Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (Mad Men) : The discussion

I think the ending is clear. Don goes back to New York and busts into McCann's office. With his recent tour of the midwest he's now finally connected to his Miller Lite customers. He gives the best pitch of his career and becomes a legend.

He finally accepts that he is a soulless entity who gets more satisfaction out of boozing and whoring than family. He realizes that advertising is the only thing he's good at and the only happiness he'll ever know.

One day his heart surgeon ex-neighbor comes into his office. His wife has left him, his career has nosedived and he now has a very obvious drinking and/or drug problem. He blames his failures on Don and pushes him through a window. Thus reenacting the opening credits.

As for the rest of the characters, who gives a shit? Don is the only part of the show that matters
 
AMC's sister networks to black out programming during Mad Men season finale

All eyes will be on AMC Sunday night as the network airs Mad Men’s series finale. To make sure of it, AMC’s sister networks (BBC America, IFC, Sundance and WE) will suspend regular programing for an hour beginning at 10 p.m. ET on Sunday, instead sharing a special message commemorating Mad Men, the network announced Tuesday.

AMC will also celebrate the end of the show’s eight-year run by airing a marathon of every episode starting at 6 p.m. ET Wednesday night.

“Turning AMC over to Mad Men and airing every episode of every season as a lead-in to the finale on Sunday seems a fitting way to continue celebrating what this series has meant to the fans, to television and to our network,” said AMC President Charlie Collier in a statement. “We are also enormously appreciative of our sister networks who are paying tribute to this remarkable program that has had such an impact on our entire company.”

gotdamn...the finale better bet' not disappoint

will be interesting to see the stats afterwards tho; that mofo will do crazy numbers
 
Sal From Mad Men Is Glad He Never Came Back

In a long interview with Esquire, Mad Men's Bryan Batt finally answers the question fans have been asking since 2009: Why didn't we ever see Salvatore Romano again after his unfortunate firing in season three? (If you've forgotten, the closeted art director was let go after refusing to be pimped out to client Lee Garner Jr.) As Matt Weiner has indicated, the original plan did call for Sal to make a reappearance. "Matt mentioned along the way that Sal could come back as a big director, but I think the storyline took a different route," Batt said. And though his years on the show were some of the best of his life, he's relieved he was never asked to return.

"When Michael [Gladis, who played Paul Kinsey] returned for his Hare Krishna moment I asked him what it was like," Batt revealed. "He told me, 'Don't do it.' I guess it was kind of like living the last act of Our Town or having sex with an ex. You know it's going to be great for that one time, but then it's over. You know it's over, and you can never go back."

So what does Batt think Sal's up to in 1970? He says he hopes Sal had the strength to come out: "Unfortunately he'd have to break little Kitty's heart, but I think she had the clues by the end of the third season. I think his mother dies too. His Italian mother dies and it was an impetus to go, 'You know what? I'm pretending for you, for all these other people. I'm going to be who I am.' I imagine him walking through the West Village as Stonewall happens and getting swept up in it." It's not quite a happy ending, but as Batt says, that's not the Mad Men way: "On Mad Men, what you think is going to happen doesn't happen, but what does happen is wonderful in a sad way."

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http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a34980/mad-men-salvatore-romano-bryan-batt/
 
Man that ending sucked. I took it as Don returned and took the experiences of the retreat and pitched the Coke commercial. Very disappointed with that finale.
 
I gotta let this sink in...


This....

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I'm going to have to watch this at least 3 more times.

****Edit**** I loved the episode and minus Stan and Peggy linking up (Seriously IMO Stan telling Peggy to go fuck herself was the best way to close that dynamic; Stan deserves a better person than what Peggy is but I guess they had to give the bitch something) I had no problem with the ending. Coca-Cola?!? Weiner was teasing us with that ending from 3 weeks out. Hell Joan was evening doing it in Key West!


'Cause it's the real thing!':lol:



* two cents *
 
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Need to rewatch this and soak it all in.

Sidebar: I worked on Coke at an ad agency. Had the idea to bring back the Hilltop commercial - the same one aired on Mad Men – and remix the "I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke" song. Coke actually found the original 45 and sent it to us. We took that shit to the studio, remix it and presented it. Everyone at Coke loved it except Coke's Director of Music. He killed that shit. We were suppose to fly out to London to rerecord the whole record. This was one of my biggest professional disappointments. Seeing the ending brought back some memories.
 
thats probably what matthew weiner will say in the commentary on DVD,that the ending is one of those"Let the audience interpret it however they want to" ones

That worked with Sopranos... Not going to work here. This shit went out with a whimper.
 
I'm sorry, I'm disappointed! I really hate when a great show has a terrible season finale!
 
