Speaker 1: We welcome back to Father Balloons Weekly round Up.
Speaker 2: Bye. I am fond Malone and joining me is creator
Speaker 2: of the Red Sox Fever Catch It campaign straight from
Speaker 2: SCDP ahead of copy, Miss Ripley Gene. No, I don't
Speaker 2: want to have a drink. What time is it? Drink?
Speaker 2: A clock is not recognized by the Time Council or
Speaker 2: the Time Lords. Have you been to Gallifray lately? The
Speaker 2: place has gone downhill. This is a weird week if
Speaker 2: you're listening in order. If not, hey, this is just
Speaker 2: another episode. But here's the deal. Ordinarily, the Weekly Roundup
Speaker 2: would have been on Monday in the latest Fusco fest
Speaker 2: here on Friday, but two events conspired against that. First,
Speaker 2: the new Netflix series The Four Seasons premiered yesterday. That's
Speaker 2: the one starring Tina Fey and Will Forte and Steve
Speaker 2: Carell and others, and it's based on the nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: one film written and directed and starring Alan Alda. My
Speaker 2: frequent co host HP and I did an episode about
Speaker 2: the film, so there was no time like the present
Speaker 2: to release it. Also, the next film in the Fusco
Speaker 2: filmography is Thunderheart. HP is currently out and about Chris
Speaker 2: crossing these here United States, so we had to postpone
Speaker 2: and Thunderheart is a fucking great movie that has only
Speaker 2: gained relevancy over the years and now tragedy with the
Speaker 2: recent passing of Val Kilmer. So I wanted that film
Speaker 2: to get the proper attention from both of us, and
Speaker 2: it will be along directly. If you're a new midnight
Speaker 2: viewer because of Fusco Fest, thank you for joining us,
Speaker 2: and welcome to what this crazy bullshit is like when
Speaker 2: I'm left to my own devices. A lot of things
Speaker 2: have happened since last week got together, So you and
Speaker 2: I shall we begin my condolences to God for the
Speaker 2: recent passing of Pope Francis. You can send flowers to heaven.
Speaker 2: Actually God took him, so no condolences to you, sir.
Speaker 2: Has it ever occurred that sending flowers to a funeral
Speaker 2: is like sending dozens of corpses. I don't sleep a
Speaker 2: lot gang midnight viewers. You're like the Peanut Gallery, and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to cook up some cool midnight viewing
Speaker 2: promotional shit. Ripley jeans slatbrace. How about a bubble enclosed
Speaker 2: drawing a father Malone? But he's bald and there are
Speaker 2: little mental shavings in there, and you use a little
Speaker 2: wand with a magnet on the end to give me
Speaker 2: a hairstyle. Maybe just a button, you know, a pin.
Speaker 2: I was big into buttons in high school. Oh man,
Speaker 2: My lapels were the leading with buttons. There was a
Speaker 2: priest at my school who knew my name but called
Speaker 2: me Badge. Badge did you see The Doors? I was
Speaker 2: watching it and I thought, Badge is gonna love this movie.
Speaker 2: He was a cool clergyman. And I still love a
Speaker 2: good button. I still have every one of those goddamn
Speaker 2: lapel pins. I have a Gremlins two promotional button that
Speaker 2: does not announce it's a Gremlins two promotional button, which
Speaker 2: is my favorite kind of advertising obleak. It just says
Speaker 2: Splice of Life, Genetic Labs in the most eighties font imaginable.
Speaker 2: When Patrick Nagel dreams, he dreams in this font. I
Speaker 2: got that button at a creation convention back in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine, and now three fucking decades later, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: be giving out my own at a convention right here
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas. What convention? Well, I'm glad you asked.
Speaker 2: That's the Nightmare in Vegas show in October at the
Speaker 2: silverton I can do some other shit other than buttons.
Speaker 2: What are the kids into these days? Wacky wallwalkers, oversized
Speaker 2: novelty sunglasses, those little puzzles that's a ball bearing and
Speaker 2: you gotta tilt it to navigate around a little plastic labyrinth?
Speaker 2: Or is everything popcorn buckets? Sincerely? What is going on
Speaker 2: with popcorn buckets? It was cute for two fucking seconds.
Speaker 2: That is the promotional item we're obsessed with from movie theaters.
Speaker 2: Why because that one ill designed to sandworm? Now everything
Speaker 2: is how can we make this molded plastic most look
Speaker 2: like a seventies blow up doll? Did you see Thunderbolts? No,
Speaker 2: but I fucked the popcorn bucket.
Speaker 3: Pal from a.
