That surprises me. But I’m glad to get the information.
I was born in '75, and, while it doesn’t really resonate with me, I do recognize it as being one of the iconic ads of all time. That said, I only found out this week that “I’d Like To Teach the World to Sing” comes from the Coke ad, not the other way around. I always thought it was the Coke ad riffing on it. We sang it in grammar school music class, and I remember it, along with “Up With People” (how’s that for dating myself?) as one of the first songs I learned to sing.
I was too young (2) to remember it when it first came out, but I must have seen it in the early 70s. It must have run for a few years.
We too learned it and sang it in class — must have been 1977. Teacher brought in a guitar. Our classroom were in groups of four with no walls in between. Very '70s.
It surprised me too! The case for cheesiness can certainly be made. But sometimes I find cheesy things moving - for no particular reason.
I always thought that, too (that it was an existing song, to which Coke had bought the rights). I would have gone on thinking that if not for the coverage surrounding the MM finale, which revealed that the song had been developed expressly for the ad campaign.
The Coca-Cola has a long article about it. Here’s a bit:
I’m about the same age as Gene Draper so it was only the last few seasons of the show where things took place that I remember. I certainly remember the ad but didn’t realize at the time how groundbreaking it was.
My Mom is the same age as Peggy. MM might be her favorite show of all time because of how well they captured the time through the decade. The early shows would have items that she hadn’t thought about in years. She and my step-dad were roaring with laughter at the Esalen scenes. Especially the cast of characters that were there attending the seminar. She said to him, “can you believe that we took all of that shit so seriously?”
Nothing. Just as there’s no guarantees that Pete won’t sleep with a Wichita cocktail waitress, Roger won’t divorce Marie, Joan’s business won’t fail or Peggy won’t mortally wound Stan with a spear. I believe Weiner said that his intent was to leave the characters without guarantees but in a slightly better place than we found them back when the show started.
(Well, except for Betty I guess)
The finale Mad Style is up. I missed a lot of the details like Roger & Marie both wearing wedding rings, or that Joan’s mother was in the last scene with her. And even Tom & Lorenzo missed the significance of Betty’s dress.
Here’s the correct Mad Style link.
I wish my mom had lived to see MM. It absolutely, unquestionably would have been her favorite TV show of all time. She went to work for DDB right about exactly the time that Don was sitting on that windswept cliff with that shit-eating grin on his face. She would have loved the first-season scene of Don on the commuter train, staring at the Volkswagen ‘Lemon’ ad in mesmerized admiration. She would have loved the references to her own firm, and the potshots at J. Walter Thompson. I think it was really the only bright light for her in an otherwise miserable life.
I’m banned from commenting at Tom and Lorenzo’s site, but I am going to miss their fascinating fashion analysis of Mad Men. They promised to continue the tradition with other shows, though. They did note the great vintage Halloween decorations and autumn leaves tacked up all over the offices of McCann. It’s always amused me when this happens at work, you just know there are some young women behind it, sticking tacky little seasonal decorations up on a blah wood panelled board room wall, and every desk festooned with a pumpkin or black cat or scarecrow.
I’d be interested in people’s thoughts regarding Don’s brief foray into racing at the salt flats. What was Weiner referencing? What was the significance? Do his young friends go onto something important?
I thought it was a great ending. I thought everyone’s end was fitting. The whole show is about how people don’t radically change; if they change, it’s only in little bits, with a lot of work.
I loved Joan starting her own business. I liked Richard, but Joan and Richard were wanting different things from life. But he did make her realize that her life was “unfinished property”, she just went in a different direction than what he wanted.
Peggy’s ending was perfect to me. I laughed so hard when Stan was confessing his feelings and she responded “What?!” twice. And that her last scene was her working late into the night, like she’s done so many times before, but this time she has her love there supporting her.
Sally’s ending was bittersweet. I liked how she’s there supporting Betty as best as she can. I think she’ll be able to move on with her life reasonably well, and travel and have adventures just like both parents want for her.
Don’s ending is fitting too. I think he’s had an epiphany, and will have changed some, but not become a whole new person. I think on the Tom and Lorenzo blog they speculated that the woman who reached out her hand and got him to come to the session at the end will be the next (but not last) Mrs. Draper, and that sounds plausible.