Yeah it was. I think they got it right. The ending had me ROTFLMBAO.

Ooooooooooooooommmmmm.....then that fucking smile.
 
Need to rewatch this and soak it all in.

Sidebar: I worked on Coke at an ad agency. Had the idea to bring back the Hilltop commercial - the same one aired on Mad Men – and remix the "I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke" song. Coke actually found the original 45 and sent it to us. We took that shit to the studio, remix it and presented it. Everyone at Coke loved it except Coke's Director of Music. He killed that shit. We were suppose to fly out to London to rerecord the whole record. This was one of my biggest professional disappointments. Seeing the ending brought back some memories.

How did you break into advertising?
 
How did you break into advertising?
One of my homeboys who I worked with previously was an art director at an agency. They needed a copywriter to work an account that was targeting the urban market. He pulled me in despite the fact I didn't know shit about advertising.

God bless, the first script I wrote got bought by the client and I was good money ever since. Worked on national campaigns including Coca-Cola. That Coke shit fucked me up though. Was not only disapointed in that music shit, but we came up with an idea for a Coke TV commercial that everyone loved, but Coke has a health executive who said that our ad was too effective and essentially promoted obesity. Our spot got killed. That shit happened roughly the same week as the Hilltop remix. I almost quit advertising after all that shit.
 
I loved the Mad Men ending -

It was nice wrap up of the series from the First Episode to the final scene - we see a shitty cynical guy in a shitty but creative job go forward and become something of a better person -

The last scene represent beginning - happiness and understanding -

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Exf63KPXF6w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

While the rest of the class is saying the mantra Om - Don's is saying his own Mantra HOME - over the last few episodes people have been saying to him Come Home, Go Home, We want you back home - So as he says HOME - you hear the ding (as if an idea comes to him and the Coke Ad begins) - so the first line in the Coke Ad is I like the buy the world a HOME and furnish it with love ...

Bottom line - Don loves advertising - he just hated his life - he hated being a "loser" and a fuck up -

If he can get therapy (even some woo woo stuff like Esalen) then he will like himself more and get back to doing what he love creating ads - working with Peggy and being happy.
 
How about a Mad Men spinoff called “Better Phone Joan” that’s all about her dominating her business, making a shit ton of money, smashing the patriarchy, killing it as a single mom, and burning McCann Erikson to the ground.
 
One of my homeboys who I worked with previously was an art director at an agency. They needed a copywriter to work an account that was targeting the urban market. He pulled me in despite the fact I didn't know shit about advertising.

God bless, the first script I wrote got bought by the client and I was good money ever since. Worked on national campaigns including Coca-Cola. That Coke shit fucked me up though. Was not only disapointed in that music shit, but we came up with an idea for a Coke TV commercial that everyone loved, but Coke has a health executive who said that our ad was too effective and essentially promoted obesity. Our spot got killed. That shit happened roughly the same week as the Hilltop remix. I almost quit advertising after all that shit.

What's your advice for those who went to school for it and wants to break in?
 
What's your advice for those who went to school for it and wants to break in?
It sounds shitty, but I didn't go to school for advertising or marketing. I fell into an opportunity and ran with it.

Here is what I council when I get asked:
1.) Network. Network like your life depends on it, because it really does. It's an industry based on relationships. The more relationships you have, the more opportunities you will have.
2.) Be aware. You need to stay up on the news and trends in the industry. You never want to be be left in the dark regarding the business.
3.) Create your opportunities. Being inspired by Mad Men and the Coke ad, get your people and shoot your own Coke Hilltop ad on your iPhone or a DSLR. Then use social media to promote it. Use that as your reel or proof of what you can do.
4.) Know the business. Are you on the account, strategy, or creative side? Know what you want to do in order to do it.
5.) Be prepared to suffer. The ad game is a rough business. It's not for the weak of mind. You may have to intern or do some low level shit, pay dues and work your way up.
6.) Consider starting your own agency. The days of the BBDO and Y&R and other big boys running every account is over. Too many brands out there. There are a number of "boutique" agencies that get by by having one or two great accounts. If you can assemble a team, leverage a relationship, you can create your own agency.

Much success.
 
I loved the Mad Men ending -

It was nice wrap up of the series from the First Episode to the final scene - we see a shitty cynical guy in a shitty but creative job go forward and become something of a better person -

The last scene represent beginning - happiness and understanding -

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Exf63KPXF6w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

While the rest of the class is saying the mantra Om - Don's is saying his own Mantra HOME - over the last few episodes people have been saying to him Come Home, Go Home, We want you back home - So as he says HOME - you hear the ding (as if an idea comes to him and the Coke Ad begins) - so the first line in the Coke Ad is I like the buy the world a HOME and furnish it with love ...

