I don’t understand why the Betty character is still part of the show, unless there are kid issues coming. Her entire life is spent 50 miles away from the ad business, and she’s only a marginal part of Don’s nonwork life.
Well, she enjoyed her brief stint modelling again back in Season 1 (?). Until the agency tried to leverage it against Don to make him jump companies and they decided to “go in another direction”.
Yeah, you need to watch it in order from the beginning. Betty has plenty of reason to be mad at Don, from a kid’s birthday party to a creative psychiatry, any single incident would put most families in divorce court.
In my office building, smoking was allowed inside up to as late as 1992 - in some offices, there seemed to be a permanent cloud of smoke.
I have been paying attention to the ad agency’s bigwig’s private bars-they seem to favor Smirnoff Vodka, Canadian Club Whiskey, and Jameson’s Irish Whiskey-were these brands big in 1965?
I also seem to remember that one guy had a bottle of Kamchatka Vodka-bottom-shelf stuff today-maybe it was upscale back then?
Looks like advertising was a tremendous pile of fun back in the 1960’s-cuthroat, but fun.
I got the impression that she tolerated Don up until the moment that Jimmy Barrett told her Don was having an affair with his wife. He didn’t supply any proof, but he didn’t need to. The reality seemed to crystallize in Betty’s eyes at that moment, and the illusion that kept the marriage alive was over.
Again, stressing how much people smoked everywhere in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. It was horrible for non-smokers and allergic or ill people – you couldn’t even be safe from the smoke in your own home, if you had friends who smoked. In a college class in 1971, one professor said there would be no smoking in his classroom – students smoke in all classes back then!. He said that coming into someone’s house or room and smoking was the equivalent of pissing on the rug and carpet, and not allowed. I adored him.
Even in non-smoking areas of airplanes, the stench of smoke still drifted forward. Didn’t see the first non-smoking areas in restaurants until the late 1970’s.
I’m so happy about how much times have changed in this area.
Oh, all my grad school profs, as late as the 1980’s, had bottles of booze in their desks, and partied hard at night. With students, as well as colleagues.
Except that she took Don back, after discovering she was pregnant. She asked around enough to discover she could have obtained an abortion; strictly speaking, they were illegal, but ladies with money could find relatively safe options. From Don’s communication with her, we got the idea he would allow a divorce–not easy with New York law. But she considered her options as a divorced woman with kids–or just stared beautifully but blankly into the distance–& called him.
Then she discovered Don’s “real” identity & reconnected with Henry, who had flirted with her when she was pregnant. So she asked to get out & Don finally agreed. (He was screwing the annoying teacher but she didn’t know about that little affair.)
Since I haven’t seen the first years of the show, I have to ask: this British guy-does he bring in any business? He seems to hang around all day, looking for women. The last episode I saw (Don’s new wife throws him a birthday party and does a sexy little dance), the office staff looks on in horror.
Meanwhile, the british guy finds a wallet in a taxicab, with a pictre of a girl-he latches on to that opportunity.
He (the Brit) doesn’t seem too active in getting new business- what is he still around?
Jesus Christ, just watch the fucking show, will you?
Nearly every thread you start on this message board is stupid. At least with a TV show you can go and watch it and find this shit out for yourself, rather than bug everyone else to answer pointless questions.
Ralph: He’s the business manager; it’s his job to do the books, make sure that they have enough money to pay the bills, all I’s dotted, all T’s crossed, etc. Joan (the hot redhead with the newborn) is office manager and his right hand.
Smirnoff and Jameson’s were pretty much the only brands people could name off the top of their heads for those two types of liquors. Canadian Club started their famous campaign of hiding cases of CC in adventurous locations back in 1967 – which is close enough for *Mad Men *to be contemporaneous.
Most advertising is more like the meeting between Peggy and the Heinz bean guy. You come up with brilliant, ground-breaking ideas that will cause people to stop in their tracks, and they come back with “can’t we have someone carry a picket sign that says ‘We Want Beans’?”
And the modern day equivalent is website design. You come up with a nice clean interface, good colors, and your graphic designer gives you a great logo. Client takes one look and says “Can’t you make it more like this site my nephew made? The text flashes and there’s music!”
mhendo, you know better than this. If you have a problem with another poster, a) don’t read their threads and b) if you can’t control yourself and open the thread, take your wrath to the Pit, don’t go postal in Cafe Society.
I am issuing a warning for personal insults.
twickster, Cafe Society moderator
Of course, if ralph had actually paid attention to the episode he claims to have watched, it would have been perfectly clear to him what Lane’s job at the firm is.
On multiple occasions in that episode—almost every time he was onscreen—Lane was talking about the firm’s shaky finances, asking the partners and employees to keep spending in check, and noting that the company couldn’t afford any new employees or to extend its credit any further. His whole extended conversation with Joan addressed the problems associated with billing and accounts.
What-the-fuck ever. I’ll take the warning if it means that someone points out how ralph is now using Cafe Socety, and not just GQ, as his own personal Google service for stupid questions.
Look at his contributions to this thread:
Nothing but a seemingly-endless series of inane questions and simplistic observations, and not a single effort to engage with anyone who has tried to answer them for him. No effort on his part whatsoever. No thanks to the people who have provided answers; no desire to be part of an actual conversation. Just a litany of “I-saw-this-and-I-want-you-to-explain-it-to-me” questions, just like the majority of the (literally) thousands of threads he has started in GQ.
His sole purpose on this board is apparently asking poorly-thought-out questions and playing almost no intelligent part in the conversations that he starts.
The GQ mods should be ashamed that they’ve enabled him for so long, and it seems that you CS mods are happy to do the same.
Whew!
If you two decide to go get a beer, I’ll tag along.