"Mad Men" reviewed by a "Mad Man!"

OK. So I just watched “Mad Men”… Not bad, not great. One thumb up, one thumb down. The next Sopranos, it certainly isn’t. Now the details… My first job in the States was in 1964 at Benton & Bowles, New York, so I’m one of the few people who watched it tonight that can speak from experience. First, the nit picks… Yes, we all smoked like chimneys, but we never smoked in elevators as one of the young AE’s did. That was a no-no along with not taking your hat off. Yes we all drank like fishes, but we did it at lunch time and after work. No one had drink trays and ice buckets like the Don Draper character. And no one poured their first Scotch with an Alka Seltzer at nine in the morning as the gay AD character, Salvatore did. Even when I worked for Dick Lord at Warwick & Legler, which was the main Seagram Agency, we’d get ploughed at lunchtime after three martini lunches, but we never cracked open a bottle in the office. Plus, you never served drinks in the middle of a presentation as they did with the retail lady client. And in the over forty years I’ve been in the business, I’ve never heard anyone refer to themselves as “Mad-Men.” Final nit pick… The scene were Don Draper throws DR. Guttman’s research in the trash is dead wrong. In the late fifties and early sixties, all the major agencies went apeshit for motivational research and practitioners like Dr Ernst Dichter and others. You can read all about it in Vance Packard’s “The Hidden Persuaders” and hopefully soon in the book I’m working on now called “The Ubiquitous Persuaders,” a fifty year update on Packard’s book. The Draper character would have been all over her research like a hound in heat! But my biggest problem I have is with the writing. Yes, it’s written to show that all the male characters are testosterone filled egomaniacs and the women are raging nymphomaniacs, and deep down inside they’re terribly insecure… But the fucking words are wrong… In the scene where Don has taken the retail lady to a bar to apologize, he delivers a series of really limp dick lines, culminating in… “Love is a word invented by guys like me to sell nylons!” Oh fucking please, even when I was a snot nose kid of 26 in my first Mad Ave agency job, I could think up better lines than that to pull chicks. In all the marketing leading up to this series (and there’s been a ton of it) much was made of how they got the interiors, the clothes, even the typewriters correct. It’s too bad they couldn’t get some of the dialogue right. But when you consider most of the writers working on the show weren’t even born in 1960 that may have something to do with it. And my final gripe… The Don Draper Creative Director reminds me of those Doris Day advertising movies, where she fucking does everything, including taking the photography. Even in those days, there were writers and Art Directors and we worked in teams… My first Art Director partner was the legendary Gene Federico. It wasn’t down to one Leonardo DaVinci guy in a corner office who pulled miracles out of his arse. But, having said all that, I’ll keep watching it to see if the sex gets better. But I’ll Tivo it to kill the sixteen fucking ads I had to sit through in the hour it was on!!!

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My favorite Three Martini lunch bar. Anyone recognize it... Ivan?

Comments

[hammer]

A little literary liscence.

Mad Men is about whem these people mad gobs of money.

Get it?

.

[the count]

doc, of course i recognize the public house of refreshments under the king cole painting where the bartender greets you, "welcome back, mr. parker".

[the lower depths]

it was still a mediocre show. just how much cliché can you stand in one hour? accurate sets don't help poor storylines.

spend less on set research and design and more on good writing.

[Auntie Christ]

"The Hidden Persuaders" inspired some of Bob Newharts funniest bits on "The Button Down Mind of....", still funnier than a lot of crappy comedians' work today.

I don't know why Hollywood keeps getting it wrong with the ad game. "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" is probably the first foray into that world, and as you say, it focuses on Tony Randall as a one man band creative department. But at least you had Jayne Mansfields tits to look at.

"Thirtysomething" had it about right with that rat bastard Miles Drentell as the head of the ad agency, DAA. When he can't break his main competitor, the agency owned by lead characters Michael and Elliot, he buys them out. Michael and Elliot try to stage a coup and try to take over DAA,. When Miles finds out, instead of firing them, he promotes Michael -- making him Elliots supervisor. They end up hating each other to the point that Elliot quits the agency and the ad game all together. Now THAT'S reality.

[ken Krimstein]

mostly agreed. it now makes me understand why italians felt so outtraged by the sopranos at first. they get it sort of right. the orbachs lady -- will draper have to pull in a real creative team? would orbachs have gone to bbdo in those days? weren't they already tearing it up at ddb? weren't creative already pretty much angry, self-loathing, artistes? i can only hope we get a real, freaky, art director or writer in there to tear it up. but they have to have all that sex and pc stuff in there. and weren't the men's hair all brylcreamed back? on the other hand, it's the single greatest ad for smoking since the marlboro men took boot hill to the tune of the magnificent seven! i'll tivo it too -- oh, and how about geico going for that annoying lead in crap before the commercials??!! i thought they were above that!! but the bars look cool.

