Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

well, she's needed things from Roger

but yes it's not really in her character to express need

This interview with Bledel seems to make it clear she's toying with Pete:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/interrogation/2012/05/gilmore_girls_actress_alexis_bledel_on_mad_men_interviewed_.html

I knew it would be Tomorrow Never Knows, and when I clocked I was so excited to hear it in the context of Mad Men that Don taking the record out of the sleeve and cuing up the needle seemed excruciatingly long. When it finally came on, the song has rarely sounded as vital to me. Very well done.

How Weiner got "Tomorrow Never Knows":

Mr. Weiner said he had been trying “for a few years” to get different Beatles songs onto “Mad Men,” but had been rejected by Apple Corps in the past.

To win the company’s approval in this case, Mr. Weiner said, “I had to do a couple things that I don’t like doing, which is share my story line and share my pages.” He added that he received the approval from Apple Corps last fall, about a month before filming started on the episode.

Never watched The Gilmore Girls but was blown away by Alexi Bledel's screen presence in this episode (not just flim-flam for fancying the pants off her, I don't think).

Loved the Harry/Pete phonebooth thing

Tomorrow Never Knows fell a little flat for me.

After all these years, Beatles songs are cropping up here and there – mid-period ones at least (I'm Looking Through You in that Ricky Gervais film Ghost Town, Norwegian Wood in the same and now this)

It would have been funny if he'd put on Yellow Submarine by mistake and really dug it.

lol

Don't really buy Pete being hip enough to be reading Crying of Lot 49 in hardcover in '66.

whoah what I missed that

maybe ken told him to buy it?

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3mx06CD7W1qj441oo1_1280.png
Felt a bit Anthony Soprano being into Sartre.

Pete likes to keep up.

I thought his Head skis looked rather modern, but that's probably just a reflection of the kind of skis my half-sisters' grandmother had rattling around her cupboards.

Pete likes to keep up.

...with the joneses.

felt a bit of bait and switch with the "crying of lot 49" thing -- was hoping Howard and his wife were part of some cult and would tie back into Pete's L.A. experience with the aerospace company.

Hmmm.. V. had already been nominated for the national book award. CoL49 got big ticket reviews in that year (e.g. http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Reviews_of_The_Crying_of_Lot_49 ), but yes, I'd imagine Pete wouldn't necessarily be reading it so close to the publication date. On the other hand, I don't really know how much promotion and hype it had at the time.

he does look a little skeptical in that pic.

it should have ended on this awesomeness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUrGfo-bJo8

does this season need some Dick Whitman action? probably best to let that one simmer but i do miss it, surprisingly. I'm sure it's coming.

I DON'T KNOW WHERE SHE IS. DO YOU KNOW WHERE ABE IS?

do pete and peggy have a child together living with her mother or have i completely imagined this?

You saw her sister's child at the Mom's; she gave her baby away.

ah cool, thanks.

SAVE IT FOR YOUR CONVENTION WHORES

i will, thanks.

is this the end of Don and Megan?

sorry, giving by play-by-play 23 hours late

'i was was raised in the '30s. my dream was indoor plumbing.'

is this the end of Don and Megan?

I don't get that vibe. I just think Don's in a place he's never been before, meaning that he's not calling the shots and he might be okay with that.

love Pete's narcissism when Harry comes into his office to tell him about Megan. juicy office gossip doesn't really affect him - doesn't give a fuck!

I think I meant the Don/Megan advertising entity. Peggy sure wasn't up to the chemistry

Logical if boring solution woulda been to keep Megan on part time for the occasional pitch. She'll still he doing the performances at dinners with the clients, unless she starts moving ahead and being to tired to bother, which would certainly cause some tension w don

super-dumb to not ask Megan to still do the pitch, it's an acting gig

The part where Ginsburg was asking Megan if hey gave you clothes when you have a role seemed unusually meta for the show.

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.

i did notice that, but i didn't think it was because she burned any bridges or anything.

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

peggy made the point very clearly that don's nowhere near as sanguine about megan's choices as he lets on. peggy might be wrong, of course, but i get the feeling she isn't. don's trying awful damn hard to be the/a good guy, to respond pleasantly to his loss of control, but he's anything but happy about it.

Touré ‏ @Toure

It cost Mad Men $250k to use the Beatles' “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Lionsgate: it was the most expensive music deal the studio has ever made.

yah: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/how-mad-men-landed-the-beatles-all-you-need-is-love-and-250000/

Asked what he would have done if Apple Corps had once again said no, Mr. Weiner replied: “I don’t know. I would have changed the story.”

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?