Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

Aside from songs that have been played in the occasional commercial or the Beatles cartoon series that was shown on ABC in the 1960s, the use of “Tomorrow Never Knows” on “Mad Men” is likely one of the only times that a Beatles track has been used in a TV show, music and advertising executives say.

"all you need is love" was in the final episode of the prisoner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2MIvUx9uiQ

british though

it WAS really fun (in a fourth-wall-breaking way) to go through that prolonged moment of anticipation where you're like "no way are they going to actually play it, but look he's putting the record on the turntable and everything, surely they'll have to cut to black or...? HOLY SHIT THEY'RE ACTUALLY PLAYING IT" but still, that's a bundle of money. otoh i think the season as a whole has been stellar so far, i don't know that infusing the money into the rest of the episodes would've made them even better than they already were.

figured it was more like opening the bird cage door and just letting her go!

this reminded me: speaking about mad men being too "on the nose," wasn't there an early episode where roger literally gave joan a birdcage while asking her to be his kept mistress?

yeah beatles license doesn't become ridiculously expensive until much later (same is true of licensing in general, as anyone who's tried to watch wkrp lately can tell you). obv prices went up across the board but part of me wonders if the nike 'revolution' fiasco didn't play a role in making beatles song permissions and licensing costs so prohibitory, for awhile at least. zeppelin famously were the same way (and in many ways still are - no zep or beatles on spotify), not allowing 'dazed and confused' for dazed and confused for example, but increasingly they've been much more willing to grant permission, if the price is right.

"Rock and Roll" was suppsed to be the credits music for D & C--Page signed off, but Plant said no.

there was that video of Jack Black and the kids begging LZ to let them use "Immigrant Song" for School of Rock.

my favourite music rights story is Louis CK getting The Who.

well the who is obv not too hard to get but w/ the budgets he's working w/ it is amazing he pulled that off, esp such a lengthy excerpt

yeah, i think he paid 7,000 for what would normally cost 150,000.

as anyone who's tried to watch wkrp lately can tell you

yeah i actually have taped-off-air boots of that show because i can't stand the library music or 3rd-tier shit they've picked to replace the original music cues.

"it was noteworthy that she didn't even have to put in her two weeks. usually when you quit and they tell you to go home on the same day, it means you've burned your bridges. the fact that don sent her home at lunch and she didn't get to stick around for the perfunctory cake... ouch. i think you guys may be overstating don's goodwill re megan leaving."

Don was totally turned on when Megan turned things around with Heinz, now that she left the agency for something that she always wanted to do since she was a little girl (eye roll) I think he is more than disappointed. Interesting to see how he'll deal. Will he still respect her?

Was a huge GG fan and loved seeing Alexis Bledel but thought she came off just a bit too Rory. It's her voice and how she still holds her body and that heart! It was the heart!!!

getting down to the important matters - had there been colour photos of earth from space in 1966?

yeah, i think he paid 7,000 for what would normally cost 150,000.

Ha, yep, he sent a few episodes to Townshend who was impressed enough to only charge a tiny fraction of what he'd normally get.

as anyone who's tried to watch wkrp lately can tell you

That has to do with licensing for sale rather than broadcast, I think. It was why Freaks and Geeks took a few years to appear on DVD, and the Wrecking Crew doc has been held up in licensing limbo for a while, too. Hopefully Weiner & co. have already gotten this sorted out for the season 5 DVD.

I like that Don wasn't able to make it all the way through Tomorrow Never Knows. He is officially not with it anymore, and Megan leaving is only gonna make his job that much harder. He used to make a lot more effort to keep up with things. Maybe Roger's going to try to get him to try lsd.

Don seemed really old in this last episode, like painfully old.

Don was totally turned on when Megan turned things around with Heinz, now that she left the agency for something that she always wanted to do since she was a little girl (eye roll) I think he is more than disappointed. Interesting to see how he'll deal. Will he still respect her?

i think he's worried he might not be faithful without her around him as often.

Or that she might not be faithful to him. They don't have very much in common outside of work, I could see her falling for some bohemian theater type now that the novelty of the advertising world has worn off.

Yeah I thought the set-up of don not knowing where she was at least introduced the possibility he could be on the receiving end of some infidelity this time around, obv he was with Betty but that was more her finally cheating rather than pre-empting him.

Pete's committing serial infidelity and is reading Thomas Pynchon. Don's sad-eyed, monogamous, and demonstrates a total lack of interest in Revolver. Weird, huh?