[ken Krimstein]

oh, and on thirtysomething -- totally agree. the little zen garden on miles drentell's desk was genius.

[ken Krimstein]

king cole room -- st. regis hotel

[David Burn]

Nice "nits," George. They should consult with you. Or at least read this fucking blog.

[Steve Hall]

Indeed, George. You should be on the writing staff or at least consult so those young fucks can get it right:-)

[Jetpacks]

Miles Drentell was my hero - a villian you loved to hate - in the Hans Gruber mold.

[t]

i liked the show. yeah, they hit you over the head with the cliche's up front, but i think that was just part of the set up. by the end of the show i had a sense of where things were going with the draper character and they left me wanting to watch again. my guess is they will pull back on the sensationalism and delve into the reality of the characters more as they move on.

as far as the accuracy of the show goes, i guess i give them a little creative license to spice things up a bit, as long as they come up with interesting story lines, i'm cool with that. i'm gonna give it a few more episodes and see if it holds my interest.

[PeterGlad]

Jesus George! Give the show a chance! It's a 13 episode series. I'm sure you must recognize that in a period piece like this, that is about an industry that many viewers are not intimately familiar with (especially in that era), and where several brand new characters need to be introduced, and where a "feel" for the times and its idiosynracies must be established - all in 50 minutes -- it's tough to also build a super complex plot and storyline content into the opening episode too.
I think they did a GREAT job given the above. And for me, I am very interested to see how the issues and people evolve - and am quite interested in giving Weiner and his great Cast a chance to elevate a show with so much promise...

[Fizzandpop]

That's the King Cole bar in the St Regis.

And we did bust out the booze for the client in meetings.

[Kristina B]

I was one of those women from the day; the one who pulled the miracles out of my arse...and the one who had to cover for the boss still hung over and get him coffee with 6 spoons of sugar. The boss with the full bar set up in his bottom file cabinet drawer. Somehow I managed to avoid sleeping with the boss, although he did threaten to fire me because I wouldn't.

Still, I loved this review. Unfortunately, I missed it (with all the hype, how did I manage that?) but having read this mad man's review, I'm going to make a point to watch it. And then maybe write a Mad Woman's review.

Btw; I grew up and am now a bonafide Creative Director. Those days didn't scare me. I've loved it and stayed with it longer than I care to admit to.

[HighJive]

As most of you probably already know, thirtysomething owed its authenticity to input from real adpeople—I believe Fallon staffers were consultants. Mad Men took clichés and wrapped it all into standard drama. The public will no doubt dig the shit. I thought some of the actors were good—particularly the lead guy. The only other decent ad industry depiction (besides thirtysomething) was Lost in America. I think Albert Brooks used to work in advertising.

[TomMessner]

Interesting, the show and the comments. Amusing cliche is the guy has a Congressional Medal of Honor and fears a client meeting. The client, incidentally, is shown a campaign that it did thirty years before the meeting. "It's toasted." The stupid client, who clearly has his memory in a warp, likes the campaign, and the ridiculous rationale. The department store has to be Bonwit Teller, which was next to Tiffany's, not Ohrbach's. Agency that comes closest has to be BBDO which did, I thought, the Republicans for a while and lost money on them or something like that. But they had Tareyton cigarettes. George Parker must have worked at more genteel agencies in more genteel buildings; I remember people smoking in elevators in the early 70s. The show, though, should have been shot in Black and White like the production stills I saw a few months ago; then the details would have played better.

[Jay Jacobs]

Yeah, before they moved the mural to where it was today it was in The Old King Cole Room @ The St.Regis where my wife and I had our wedding recepton, October 20th, 1979.

Love Maxfield Parrish but my wife didn't like that Sammy Cahn's band was booked for the room that night and he was our musical muse for the evening.

Even more interesting we're still married....

Jay

[George Parker]

Guys...
Great comments, I shall do a full wrap up post after a couple of those lunch time Martinis... Unfortunately, Boise doesn't have anything quite resembling the King Cole Bar... But it's a hell of a lot cheaper.
Later/George

[veedub]

Tom Messner no less. you worked at Carl Ally right? from what i heard that might have made a better TV show.