Bottom line - Don loves advertising - he just hated his life - he hated being a "loser" and a fuck up -

If he can get therapy (even some woo woo stuff like Esalen) then he will like himself more and get back to doing what he love creating ads - working with Peggy and being happy.

that Coke commercial on youtube.. :lol: all the"Mad Men finale brought me here" comments
 
‘Mad Men’ Finale: Coca-Cola Reacts to Use of Iconic Ad

Sounds like the Coca-Cola Company would like to buy Don Draper a Coke right about now.

The soft drink supplier has offered its reaction to AMC’s “Mad Men” series finale, which used the company’s iconic “Hilltop” ad to great effect on Sunday night, praising the “rich story” that the AMC period drama told as it came to a close.

In a statement from a spokesperson, the company also noted that the finale “gave everyone inside and outside the company — some for the first time — a chance to experience the magic of ‘Hilltop’ within the context of its creation and the times.”

“We’ve had limited awareness around the brand’s role in the series’ final episodes, and what a rich story they decided to tell. Mad Men is one of the most popular TV shows of all time, and ‘Hilltop’ is an iconic piece of Coca-Cola history,” the company’s statement reads.

In the final moments of the finale, Don Draper, who had lately been on a quest of self-discovery, is seen at a spiritual retreat with others. The episode then cuts to the iconic commercial.

While the finale led some viewers to theorize that they were intended to think that Draper had dreamed up the iconic ad, the “Hilltop” spot — which became a cultural phenomenon upon its release in the early 1970s — was actually conceived by Bill Backer, then-creative director on the Coca-Cola account for the McCann Erickson advertising agency, in 1971.
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Why I liked the Mad Men finale: To me it was always a clever (but not great) show about the ascent of clever (but not great) content.</p>&mdash; John Green (@johngreen) <a href="https://twitter.com/johngreen/status/600140017646891010">May 18, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>​
 
It was a great show - like a Philip Roth novel- we see the a man who is on top based on his multiple statuses and then we see the ground under his feet shake and toppling over his perceived place in the world and how he deals with it -

Weiner like Roth(and most American Jews of a certain age) are always exploring identity, who am I, where is my place in the world, and the big one,what is love?

When you think of Don, he is a Jewish iconography, a person of dubious background, who takes a WASP name and goes forward under another identity, succeeds and but the success feels hollow because he can never be his authentic self -

When you at Mad men through that lens then it becomes clear the direction that Weiner wants to go - even the scene at Rachel's wedding when Don is look at her family sitting Shiva and he feels the draw of family and a culture but is told he cannot participate - that is how every assimilated Jew feels - you are no longer part of the tribe.

So when Don goes on his road trip, it is him TRYING to figure it all out but he is doing a piss poor job of it but when he is moved to a structured environment he has a breakthrough because unlike in the past he is forced to do it with the help of others, not alone as has always been.

If you look at Don at the end of the series, he is not alone, a breakthrough, and that makes him happy but what is happiness - its the moment before you need more happiness (the Hedonist Motto) but he will (may) find out like another hedonist, Roger, that you can find a wellspring of happiness in the right person or situation as long as you are not alone.
 
I bought into Peggy and Stan because they are always there for each other and those office relationships always evolve into more
Pete got what he wanted his entire life:RESPECT
Joan loved that rich guy but her passion for being her own boss and running things outweighed the love
Roger settling down yeah all players eventually do so....well some anyway
Don well he's going to be in and out on things for the rest of his life which includes women and his career
He will always be at some ad agency because his ideas are great and agencies know it
 
I feel like I need to watch the whole season (or at least this half season) again just to make sure I don't go in on the finale off just emotion.
 
Thinking on the finale after a few days...

I felt like it was an ending that made sense for all characters, but it still left me somewhat wanting more. The Coca Cola ad aside, I wanted to see Don's story have a true conclusion.
 
'Mad Men' Creator Matthew Weiner Answers Your Burning Finale Questions

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Now that we’ve all had a few days to digest, dissect, and debate the Mad Men series finale, creator Matthew Weiner is ready to offer his perspective.

During an extensive talk with novelist A.M. Homes (a personal friend of Weiner’s) at the New York Public Library on Wednesday, Weiner offered his first public comments following Sunday’s final episode. And yes, he shed a bit of light on the finale’s ambiguous ending, with the sight of Don Draper meditating at a hippie retreat giving way to the famous “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” commercial.



So did Don create that ad? Weiner confirmed he did, saying that “the idea that some enlightened state, and not just co-option, might have created something that is very pure” appealed to him. Weiner also rejected the notion that the 1971 ad is “corny”: “The people who think that ad is corny probably see a lot of life like that. Five years before that, black people and white people couldn’t be in an ad together… To me, it’s the best ad ever made."