Hopefully Weiner & co. have already gotten this sorted out for the season 5 DVD.

no, for the DVD edition the beatles track is replaced by "mrs. brown you've got a lovely daughter"

Yeah I thought the set-up of don not knowing where she was at least introduced the possibility he could be on the receiving end of some infidelity this time around, obv he was with Betty but that was more her finally cheating rather than pre-empting him.

given that he is a serial cheater, i was surprised that he wasn't more suspicious, but maybe he was just putting on a good front.

ya I was expecting explode-y Don, maybe he's learned a lesson from their big fight.

I liked when Peggy told Don to shut up.

Peggy and Don fighting like an old married couple was o_0

The fever dream episode at least implied that he might have cheated on Megan no? When the woman came into his apartment she said they had done it a couple of months previously iirc - granted she was a hallucination, but maybe that part was true?

she was referring to a much earlier incident, when he'd been married to Betty, iirc

The elevator bit this ep was so awesome and random.

And SYMBOLIC.

given that he is a serial cheater, i was surprised that he wasn't more suspicious, but maybe he was just putting on a good front.

i think don's putting on a hell of a front these days (and self-medicating to keep it up). the cracks give it away.

if you were being kind you could say he's trying hard at marriage.

http://www.ifc.com/fix/2012/05/reggie-watts-makes-music-with-jon-hamm

It was funny when Alexis Bledel said "your irises are so blue and round"

the best "world has changed" moment all season was when the lab lady told them they weren't allowed to smoke in the lab

so i am probably the only person who had no idea cool whip was diary free, and is completely weirded out by this? also Megan jumping ship to become an actress is the first is let down of the series for me.

which one is a bigger deal for you tho

I'm in here with my eyes covered because I'm 4 episodes behind but I just want to say:

LOL DON DRAPER IN A PLAID SPORT COAT LOLOLOL

That coat gave me nightmares.

so sad

Megan is a disappointment because i have enjoyed seeing don happy and sort of growing with a lady, now i feel he will go by the wayside, i guess i thought she could save him in a way. also giving up a real job for a childhood dream while ignoring the partnership she had been creating with don just seems juvenile, after she worked so hard to have the job. but yeah don was respectable, still

oh no way, i thought they telegraphed that having your wife as a coworker/subordinate in that atmosphere with so many crossed lines of obedience and obligation was a total minefield. i wouldn't work there either!

now they get to play with don feeling like his life's work has been insulted and he can't speak or even see that clearly. great!

Yeah megan quitting a) made me like her more because she isn't just living for don's pleasure and b) makes things more interesting.
I def did not get why she was so overwrought w peggy and the creative peons

so we are to believe megan never really cared about working at scdp? that it was not only because her father reprimanded her about her true passion for acting (which is more admirable in the eyes of a marxist than advertising?) but that she had these deep seated resentments building in her? she was the one to pursue the job,i mean it was her idea.

It's actually quite funny watching Peggy being blindsided, confused and a bit butthurt by the revelation that working in advertising maybe isn't the most amazing thing a talented and bright girl might want to do.

Megan comes from an academic upper-middle class background from what I can see and watching that sit awkwardly with these overpriveleged vacuous commercial guys and scrappier types who have worked their way up from the bottom is a perspective we haven't really seen much of yet.

It's also something you see in offices all over the place, how many people feel their academic and other talents are being wasted in even successful, highly-paid jobs? I say go Megan.

The conversation between Joan and Peggy about her was pretty illuminating as well, Joan didn't get Megan, and what Don sees in Megan, at all.

No I think Joan understands both of their basic motivations pretty well (esp. Don's) but what I don't think that Joan understands or is interested in is copy-writing and why someone would or would not find it fulfilling work on a creative level.

"so we are to believe megan never really cared about working at scdp?"

No I think she cared about/was interested in the job until she actually did it and then she realized it wasn't what she wanted. And her father (not because he thought acting was more admirable, but more cause he's a shit disturber) just provided a reminder about her previous cares.

Weirdest sequence was Ginsburg complaining about her not having any money for lunch and owing him?!?! I'm still trying to parse this.

stereotypically Jewish? I dunno, I had trouble w/ understanding that too.

I think Megan's character is making sense... the birthday performance, the acting lessons, the maybe-pretend-angry chases around the house. I think she is a little too 'liberated' for stodgy-ol' Don, and I'm predicting the season's teaser poster (Don inna chair facing a naked mannequin) presages Betty chemo baldness & nude Megan onstage. Don is/will be "embarrassed" by her openness abt. sex, I think?

Haha no I understood Ginsburg complaining about it! I'd complain about that! I didn't understand why she consistently didn't have any money?!

oh, I see. I hadn't even picked up on that – I was too amused by the interaction b/w two of my favorite characters.

Forreals - $15 is a relatively small amount now, esp in NYC, but in 1966? I'd complain, too!