Mad Men Season 4

Jon Hamm is on the Comedy Death Ray podcast every once in a while. He has a great sense of humor -- very un-Draper like -- and apparently hangs out with a lot of comedians. I could see him being tight with Rudd.

 

And Hamm is a big time hockey fan. This is a great promo from a year or so ago.

"I have seen Hall & Oates" Awesome

 

I remember one of Hamms first appearances on the Kimmel show. Apparently he is/was a regular on NFL Sundays at Kimmel's place before Mad Men came along.

Interesting note - Hamm lost his mother to cancer at 10 and was raised mostly by his grandparents.

 

The book upon which the show was based, while very much of its time, was inspired. Loesser did
a spectacular job with the songs, and the casting of Morse (and Rudy Vallee) was on the money,
but the importance of the original source material to the eventual success of the show cannot be
underestimated.

Groundhog!

 

Another reason to want to have a beer with the guy

 

The Big Ragu? Oh shit, if I'm Joey, I shut the hell up right now. A pissed-off Joan makes life at SCDP a living hell!

 

Did I miss the explanation of why Draper started writing? I liked it - with the music it gave the episode a very noir type feel to it.

One of the things I like best about the show is how characters can be really suave one minute and make the most jackass comments the next.

The best line came early - "I feel like Margaret Meade."

 

Can anyone besides me clearly tell when its Weiner's writing vs. the rest of the writers?

Kind of surprised by this episode and how Don took a sudden turn. Also, I find it hard to keep up with the date of the show and how fast the women have started standing up for themselves.

 

He started writing for the same reason he started swimming laps.

 

The prime inspiration for the Draper character -- Draper Daniels, head of creative for Burnett, back in the day -- wrote an autobiography. Weiner's being consistent.

 

How self aware has Don become?


BTW how common was getting head in the back of a cab in 1965 from such a proper looking woman?

 

Weiner almost always gets a co-writing credit on every script. He was listed as the sole writer on last week's "The Suitcase" which is fitting because it was essentially a three act, two person play.

The switch in tone and style was a bit jarring this week, but I thought it still worked. Sepinwall made a good point in his recap that part of the intrigue of Don is that we rarely know what he's feeling or thinking, that it all has to be conveyed by Hamm through facial expressions, so it was a little disarming to hear him doing a crime noir voice over.