Speaker 2: Row Jack Blu Rays seventy eight, I'm gonna assume he's
Speaker 2: from the long and proud line of Blu Rays seventy
Speaker 2: eight is an Avian in origin. Well Jack has gone
Speaker 2: ahead and completely thrown the upcoming musical episode into chaos
Speaker 2: by introducing a second contender. That's how low stakes this
Speaker 2: shit is. Gang. We've had two votes and now we
Speaker 2: officially have two candidates. One is American pop that's the
Speaker 2: Ralph Bakshi animated grimy, grubby take about American popular music
Speaker 2: that I'd like to point out that that movie predicts
Speaker 2: that the future of American music, the future that we
Speaker 2: are living in right now, is Bob Seger working on
Speaker 2: a night move. Not Bob Seger, but now, thanks to
Speaker 2: mister Blue Ray seventy eight, we have the Frank Oz,
Speaker 2: Howard Ashman, Allan menkin Rick moranis starring Little Shop of Horrors.
Speaker 2: Oh no, don't make me watch what is potentially the
Speaker 2: best rock and roll musical of all time. Don't do that.
Speaker 2: Don't make me once again endure the zenith the Paramount,
Speaker 2: even though this was a Geffen production of mechanical special effects.
Speaker 2: Don't make me listen to the velvet gravel of Levi
Speaker 2: Stubbs voice as Audrey two. Who needs Ellen Green bursting
Speaker 2: out of that leopard print number while knocking down the
Speaker 2: walls of skid row with that fucking powerhouse voice. Certainly
Speaker 2: not me. I'd much rather watch a bunch of rotoscoped
Speaker 2: hippies shooting Heroin while an oil projector beats in time
Speaker 2: with Janis Joplin. As the cost effective method of animated
Speaker 2: backgrounds continue. I don't want to have to reevaluate the
Speaker 2: missing ending of a Little Shop of horse where dozens
Speaker 2: of Kaiju sized plants take over New York and eventually
Speaker 2: smash through the movie screen. So here's the contact at
Speaker 2: Father Malone. That one's easy. That's all these socials or
Speaker 2: Father Malone seven to one at the gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: Those are in the notes. If you want to click
Speaker 2: vote for the one you want us to talk about
Speaker 2: American pop No or a Little Shop of Horrors. Yes,
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm swaying anything at all. In fact,
Speaker 2: as mister blu rayceivity, it has beautifully illustrated. You can
Speaker 2: also suggest your own turn this into a fucking horse
Speaker 2: race or a greyhound race. You know, in my hometown
Speaker 2: of Revere, Massachusetts, they had a greyhound a dog track.
Speaker 2: People would go and bt on the dogs. My grandmother,
Speaker 2: in her later years, was the nurse on staff at
Speaker 2: the Wonderland Dog Track. Come to think of it, there
Speaker 2: was an entire section of Revere, part of Revere Beach
Speaker 2: known as Wonderland. There was the Wonderland Ballroom, and the
Speaker 2: final stop on the Blue Line, the above ground and
Speaker 2: then underground train line was the Wonderland Stop. There's a
Speaker 2: movie it's terrible, called Next Stop of Wonderland. It was
Speaker 2: always kind of a thrill heading home from a day
Speaker 2: in Boston and going back to Wonderland. Anyway, send votes
Speaker 2: for musicals or maybe suggest your room, and maybe don't
Speaker 2: suggest Popeye. I already did that over on the Projection Booth.
Speaker 2: I don't want to watch it again, Okay, next Penn
Speaker 2: palfrom Around the World. I got some backups about the
Speaker 2: recent Tales from the dark Side episode we did over
Speaker 2: on the Friday Show. That was The Milkman Cometh co
Speaker 2: host Chris Dash who bulked at the idea of a
Speaker 2: milkman still in operation in nineteen eighty seven when I
Speaker 2: had a milkman and a frequent show collaborator, Jasmine Eva
Speaker 2: tell's tale of milk delivery into the two thousands in
Speaker 2: glass bottles. No less, that's to probably three centuries of
Speaker 2: milk delivery. The Milkman Cometh, by the way, didn't mention
Speaker 2: the fact that that is probably an ejaculation joke as
Speaker 2: a title. I mean, it does end with a guy's
Speaker 2: wife giving birth to the Milkman's inhuman child. Our man
Speaker 2: in Scotland sent in the button Ness Lighthouse in Dundee
Speaker 2: for perusal. It's actually closer to a town called and
Speaker 2: now I'm going to butcher it Carnowsty. The lighthouse itself
Speaker 2: looks damn fine. I'll take it. That is my ultimate goal.
