I'm calling it the Mad Men Lost Weekend. I spent most of the weekend watching the Mad Men marathon on AMC. I couldn't look away. I've been having trouble sleeping lately, so when I would wake up at 4 am, I would put the tv on and catch Mad Men, I would watch it during the day, I would watch it at night, I would watch it before the gym and after the gym, I would run out for lunch and dinner, but it was all wrapped around Mad Men. I came to the conclusion that I want to be Don Drapper. Not so much him, but I want to have his attitude about life.
The final episodes showed me what I want to do, to get in a car and keep driving to make changes in my life.
I did notice so many things about the show during the marathon that I didn't catch the first time around, I think that I'm half asleep on Sunday nights at 10 pm, so I have only been half watching the show in its regular prime time spot, but watching the marathon has shown me so much about what makes the show great, there are so many nuances and so many great characters.
I never realized how much they drink or drank in the 1960s. It's like fuel to them, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Before a meeting, during a meeting and after a meeting, they would drink if they got a big contract, they would drink if they lost a big contract; they would enter an office and pour a drink, they would enter a restaurant and drink for a long time before ordering food. It looks like they would drink mostly Beefeater and Canadian Club. Straight up. Did they have a product placment deal with the show?
They smoked a lot, too. Betty found out the hard way in the end.
Roger and Joan were my two favorite characters. They both had character. Betty was my least favorite. She had no character.
I loved that you could tell what year it was by the real-life news they would show going on at the time. I loved that the magazines and newspapers and even soft drink cans for Tab and Coke, were totally accurate. The tv shows were accurate for the times and years, too. The attention to detail was perfectly accurate. And oh yea, the clothing. Perfect as well as the furniture and New York City and Los Angeles. Perfect for the times. In one episide Peggy is asked if she is willing to move to the West 80s in NYC, that is was a dangerous area to be in. Same with riding the subway. It was not the thing to do for the faint of heart.
The ads were all great, too. Real products, most still exist to this day, many don't. Mohawk Airlines is real, they went out of business in 1972; Burger Chef was real, it went out of business in 1996. Guess Stirling Cooper couldn't save Mohawk Airlines. I remember the first few seasons they would show the tv show sponsors' original commercials during the show, you know, from the 1960s, rather than today's commercials. And of course in the end we find out (spoiler alert) that Don created the famous Coca Cola "I'd like to teach the world to sing" commercial.
One thing I learned from Don is that you will fall a lot, and it's always important to pick yourself up. That's always been one of my favorite sayings, Vince Lombardi said it first, "It doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down but how many times you get up." I've always lived by that saying. I think that's my "saying" on Facebook, they ask you to have a quote or motto.
I was never a major fan of Mad Men, I watched it because it was an excellent show, but I don't know if I'll miss it. I'm surprised I watched all the reruns during the marathon because I usually find it hard to watch a dramatic tv show over and over again, but with Mad Men I think it's more than the story, it's about the time period, the styles, the people and the acting. The story of each episode doesn't really matter as much as the feeling you get when watching it. It envelopes you. It's a time machine. An accurate time machine from 1960 to 1970.