I Watched Mad Men Last Night

I mainly watched it because I was curious and I'd accidentally caught a special on the making of the show last weekend.

As far as accuracy - the special said they paid extra attention to things like the towel bars and the kid's toys in a later episode (Etch-a-Sketches didn't come out till the summer of 1960 - so the little boy had to settle for a slinky for Christmas '59). Although, I'm sure we've all read on AdScam how everything else wasn't really accurate.

Maybe I'm sappy, but the only person I really liked as a human being was Draper's wife because I felt sorry for her. Who knows, that may change if she talks more...

Anyways - dumbest thing in my book? After the meeting where Draper figures out the younger guy (Campbell?) retrieved the research report on smoking and he's confronting him in the office about stealing it and he says something like, "it's not like we have machines that copy documents exactly." WTF? I get it, you don't have copy machines - although I did think you had secretaries. I'm sure there was a better way to imply that than coming up with such a dumb line.

Well, that and the whole electric typewriter scene. I have a hard time believing women were that dumb. Didn't she just come from one of the better secretary schools? Didn't they have electric typewriters? I haven't used a typewriter in years (electric or not) but those two things didn't seem all that different.

2 comments:

  1. George Parker said...

    TIV...
    Good points... They made a big deal about historical accuracy - Hence the Xerox 914 - First dry copier - wasn't introduced 'til 1962... But they ghad copiers, you had to type a stencil, then run off copies - The Gestetner! And the women being too dumb to understand an electric typewriter, and the awful line that "they must have made them easy enough for women to use." Were just awful. Someone should have reminded the teenage writers that two of the Ad Biz greats, Mary Wells and Shirley Policoff were both going great guns at the time. Or, they could have asked an old fart like me!
    Cheers/George

  2. Thinking In Vain said...

    Ah, I figured they were trying to drive home the point that something like a Xerox hadn't been invented yet - but I didn't buy for a second that they didn't have *anything*.

    That whole typewriter scene was just horrible.

    And you're right, they should've asked you. ;)



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