Speaker 2: My lighthouse fascination goes way deeper than Stevie Wayne and
Speaker 2: the Kab Lighthouse in the Fog. I've been not obsessed
Speaker 2: with them since I was very wee there just practicing
Speaker 2: for my future residence. What are the chances for an
Speaker 2: unskilled American to naturalize to somewhere like Scotland. I have
Speaker 2: nothing unique to contribute, but you always hear about situation
Speaker 2: like there are these chain of islands in the government
Speaker 2: will buy you a house and set you up because
Speaker 2: the general store needs tending to Are any of those
Speaker 2: opportunities actually real? Because sign me up for a lighthouse keeper.
Speaker 2: Speaking of remember Clockwork Orange On the soundtrack, Kubrick added
Speaker 2: that song I want to marry a lighthouse keeper and
Speaker 2: keep him close to me. You added it as kind
Speaker 2: of an ironic statement, but I totally bought it, And
Speaker 2: give me that lighthouse. I honestly don't care where it
Speaker 2: is in the world. If you know of a Lighthouse opportunity,
Speaker 2: hit me up. I'm serious. I am on the record
Speaker 2: of hating that fucking movie The Lighthouse, by the way,
Speaker 2: fell asleep three times trying to watch it. I did
Speaker 2: eventually see the whole thing piecemeal. And you know who
Speaker 2: Dave Angers reminds me of. There was a sketch on
Speaker 2: Mister Show with Bob and David and David Cross played
Speaker 2: this fucking insufferable hipster droning on about the merits of
Speaker 2: defunct technology sir for.
Speaker 4: Sud last night, I didn't watch television. I don't even
Speaker 4: own a television. Notice I didn't say TV. TV is
Speaker 4: a nickname, and nicknames are for friends, and television is
Speaker 4: no friend of mine. You are listened to some CDs.
Speaker 4: Please compact this blow. People were not meant to hear
Speaker 4: music with such clarity. People need hear snaps and pops
Speaker 4: and that shit. This, my friend, is the only modern
Speaker 4: piece of equipment I will touch.
Speaker 2: Is it a CD player?
Speaker 4: No, I just it's a mini Victrola, and it allows
Speaker 4: me to listen to the only decent music ever committed
Speaker 4: to Vinyl vital Yes.
Speaker 5: Is it a DAT player?
Speaker 4: Jesus, just listen so pure hearts.
Speaker 2: We are probably going to cover and or soon, but
Speaker 2: not today. That's a talk we're gonna have to have
Speaker 2: with mister Antonio Lapour, who is currently cheating on us
Speaker 2: with another podcast. Nah, he's cool. Star Wars is Tony's domain, however,
Speaker 2: and I wouldn't feel comfortable talking without him. I'm also
Speaker 2: trying to rope a fellow podcaster into coming on here
Speaker 2: to talk about Sinners. I don't think that movie needs
Speaker 2: my help anymore. What a fucking heartening event that that
Speaker 2: movie is doing so well and good for you Ryan Coogler,
Speaker 2: who apparently is taking over the X Files. You know,
Speaker 2: when we'd got out about the deal he has for Sinners,
Speaker 2: too many people started calling it the death of the
Speaker 2: studio system because he's getting the rights to the movie
Speaker 2: in twenty five years. What is wrong with everybody? Racists?
Speaker 2: Lucas had Star Wars outright and everyone called him a genius.
Speaker 2: The other big news is Thunderbolts. That's going to be
Speaker 2: next week's weekly round up, this coming Sunday, I think
Speaker 2: maybe Monday. Another reason for the weirdo schedule of late
Speaker 2: Keep an ear out for that one. Okay, listen, you
Speaker 2: know sometimes you fall down the proverbial rabbit hole, bouncing
Speaker 2: from random topic to random topic till it's eight hours
Speaker 2: later and you don't know why you even picked up
Speaker 2: your phone to begin with. Well, I have the opposite
Speaker 2: of that, apparently, because if you dedicate an entire channel
Speaker 2: to one of my favorite shows and then I stumble
Speaker 2: cross that fact, and guess what happens. It fucking consumes
Speaker 2: my life. That's what happens. We are talking about mad
Speaker 2: Men here, a show I own in its entirety on DVD,
Speaker 2: and one i'd been thinking about a lot lately, but
Speaker 2: its gravitational pull wasn't strong enough to get me to
Speaker 2: drag those out and fire up the old DVD player.
Speaker 2: But then one day I turned on the TV and
Speaker 2: the Roku channel said, Hey, you want to watch mad
Speaker 2: Men twenty four hours a day? And I said, fuck, yeah.
Speaker 5: You're going to Kemmel's facial Park.
