business. In the Patio account, it seemed less clear. I would also think producing a commercial on spec can get expensive.
And poor Kitty…I was cringing for her, as she realized just how Broadway-dramatic her husband was. She’s probably thinking “What do I do know, especially since it seems he may be moving up in job/career/paycheck?”
If Sterling Cooper didn’t already have a contract with Pepsi, they might go to the expense of actually producing a commercial on spec to land them. If they got a multi-year deal for all their soft drink business, it might be worth it. I don’t think it was clear if Pepsi was already a client, though.
One interesting tidbit I picked up from this episode: CBS didn’t have color yet in 1963.
BTW, not reading this thread as I’m still behind, but thought I’d relate to others who may have missed an episode. AMC wrote back to me to say that they’re having a Mad Men Marathon, capped by the new episode, the Sunday after this. And I’ll be back in the USA that weekend, so can catch up! Hooray! You’ll have to check your local listings for details. Offer void in Tennessee.
I picked up on something else…while Grandpa was eating ice cream with Sally, he told her he knew it was chocolate ice cream, but it smelled like oranges.
Aren’t hallucinatory smells a sign of a stroke? And for some reason, I thought if someone has a stroke, they immediately collapse. I know he had had strokes before, but Gloria had gotten him to the hospital. Is it possible Grandpa was having a stroke at the kitchen table, yet survived long enough to get to the A&P and then collapse?
When he said the line about oranges, I said to my wife “He’s about to have a stroke”, then I was surprised when the action cut away. When the cop shows up with the story about the A&P, I was a little puzzled how it all went down.
Maybe it was just a heavy-handed attempt at the Godfather-style symbolism of oranges = death, but I think Weiner’s too subtle for that.
Not all strokes are created equal, and they often happen in series. I’m guessing Grampa has a couplefew small strokes before the biggie felled him.
So he had a minor one while eating ice cream, then the big one came at the A&P?
Yes. Or even a series of mini-strokes. This is pretty common. Old folks at risk and their families are now-a-days informed of the warning signs of a stroke - since much can be saved if detected early. Even larger strokes don’t always cause the sufferer to immeadiately collapse.
Thanks for bringing this up. I’d wondered at the time what the significance of the oranges comment was, but I didn’t know that olfactory hallucinations are a sign of stroke.
As mentioned, not necessarily. My ex-girlfriend’s father had a mini-stroke that wasn’t picked up until many years later on a brain scan (CAT or MRI/MRA) of some sort. The doctor read the scan and asked him when he had his “event” and nobody in the family had any clue. Apparently, he had signs of an old stroke event on his scan, and somehow they were able to pin it down to an event three or four years previous.