[makethelogobigger]

Sorry, but accurate or not, thirtysomething was like last night’s first episode of Mad Men, depressing. (Thirtysomething was a slit your wrist exercise in ‘poor me, I just don't know what I want to do with my life’ narcissism.) I want to say Mad men was full of dread but I think the new receptionist with the great ankles! actually smiled–once.

Even when they were out drinking they managed to make the celebration lack any humor, and they were smiling.

There has not been a great movie about an ad agency yet. Skip this shit and rent Thank You For Smoking.

[TomMessner]

Carl Ally has been done: The World Wrestling Federation calls it Royal Rumble. Carl himself smoked, but would never take a cigarette account. "Suicidal, but not homicidal."
I guess BBDO is the background; a friend told me they did have Luckies in the early 60s along with other ATC brands. Mal MacDougall who was there has a piece in enxt week's Adweek about the show.
Advertising Man by Jack Dillon could make a great movie. Surprised no one has ever optioned it or sought to develop it.
There was a very dark film--whose name escapes me now--done in 1940 or 1941--starring Stu Erwin about the ad business. I saw it once many years ago, and although I remember it as a remarkable film, I can't think of the name. Maybe someone here knows it.

[TomMessner]

The Stu Erwin film was called
IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU

[veedub]

Tom,

ha! in my first job I worked for Ed McCabe. he was before your time at Carl Ally. but i always felt i was born twenty years two late. i loved hearing the ad lore of that time and meeting Ed's friends from the 60s. they were a different breed.

[HighJive]

makethelogobigger,

Actually, I never watched thirtysomething—just heard its agency depiction was authentic.

Could it be there are no great movies about advertising because, well, what we do is not that interesting? At least not interesting from a movie standpoint. Where’s the drama in watching people in meetings or seeing writers and art directors sitting around brainstorming? I still might argue Lost in America wasn’t bad, although the movie itself was not ad agency-focused. Other notable depictions include Putney Swope or Boomerang with Eddie Murphy.

[Auntie Christ]

I'll bet anything that people think advertising is actually how it's depicted in Bewitched....some oaf stumbles into a creative execution that wows a client, all magic and serendipity, like selling the beef stew product lagging in the market as a gourmet dog food. No one today would want to watch the reality: wasting hours in conference calls, sitting around brainstorming, looking through old issues of CA, presenting to some numbskull who just wants to put their own stamp on the work without bothering to look at the brief, being forced to mentor junior AEs who don't have a clue or production departments that are more like unionized vendors, on and on....I'm all for entertainment, but if HBO advertisies that this is a show about the adgame, I wanna see some blood.

[makethelogobigger]

hj - I have to check out Putney now that a few people here have recommended it.

@nobody in particular, it's not that I want to see more of what I already experience 9-5, sorry, 5-9, in terms of meetings and bs, but with your close writing partner or team, there's some funny things that go on that never makes it to pitches or client meetings.

Yet I never see those things in films set in agencies or about advertising.

The Larry Sanders Show on HBO may have been the closest thing to a mocumentary that covers the brainstorming process with some killer writing that was funny as hell. Even Tom Hanks and his film That Thing You Do nailed the period in look and tone and found time to inject humor.

[barbara lippert]

George-

Two thumbs way up for your one thumb up,one thumb down review. You captured the weird tone perfectly. I think the writers were too influenced by Helen Gurley Brown, i,e, all women were ``mouseburgers'' or sex maniacs.
Also, were there IBM Selectrics in the early '60s? I tought they came later.
B. Lippert

[TomMessner]

Re: Putney. Rumor has it Robert Downey Senior, a Prince, is at work on a sequel to Putney Swope, 38 years after. Truth and Soul Advertising. "I don't want to rock the boat," Putney says. "I want to sink the boat."
Re: Mad Men. Actually the most unbelievable part of the show was the lame preparation and presentation to the Lucky Strike people. This was a time when cigarette advertisers were the third biggest television advertiser after cars and the mass of packaged goods. Yet the agency was going to show a poster with the word, Relax. More likely they would have shown 20 executions (TV) of the Lotte Lenya researcher's death wish thoughts plus another 20 from the ambitious groom-to-be on the rise executive plus some last minute thoughts from the secretary on her first day at work ("I just started to smoke, but maybe you could use this in your presentation," she says. And her boss says, "I'll have the art department do it up. You can never have too much in a presentation."). Then a finale by the most creative mind on Madison Avenue. Making a living in advertising may have been easy, but it never was that easy.