Speaker 3: Of course, she's a nice girl. Much I can take
Speaker 3: the long way up.
Speaker 2: I am really enjoying the views.
Speaker 3: Here now, just as the executive for it do.
Speaker 5: You'll find account executives and creative executives songs in a count.
Speaker 5: If you follow my lead, you can avoid some of
Speaker 5: the stakes I've made here.
Speaker 2: Hello John, I'm like, come out one, Jone's kind of
Speaker 2: bit slightly.
Speaker 1: Anyone else knows that absolutely.
Speaker 5: Being with a client is like being in a marriage.
Speaker 5: Sometimes you get in it for the wrong reasons and
Speaker 5: eventually they hit you in the face.
Speaker 3: A man is whatever he is. What you call love
Speaker 3: was invented black guys like me.
Speaker 1: That's out in my life, Don Drake, Why should we
Speaker 1: waste time on KABOOKI?
Speaker 3: I don't know what that means. You handle the words.
Speaker 6: Bringing in business is the key to your salary, your status,
Speaker 6: and your self worth.
Speaker 5: You're looking at the finest dad men in New York.
Speaker 3: The New York.
Speaker 2: A modern executive is a busy man.
Speaker 3: He leads a complicated life. He has family, leisure.
Speaker 2: How are you supposed to keep all that straight?
Speaker 4: I shouldn't tell anybody that we make a very good team.
Speaker 1: We can get a lot of things done done.
Speaker 5: I think maybe that's your cue.
Speaker 1: Advertising is based.
Speaker 3: On one thing, happiness. It's freedom from fear. It's a
Speaker 3: billboard screams. But whatever you're doing, it's okay.
Speaker 5: I hope we're not interrupt think anything.
Speaker 6: Manipulation of the media.
Speaker 1: Hell, that's what I pay you.
Speaker 3: For advertising is a very small world.
Speaker 4: Should we drink before the meeting or out?
Speaker 2: Out of money? And education doesn't take the root edge.
Speaker 3: Out of people.
Speaker 6: Why do you think every time a man takes you
Speaker 6: out to lunch around here to the desert.
Speaker 3: Be where the non confolished the optimism of the American Corporation?
Speaker 2: Mad Men? When I get home from work, wake up
Speaker 2: at two am, mad Man, look like it's going to
Speaker 2: be a beautiful weekend outside. Fuck that, mad Man. Okay,
Speaker 2: probably too much has already been written and said about
Speaker 2: the show, which ran from twenty seven to twenty fIF
Speaker 2: depicting the years of the nineteen sixties through the eyes
Speaker 2: and pens and graphic designs, and alcohol and smoking and
Speaker 2: sexism that was the world of advertising on Madison Avenue.
Speaker 2: It's nominally the tale of Don Draper, a man simply
Speaker 2: born to sell you shit, including his own version of reality,
Speaker 2: and the various copywriters, account executives, secretaries, lunatics, switchboard operators,
Speaker 2: beat nix and others that orbit the agency of Sterling
Speaker 2: Cooper or Sterling Cooper, Draper Price or Sterling Cooper and Partners,
Speaker 2: or well, you get the idea. The show covers quite
Speaker 2: a lot of ground and social and societal upheaval. It
Speaker 2: won all the accolades, got all the awards, and it
Speaker 2: has all the talent. Now. I've spoken at length recently
Speaker 2: about how potentially detrimental it has been lionizing the worst
Speaker 2: of us on TV and in film, the Sopranos and
Speaker 2: Breaking Bad being the obvious examples. But Don Draper, as
Speaker 2: villainous as any of them, gets a pass. His brand
Speaker 2: of villainy is too subtle and elegant to ever be
Speaker 2: emulated by the kind of ding dongs that think Project
Speaker 2: Mayhem and Fight Club was really fucking cool man. When
Speaker 2: the show came on, there was quite a lot of
Speaker 2: uproar and pearl clutching about the casually deplorable actions and
Speaker 2: thoughts and behaviors on display, which I find just as
Speaker 2: hilarious as the solemn reaction to one time Mad Max
Speaker 2: and as of the last thirty years, completely demented person
Speaker 2: Mel Gibson's film Passion of the Christ You Broke My Heart,
Speaker 2: Melt my Brave Heart. The kind of Christians who were
Speaker 2: shocked by that movie are the kinds of Christians who
Speaker 2: dig Christian rock. They were the ones fainting of the
Speaker 2: depiction of whipping and torture of their Lord and Savior.
