Not a wig. Back in the day, one made use of “falls,” i.e., hunks of hair used to augment one’s own head of same. These were hair extensions clipped to your own hair or attached to a headband. This was very common. At the party, Megan definitely had extra hair.
Maybe she was DEAD THE WHOLE TIME.
Throughout the series, Don has consistently treated Harry with mild contempt and was always looking for an excuse to avoid him. It was a testament to how uncomfortable he was at the party last week that he regarded drinks with Harry as preferable. Harry’s always been so clueless he never picked up on the signals that Don can’t stand him and thought Don drinking with him was a sign of friendship which is why he let the news slip.
It’s been years since I saw it but the way I remembered it was Harry basically made up the “Television Department” as a gambit to keep his job when lay offs were circulating. And as someone else mentioned, Joan was instrumental in getting it off the ground and then left behind. He isn’t an awful person but I can understand why some people, especially Joan, don’t like him.
I think we’ve all worked with a Harry at some point or another.
(I was just speaking for myself about Harry being a cheater and a dick. I just found that Hare Krishna episode so personally distasteful, like a really bad smell that still lingers.)
And the phone call was coming from inside the house!
I think that’s basically right. They’ll take safe and mediocre as long as they are relatively profitable doing boring stuff. It beats the roller coaster of emotions that is Don. But, when they lose Chevy, the partners may be far more willing to take gambles - and that may mean they go to Don more often.
Speak of, I did love it how Pete was like, of course Don should come to this meeting. Why don’t you want him here?
How about Don’s little celebration after he was given the lead presenter role for the pitch. I thought it was a great moment.
Not to mention every time they add a partner her influence wanes. She only got a 5% stake when she made partner and that was before the merger.
I just copy & paste the episode summer from AMC’s site. Maybe the “exclusive club” was the table with Don & Peggy at the end.
Explained up thread- mile high club.
I didn’t get it either at first.
See posts #49 and #50… the “exclusive club” question has been, I believe, definitively answered.
I agree that would be cool if that were the case, but the look on Ken’s face after he said the line suggested to me that he was mortified at the slip. If he was trolling, I would have expected a self-assured smirk as he watched the other guys squirm.
Just like Peggy’s original Burger Chef idea was good, but not he best, the writers could have run that scene through the mill a couple more times to get something better (like your idea… I love it). They’ve already had a couple scenes with Ken acting awkwardly about his eye… (remember him tossing the keys to Joan and them going wide because presumably his depth perception was off or something)…Time for him to own it.
I think it’s Cutler who has the philosophy of “Find out what the client wants and then offer it back to them”. It’s not a bad way to stay in business, if the guy says he’s thinking an ad with a happy family at a dinner table then the client will likely be happy with your happy family pitch. I think Lou plays much the same game and so, as Bert told Don, there’s been no “crisis” in creative.
Don’s the genius who would explain why the client’s idea sucks but has a brilliant concept that you can’t help but agree is much better. Peggy and Pete still recognize this and so does Roger. It goes directly against Cutler’s philosophy so he’s never going to like Don. Bert isn’t willing these days to take the risks that go with Don’s genius. Joan’s likely still pissed about Jaguar and the scuttled public offering and dislikes how Don’s methods affected her there.
I don’t know if he’s any more of a dick then the rest of the crew. He’s always been an ill fit though. Wasn’t he the one who had sex with some secretary at the Christmas party and then tearfully called his wife to confess? I’m not against feeling bad about it in principle but he was obviously apart from the rest of the Sterling Cooper horndogs. Spending time in California gave him something to feel cool and smug about when he would come back to New York. He’s like a socially awkward kid whose parents bought him tickets to some hot concert thinking now he’ll fit in.
Excellent summation!
Could I ask why it takes so long to finish an advertising slogan, that it necessitates spending all weekend ‘working on it’ with co-workers, in the office? Peggy comes up with a slogan, Don says that’s a good one, I want to see a finished presentation on Monday. So she and her co-workers labor away at the office all weekend. Why does it take so long?
It’s not that it HAS to take that long, but because the client had already accepted one strategy and they realized it wasn’t up to their (Don’s & Peggy’s) standards, they wanted to get a new one together asap.
Bear in mind that Don and Peggy really don’t have anything else to do. Also, that creative interplay/brainstorming is REALLY fun, especially if you’re good at it, and they’re enjoying this more than anything else they might be doing that weekend. Seriously. It’s not *work *for them.
Anyway, creativity is a mysterious process. Sometimes the ideas come right away and sometimes it’s like trying to give birth to triplets…through your nose. You can’t force it and yet you DO have a deadline.
I assume you’re asking generally and not specifically about last Sunday’s episode. Usually it seemed as though they’d settle on a theme or phrase and then Don would expect them to create artwork (multiple choices), maybe variants on the phrase, additional copy for the ads, etc. They need to go from one slogan you could scribble on a napkin to a presentation you can show to a client and ask money for.
In the case of episode 7.06 it was because Don and Peggy were starting all over after Peggy decided to scrap the entire original pitch.
The slogan is the smallest part of the work and sometimes it’s not even chosen until after everything else is done.
Take a look at the actual Burger Chef commercial I linked to earlier. It’s hard to tell what the slogan is. The sunny images of kids eating and families entering are just as important. And an ad campaign is not one commercial. It’s television and radio and local newspapers and billboards and promotional devices and a million other things. The presentations don’t last a minute and a half as they do on television. They’re a full show in and of themselves.
Getting a good slogan is hard in a different way. Most real world slogans aren’t all that iconically memorable. They exist to summarize the pitch made in the rest of the material surrounding it. Again, it’s the smallest part not the whole point.
Finally, an actual Mad Men episode! Pitches, clients, Madison Avenue stuff. Plus suitable personal stuff about Don, Peggy, Joan and Pete. Roger being a wise guy in the steam room!
The remark Peggy made ~“What is this, 1955?” was so perfect for this show.
And now, a technical matter: When was this episode set? They mention two things: I am Curious, Yellow (debuted in the US in March 1969) and Oh! Calcutta! which opened June 17th. So the latter provides a lower bound.
Don mentions he was going to LA to see Megan (and could bring some of her stuff) in July. So it’s not July yet. Late June, 1969 is a good guess. But it’s strange Don doesn’t say “next month” or some such.
I have been troubled by how little time elapsed between Harry and Cutler deciding to get the IBM 360 and having it installed, now with proprietary software. It’s just not practical to have all that done in even a half year, let alone a couple months.
Speaking of Harry: Cutler seems him as an ally, but he gave a heads up to Don about the tobacco deal. Things may not fall Cutler’s way. Roger is royally ticked off. Joan may be mainly supporting him since she is rethinking her feelings after the Bob proposal.
No one sees that Megan is moving out permanently? Taking her “summer clothes” and her fondue pot to LA. Won’t need her winter clothes in LA. This was the last hurrah for Don and Megan. She wanted to end it on a good note. She was surprised by the idea that he was planning on seeing her in July. They are over. It’s alimony time. (The Amy thing from last week may have been part of this.)
Pete can have a girlfriend. Trudy can’t date. Pete is still Pete.
I got the feeling from set candids and such that Don and Peggy were going to end up close some way, looks like that’s happening.
Oh course Burger Chef was a real chain. If it wasn’t for BC, my niece and nephew wouldn’t exist.
Why does the announcer say “Next time on Mad Men”? They show clips from this and earlier shows? Just say “Here’s some clips you’ve already seen.” and leave it at that.