Sterling Cooper had Kurt & His Pal and their bongo playing coffee ad hitting the youth market 
This IMO ties in with what others are saying here about Don feeling out of touch with pop culture–he basically gives up on the song midway thru.
I think I should should clarify what “out of touch” means here. This isn’t just a matter of not liking a particular song/band/style, it’s the idea that culture of any kind “matters” at all. When he asks Megan “When did music become so important?” he’s admitting that for him culture is a diversion at best, useful only when it can be put to commercial purposes. That same attitute is reflected by the clients reviewing their “Hard Day’s Night”-style commercial near the start of the episode. They couldn’t understand why the Beatles wouldn’t agree to license use of their songs (what else is it for?), thinking they could easily find a sound-alike substitute.
Good points, CJJ. Don is brilliant at what he does, but he’s not especially curious – about what a particular woman is about, nor about what the wider culture is up to (except as it affects the advertising world).
I will say, if the client wanted a sound like “A Hard Day’s Night”, they couldn’t have been further from it with the record played in Don’s office, or the stuff on Revolver.
Pete is a pretty creepy guy. Stalker Pete is really creepy.
I’m curious. How popular were the Beatles among people older than teens and 20s in their heyday? Tomorrow Never Knows blew my mind as a 14 year old, 30 years after it was released. It still sounds astoundingly fresh and strange to me now. It runs in stark contrast to the rest of that particular record.
It was a funny/awkward scene but didn’t real seem realistic to me either that they’d be doing the pitch there and then.
I thought they had already sold the pitch and they were just doing a special request return engagement.
They were regarded as having great talent and inventiveness, even if one didn’t particularly like their music. Frank Sinatra and Leonard Bernstein were big fans.
Yes he is. All this talk on prior threads about him losing his business sense, or Megan being sharper than him, is all off. He is not interested in it anymore. I think he’s trying to
I think many of you are missing his change. Betty left him, and Anna died. He lost both of the women in his life, and I think when he proposed to Megan he was trying to live as himself, without secrets. Actually be a married man without the extra hiding and lying. And although its hard for him and he stumbles that’s what he wants. He no longer cares to define himself through sexual exploits or his job. I think he just wants to be happy.
I don’t think their marriage is over or headed to an end, but it’s about to go through a shift. I think Megan is probably a really good actress, and she will probably begin to see success, and its clear there is no where but down of SCDP and Don’s career in general as hinted in the previous episode. She will be building success and he will lose his profession. It might get very sad.
Is it just me, or did Peggy sound more Chinese than Italian? 
Yeah, Pete, the elevator shaft. Lot’s of creepy stuff in this one.
Thanks, NoLAFIN, for IDing the book. The cover seemed semi-familiar. The novel itself makes Beatle references. Since when did music become so important that it even started bleeding into serious literature?
Still thinking about the title. Who is the “Lady”? Megan restoring her acting career is too simple. What about Beth? Even Peggy seems to be aware that she is stifled and is going to get interested in something else.
The title itself is a Sylvia Plath reference. There’s just way too many hints of suicide in this episode.
About the skis: I can see this scenario: Roger tells the Head people that Pete skis, they send some skis to Pete. Come winter, the big Head honcho calls up Pete and says “Let’s go skiiing.” Pete goes skiing, falls down a lot, looks like a fool. Roger gets his yuks. I just don’t see Roger straight out arranging Pete to get a nice gift.
(There was a Halloween decoration outside Joan’s office, so we know about when this takes place.)
Megan has planted a time bomb in Don’s mind. Don never questioned why he did what he did. It was a job. He worked hard to get good at it. It made him rich and well known. End of story.
But now, maybe he’s going to start thinking again about a different life. Like he did with the artist girlfriend, Anna, or the jet setters.
The cast is too large now, people are missing for too many episodes. I get January Jones and her baby. But what about Lane Pryce? Joan has been absent or nearly absent too often. It makes the story arcs feel discontinuous.
From a New York Times write-up of the episode, “It was fall, signaled by the autumn leaves outside the window of Pete’s train in the episode’s other major plot. (More precisely, it was mid-October — a radio broadcast referred to New York’s flags flying at half-staff because of the deaths of 12 firefighters in an incident that took place on East 22nd Street on Oct. 17, 1966. It represented the fire department’s largest loss of life until 9/11.)”
This has more to do w/ the types of contracts they have w/ the actors. For series like this, they sign lower-tiered actors in the cast to contracts to be in 10 out of the 12 episodes (or something similar) to save money over all. This means that people like Joan, Betty, Lane, Pete, etc are going to be missing a few times a season.
She did, and she her face conveyed her own surprise at not just saying “Pizzahouse!” but saying it in a “Chinese accent.”
I thought the gift was to Roger but he didn’t want them?
Anna wasn’t his girlfriend. She was Don Draper’s wife.
NY Times article about Mad Men acquiring the Beatles song:
How ‘Mad Men’ Landed The Beatles: All You Need Is Love (and $250,000)
One of the best things about this show is using Don as the perfect metaphor for the old not transitioning well to the new.
Don came from poor, humble beginnings and worked his way up to the top of the world. He wants things to stay the same.
This world is changing around Don - his daughter is growing up faster than he would like, his staff is changing with the times and he doesn’t understand the music and current culture, his wife has tossed a lucrative career in the toilet to pursue a dream, he can no longer enter a room and be assured of charming the pants off men and women by simply tossing out the nugget of an idea.
The 60’s really were a time of revolution: Women are talking back, queers are open in meetings (remember, this is pre-Stonewall), blacks work in the offices, the youth market is becoming important and what do you mean I can’t smoke in here?!
Don is getting old and he is starting to become aware of it.
There might still be hope for Don, the old dog, to learn new tricks - but he had better get with the program sooner than later.
The only question is how Don falls from grace; does he go quietly into the night and let others take over or does he go out in a ball of flames (or down an elevator shaft)?
I don’t know about Pete. The episode before last had him in for two lines (“You’re off the job.” “They said you’re off the job”) which leads me to believe he’s contracted to be in most/all episodes and they put him in a token spot when they don’t need him for the main plot. Last season they had an episode where he makes one line about a vending machine and that was it for the episode. Barely worth putting a tie on for that.
Also, a central issue in the novel is the characters’ concerns about a lack of certainty and predictability in their lives, and the fact that they respond to these issues by coming up with elaborate theories for how the world works. Sounds a bit like Pete’s episode, with his obsession over Beth and his rant about how “they” (women) get to decide what’s going to happen.
There was also a skeleton on the door of Peggy’s office. Someone had taped Lyndon Johnson’s head to it.