I agree with everyone else that Cutler didn’t want to fire Harry, he was lobbying to get him the computer he asked for. And Harry did say that they were currently renting time on someone else’s computer.
Cutler seems to be making several keen alliances (Joan, Harry), probably to muscle out Sterling when Cooper goes belly up.
The partners met with Don and let him go on leave on Thanksgiving weekend. Last week’s episode was Valentine’s Day. There wasn’t an indication of exactly when this episode occurred, but I’d guess no more than a month or so after last week’s episode. So if Lou started soon after Don went on leave, then Lou’s been there around three months.
What evidence is there that they aren’t thriving?
I don’t think the woman was from Roger; how would Roger know that Don was meeting someone there? And Roger seemed legitimately surprised to answer the door and find Don there instead of Hippie Girl. It was just a fake-out.
Agreed that the woman on her own seemed a bit out of place.
Well, it’s clear Peggy’s not thriving; she’s close to a breakdown. Of course, Don was her main antagonist last season, so it’s not clear that his arrival will help. (Although we all know he will break her out of her funk as he continues on Don’s Magical Redemption Tour.)
The creative work at the firm is not thriving; they only got nominated for one Clio and Cutler has to defend Lou’s work as being “adequate.”
Has anyone offered an opinion as to the financial wisdom of buying a computer in 1969?
It will cost a fortune.
It will be obsolete in a couple of years.
It will require a huge room or two.
It will require several full-time operators, programmers and maintenance technicians.
Management has no idea that creating the software will be a huge job and will usually be out of their control.
Bottom line? It would be so much better in 1969 to simply rent time on someone else’s computer.
In 1969, it only made sense for huge corporations to spend the money needed to buy their own computer. I don’t think there was a single advertising agency in America that could afford to buy even the smallest computer.
Don’t forget. In 1969 they didn’t have micro computers. They didn’t even have mini computers until the mid 70s. In 1969, you are looking at a million dollar budget and you will be buying an IBM monster mainframe computer.
Reminds me of one of my favorite business insults: “He has delusions of adequacy.”
Jim seems to be wanting to buy a computer as some kind of ploy.
But Jim wouldn’t have any knowledge or experience with computers. He seems to have a 21st century idea of a computer. You just buy it, plug it in and use it.
But that is nowhere near the truth in 1969. Buying a computer in 1969 would be about a million times more complicated than that. And the buying is actually the easiest part.
I’m not sure he has a 21st Century idea of computers as much as he has an idea that only comes from what he read in the WSJ. It would be really interesting to see if there was such a story in the WSJ to see what exactly kind of computer they were talking about.
Nitpick: I think the original story was in the New York Times. Cutler called his contact at the WSJ to get a copycat story placed about their firm. They mentioned the ad firm by name so it should be easy to search the Times archives.
[Goes off to search]
Trying to place the date. They were on a farm in upstate New York in shirtsleeves. You don’t do that in March, unless it’s a rare unseasonable day.Even this year’s April has been mostly too cold for that scene. They film in California, of course, but Weiner is normally obsessive about getting the calendar and weather right.
Computers. Every major agency was touting its research department by 1969. SDS and DEC had enormous lines of what were then called minicomputers and so did many other firms starting around 1965. They were expensive, but tens of thousands expensive, not millions. Moving Don’s salary over to a computer department would be more than enough to do the trick. And they need to; they’re way behind the times if Harry is doing things by hand. That’s always been a problem with the show. The characters are the top brass and they outnumber the actual workers. A real-world mid-sized agency like SCP (they have Chevy! that alone makes them a major) would have hundreds of employees scattered across a dozen or more departments.
I normally post here first and then read comments elsewhere, but this episode made so little sense that I started with other critics. And was pleased to find that they all were saying some variation of WTF? Weiner is teasing something and it’s not clear what. Don had to come back - writing separate scenes for him and Betty and Pete and Ted and the others not in the office were destroying the flow. The offer to Don wasn’t a good one - he said something about having to pretend it wasn’t a demotion. Better for him - and the show - to take the demotion internally. Conflict, conflict, conflict.
The movie Don watches according to Sepinwall is Model Shop, released on April 1, 1969, and with a limited release in NYC on February 11, 1969.
Don doesn’t strike me as someone going to see a limited release, so I’d date this episode somewhere in April 1969.
From the other direction, Sterling and Cooper both say they didn’t intend for the suspension to be a permanent firing and Cooper says he thought they’d revisit the issue (maybe not quite this soon but I assume soonish). However they signed on a new Creative Head for a two year contract? I can’t believe the partners weren’t all involved in deciding the terms for their new head of Creative so how did he get a two year contract if two of the senior partners weren’t planning on keeping him around for two years?
Well, they’d have him locked up for 2 years if Don goes away - and if they need to dump him to bring Don back, they just have to buy the new guy out of whatever contract he has. They probably saw it as making good business sense as far as keeping bases covered.
I thought the account was the introduction of what became the Chevy Vega, not all of Chevrolet.
Good grief, how could you come out of that scene thinking that Cutler allied with Harry? Harry pointed out that Cutler needed him (Harry) to mollify the clients (which should be Cutler’s job) and then interrupted Cutler to say he wasn’t interested in what he (Cutler) had to say. Harry was showing open contempt for Cutler, not signs of an alliance.
Harry is still furious about how he’s being treated at SCP, left over from last season’s plotlines.
That was the first scene. Cutler later tried to placate Harry with the WSJ reporter. And if Cutler is indeed lobbying for a computer for Harry (it remains to be seen if this is definitely the case) then it would be huge for winning Harry over. I doubt Cutler gives two craps about any personnel at SC&P but he’s making moves to secure their loyalty. It’s already worked with Joan.
Assuming that every frame of inserted footage in a Mad Men episode is chock full of portentousness, these lines from the NYTimes review may be fun to contemplate:
Heh, heh, heh.
Even a Chevy brand called for legions of minions in those days.
Just like last week’s best line to the effect of “I’d stay here till 1974 to see Betty in the ground.”
That picnic scene was so painful for me. I had a father like that, who let you know when you had ruined things. I could totally experience how those gumdrops went down like lead, because he had screwed up and felt that pit in his stomach.
And she didn’t even get to see him protect her spot on the blanket from being taken!