[TomMessner]

An amusing note I got from Evan Stark. I am sure he wouldn't mind my sharing it with you all:
For those of you who have cable, there is a new TV show that started
on AMC this week.
It’s about advertising in the 1960’s, it’s called “Mad Men” and it was created and written by a man who was born in 1965 and therefore
knows all about advertising in the 60’s.
To be fair to him, he also wrote many episodes of “The Sopranos” and he’s not Italian, so maybe he researches well.
Anyway, the reason I am telling you about “Mad Men” is because there was a documentary made, I suppose as a promo for the show, under the working title “Legends of Advertising”, but which I learned will actually be called “Advertising Has-beens” if and when it goes on the air.
And I, as one of advertising’s has-beens, may or may not appear in it.
I was interviewed and filmed for the piece, but since I haven’t
seen it, I’m not sure whether I will actually appear in it or be just another face on the cutting room floor.
For those of you who haven’t seen me in recent years, if I do
appear on your television screen, don’t be shocked by my aged
appearance.
Because the makers of the documentary felt that I look much too young to have been working in advertising in the 1960’s, they made me up to look about 20 years older than I actually look.
When they asked me to come in for the filming, they asked me to
wear something retro that looked like 1960’s fashion, but I told them I didn’t have anything that old.
However, when I looked in my closet, I realized that I actually
don’t have anything newer than the clothes of that era, so I was able
to wear something of my own rather than something from their wardrobe.
“Mad Men”, I learned from the review in “The New York Times” is
all about the huge salaries ad men earned, and about their pursuit of
drink, drugs and sex.
Obviously, any of you who worked in advertising then know that we didn’t earn big money and if it wasn’t for the drinking, drugs and womanizing, we all would have gone into some other field.
I have no plans to appear in anything else in the near future, so if you see someone who resembles me on a forthcoming TV program, it’s probably just someone who was made up by the same guy who did me.

[Brett]

If the production team is going to preen itself on its period atmosphere, historical accuracy is not optional.

These young Turks need a consultant who is not convinced that 1960 is the dark ages.

[Brett]

The IBM Selectric was introduced in 1961--one year after the setting of this episode. I suppose they chose to highlight this inaccuracy as they knew many in their audience would recognize the old warhorse.

[Dave]

>> "I think Albert Brooks used to work in advertising." <<

hijive, Albert's family name is Einstein (can you believe it? Albert Einstein)...and his brothers are actor, comedian, writer, producer Bob Einstein (Super Dave Osborne) and Cliff Einstein, now Chairman of L.A. agency Dailey & Associates (formerly CEO and CD). Cliff has had parts in "Real Life," "Modern Romance" and "Defending Your Life."

[R A]

I agree with you guys, I can't believe all of those idiots and journalists who review this show as "must see tv", it just shows how stupid and shallow the american population has become, i saw the creator of the show, and he reminds me of all of those shallow gay hairstylists (obviously matthew weiner is gay, no offense meant thow) who are all obsessed about style but present no substance, nor care for any substance in their life. It looks like the creator is one of those fashion-obsessed Vogue Magazine worshippers, because the show looks great, but has no actual soul or any storyline that you would actually want to follow. I saw the making of, and the creator got on my nerves just because I know that type of person, obsessed with making things look beautiful but doesn't care about people's real feelings or sentiments, and that's exactly what this show is about, and is also reflective of the American public today where people like Paris Hilton, Victoria Beckham, and Nicole Richie become instant celebrities but have no actual talent to merit their star. And that's exactly what this show delivers: All style and no substance. And I bet Matthew Weiner thought he was being sly and subtle and smart with the way he presented the show, which is just hilarious considering how horrible this show is.

[Veronica Mosey]

Thank GOD you wrote this review! I actually walked out of my livingroom cursing when the youngest exec bought that gun. Yes, of course, EVERYONE in 1960 owned guns and you could bring them into the office! What?!!?! What I hate the most about the show is that every single personality is the same. All I can tell you is that my grandmother had my grandfather by the balls and that started in 1940! It's as if there were no individuals with their own feelings and their own personalities. I somehow feel vindicated right now because my boyfriend and I actually got into a fight because I was trying to explain how, while I believe everything looks beautiful on the show, the writing is simply awful. Nothing has happened in five episodes!!! Thank you so much for your opinion.

[Todd]

"Give the show a break"? NO! Everything must be exactly as it was in George's memory! The show was written for him after all.

It's a diversion written for today's biggest t.v. demo - is that you George? It's not a history lesson and every C.D. is not the same... thank god. Lighten up my man, don't come on so heavy - no one will buy your book.