I agree. Peggy has dated several guys through the show, who have all been not quite right for her. There was Duck, who was an older alcoholic, Mark, who didn’t understand how important work was to her, Abe, who was a beatnik and actively criticized her field, Ted, who seemed perfect for her other than that he was already married with kids, and of course Pete, who she had a one night stand and baby with.
Peggy has always been looking for love. Stan is someone who understands her, and will support her, and won’t want her to change. He’ll just be able to remind her sometimes to chill out.
Right, it would have been untrue to her if she quit her job and ran off with Stan to live in the mountains or something like that. But she was still continuing on the plan that the headhunter suggested, about putting her time in at McCann so she could quadruple her salary and go anywhere she wanted. She just also had a boyfriend there by her side as she does it.
I thought that was sweet. Pete’s slimy in some ways, but also one of the (if not the most) progressive character on the show. I liked how he predicted Peggy being the creative director in 1980, and that people will brag that they worked with her.
Pete will definitely have an adjustment period working in Wichita. Tom and Lorenzo said they’d pay money to see the spinoff The Campbells of Wichita, and I would definitely pitch money in for that.
I don’t think it was out of nowhere. The whole show has had Joan trying to navigate her work life and love life. I had the impression she had started working thinking it was the way to land a man and become an arm candy housewife, but discovered that she liked working and was good at her job. When she’s married to Greg, at one point he tells her that he got a good job and she won’t have to work again, but she helps launch the new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce company.
I don’t think she’s made a final decision between love and career, it’s just that Richard and her were wanting different things. Joan is slightly older than Peggy, and I believe would have been raised more to think that she needs a man in her life. She’s come around to the realization that she doesn’t. She very well could meet Mr. Perfect doing her job, or through friends, but she won’t feel incomplete if she doesn’t.
Right, he could have been in a hippie shirt, but was in a white work shirt. Maybe the same one he originally drove off from New York in.
Weiner did an interview with Time, and he doesn’t specifically say that Don created the Coke ad, though the article does.
I don’t know if it was referencing anything in particular, and I don’t know if the young friends go on to do anything important. I think the episode started like that for a few reasons:
[ul]
[li]Showing how Don is still living the hobo life, living out of a bag, going from place to place, being the mysterious stranger. This was just the latest thing, he just as easily could have been doing odd jobs on a ranch in Montana, or helping fix up some fire engines in Colorado, or doing any number of things in any number of places.[/li][li]He might not be Don Draper, admired ad man at the moment, but he still has command of the room and receives respect. The young guys don’t quite know who he is, but still let him race their car across the desert. [/li][li]As someone else pointed out in this thread, him speeding across the salt flats at the beginning contrasts with him meditating, sitting perfectly still at the end. [/li][li]Also, he could have kept living that hobo life for months or years. I don’t know if he was happy, but he wasn’t wrestling with ennui or whatever it was like when he was at the office earlier in the season. It wasn’t until the call with Sally, and then with Betty, that he was wrecked.[/li][/ul]
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Mid-life crisis.
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No matter how fast he goes, he can’t escape his past.
I think it was an important moment as well when Peggy told Stan about her baby and the adoption and how it’s impacted her feelings on motherhood and Stan didn’t try to change her mind or anything but just did some supportive listening. The only other people who know about that are her mother/sister, Don and Pete. I don’t think she even told her other boyfriends.
And Greg was such a disappointing end for her. On paper she’s marrying a doctor! What could be finer for a woman office worker? In reality, beyond all his other numerous flaws, he was even a shitty doctor who had to join the Army just so he could be a surgeon (out of wartime necessity). Obviously no man was going to be her salvation; this was something she’d have to do on her own.
Weiner is right about forced breaks versus binge watching seasons. Not that I don’t appreciate the modern ability to have a thousand full seasons or series at my fingertips but it’s a very different experience versus stewing over a plot for a week.
Well, there you go, from the horse’s mouth: Don does go back to McCann-Erickson and does create the Coke ad.
His comment that the revolution failed makes a lot of sense of the last season. Those of us who lived in the late sixties knew people who seriously thought the revolution would happen. But they mostly wound up getting sucked into the system, just like our heroes. And especially Don.
Did anyone else notice that the guy who played the loser who Don hugs looks a lot like Weiner?