He said he even showed the ad to 15-year-old cast member Kiernan Shipka to gauge her reaction, and she said, "That song is so beautiful… I don’t think there are people with faces that pure on TV these days.”




Weiner admitted that the finale’s big romantic pairing of Peggy and Stan wasn’t one he had been planning on from the start of the series: “That had to be proved to me.” And he defended the finale’s reliance on phone conversations; he said conventional TV writing wisdom insists that “it’s a big scene! Get ‘em in the same room!” but “I feel like a lot of the most important things that have ever happened to me have happened over the phone.”

Overall, how does Weiner feel about the finale, now that it’s aired? “I’m so pleased that people enjoyed it, and seem to enjoy it exactly as it was intended,” he said, adding that “you can’t get a hundred percent approval rating, or you’ve done something dumb.”

More tidbits about the finale, and Mad Men in general, from Weiner’s talk:

* He recalled the story of casting Leonard, the sad therapy patient in the finale who inspires Don’s breakthrough: He told the show’s casting director, “It’s probably the most important role of the series. I need somebody who’s not famous, and who can cry.” And he says actor Evan Arnold pulled it off beautifully: “We shot it a few times, but even at the table read… we felt it.”


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* When Mad Men was being developed, an AMC executive asked Weiner about Don Draper, “Who’s his Melfi?” (Referring, of course, to Tony’s therapist on The Sopranos.) But Weiner “realized these guys didn’t talk to anyone… The word 'depressed’ was not part of the vocabulary. Men certainly did not express their feelings, except in bar fights.” He added, “A lot of his, what we would now call self-medication — drinking, womanizing — is to avoid his feelings.”

* While Don couldn’t confide in his loved ones, he knew how to charm people he just met. “Don likes strangers,” Weiner said. “Don likes winning strangers over. And that is what advertising is. And once he gets to know you, he doesn’t like you. I think that’s why he married Megan over Faye.”

* Weiner also defended the decision to send Don on a road trip in the final episodes that separated him from the rest of the main characters. “I want to see Don on his own,” he said. “I want to do an episode of The Fugitive, where Don can be anyone. He’s on the run… everyone has dreams of being on the run. You’ve committed a crime… am I the only one? I like the idea that he would come to this place and it would be about other people.”

* Another shocking revelation in the finale, as Weiner put it: “Don Draper in jeans? We’ve never seen that. [Costume designer] Janie [Bryant] was saving it. She got the prison-style jeans that were in style then. And that flannel shirt… He’s definitely out of uniform.”

* He revealed that Betty’s storyline, with her being diagnosed with terminal cancer in the penultimate episode, was in the works for a while: “I knew very early on. Her mother had just died in the pilot, and we felt like this woman’s not gonna live long… I think there’s a lesson to be learned about the randomness of things, and she also had a predisposition to some cancer-causing behavior.”

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* One story that surprised him in the course of writing the series: Joan’s decision to keep Roger’s baby and be a single mom. In fact, “I didn’t even know Joan was a main character until I met Christina Hendricks. Then I said, 'tie her up'… financially.” He also addressed Joan’s feminist streak: “I love the fact that it’s not philosophical for her. This woman made a practical decision not to take any s–t anymore.”

* He touched on the sometimes nasty budget battles he had with AMC and Lionsgate, saying, “You come in on budget the first season, and Lionsgate cuts your budget the next year!… We’re fighting over money for the finale.” He also alluded to making his bosses “a billion dollars” due to the show’s success and AMC’s subsequent IPO, but he says they’re in a good place now: “For the most part, all the wounds have healed.”

* Weiner’s not a fan of binge-watching. If he makes another TV series (and “I hope to one day”), and it’s with a streaming service like Netflix, “I would hope to convince them to let me roll them out one at a time, so we can have that shared experience. I love the waiting. I love the marination. When you watch an entire season of a show in a day, it’s not the same.”

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/mad-men-finale-matthew-weiner-119490567755.html
 
So did Don create that ad? Weiner confirmed he did, saying that “the idea that some enlightened state, and not just co-option, might have created something that is very pure” appealed to him. Weiner also rejected the notion that the 1971 ad is “corny”: “The people who think that ad is corny probably see a lot of life like that. Five years before that, black people and white people couldn’t be in an ad together… To me, it’s the best ad ever made."

yea i knew it :rolleyes:

even Coca-Cola themselves acknowledged it on their twitter"Thank you Don Draper,for thinking of us." :lol:
 
It made no sense to me because it was stupid.

However, I would like to see more of January Jones humping household appliances.

She was a total perv.

BTW, bet I'm the only one with the coke song on their YT history list from over a year ago.

How about impressing me for change. :smh::hmm::D
 
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