Speaker 2: Clearly no Catholics were doing that, because on Good Friday,
Speaker 2: we'd all huddle in the lower Church, the cavernous, freaky church,
Speaker 2: where the columns that lined the walls were festooned with
Speaker 2: frescoes depicting fourteen terrible moments leading up to Christ's burial,
Speaker 2: and we go around that room and we'd all chant
Speaker 2: the words in unison and contemplate how frail human beings
Speaker 2: are and how fucking cruel this world is. Jesus falls
Speaker 2: the first time, oh my Lord. By the way, really
Speaker 2: looking forward to Gibson's Passion of the Christ too, where
Speaker 2: Jesus descends into Hell and kicks ass for the Lord.
Speaker 2: I wish I was joking about that. So much like that.
Speaker 2: Same with mad men. Yes, there was a ton of
Speaker 2: fucking out and in your face sexism. They were smoking
Speaker 2: everywhere and didn't give a shit if you were a
Speaker 2: child or had emphysema. And yes, you could still throw
Speaker 2: a big soiree at a country club and perform in
Speaker 2: blackface and the crowd would find it charming. It's that
Speaker 2: aspect of the show the uh huh, the yeah, the
Speaker 2: how else do you think people were behaving? That might
Speaker 2: not make it the most appealing across the spectrum. One
Speaker 2: of my best friends was lucky enough to be born
Speaker 2: both black and gay and in Boston, and after watch
Speaker 2: during one episode, he said to me, why do I
Speaker 2: need reminding how terrible white people were fifty years ago?
Speaker 2: I'm dealing with this shit now, so I get that.
Speaker 2: I would say, however, it's probably a good thing that
Speaker 2: a wildly popular show was stating plainly, what a lot
Speaker 2: of halcyon memories about the sixty we're obscuring? Those are
Speaker 2: the halcyon memories most boomers have been shoveling in our
Speaker 2: direction just as soon as they got themselves into a
Speaker 2: hardware store. And there are dozens of portrayals of societal
Speaker 2: upheaval that are worth examining on the show. But the
Speaker 2: fact is there isn't a whole lot of time here
Speaker 2: in the round up, And quite frankly, I'm not that deep.
Speaker 2: But upon re emerging from this mad Men hole, I'll
Speaker 2: never actually be all the way out of it. It's
Speaker 2: like fourteen oh eight. Even if I leave Lucky Strike,
Speaker 2: I can never leave Lucky Strike. I was struck by
Speaker 2: the excellent stories of the women of Mad Men, the
Speaker 2: Big three, starting with Joan Holloway. Joan Holloway is the
Speaker 2: perfect woman. Now Christina Hendrix, who plays her, although she's
Speaker 2: about ninety percent of that reason. I'm talking about Joan, efficient,
Speaker 2: whip smart, a full partner at one of the biggest
Speaker 2: ad agencies on Madison Avenue and therefore the world, and
Speaker 2: she can play the accordion and you know, love av
Speaker 2: a voom. I know this paints me as piggish as
Speaker 2: the men being skewered on this show, but my god,
Speaker 2: she out Jessica Rabbit's Jessica Rabbit. In fact, in the
Speaker 2: first season, there's an ad campaign that's predicated on the
Speaker 2: notion that every woman is either a Jackie Kennedy or
Speaker 2: a Marilyn Monroe. One of the copywriters asserts that Marilyn
Speaker 2: is actually a Joan, and you're fucking right she is.
Speaker 2: Jon's story is the chronicle of the single mom, working
Speaker 2: woman of the sixties and all the dodging and weaving,
Speaker 2: of all the casual objectification and rampant misogyny firing off
Speaker 2: from every direction. Let's not forget how Joan gets that partnership,
Speaker 2: unless you don't know. I'm going spoiler light here for
Speaker 2: this show that's been off the air for a decade,
Speaker 2: because I sincerely hope if you haven't watched it and
Speaker 2: you don't know, or if you're gonna rewatch it and
Speaker 2: don't remember that, I'm not ruined anything before you, but
Speaker 2: I will say this. Joan is the keenest observer of
Speaker 2: human behavior on the show, way more so than Don Draper.
Speaker 2: He doesn't read a room so much as nazzle it
Speaker 2: into submission. Joan knows she has consistent terrible taste in men,
Speaker 2: but she knows what makes them tick. This is Joan
Speaker 2: dressing down pseudo bohemian and overall blowhard Paul Kinsey in
Speaker 2: the second season, after it's been revealed dramatically by Kinsey
Speaker 2: that he's dating an African American grocery store cashier.
Speaker 5: Mister Kinsey, there's something wrong.
Speaker 3: I'm avoiding you?
Speaker 5: Or haven't you noticed that after three days?
Speaker 3: Are you worried about the typewriter?
Speaker 5: I'm not going to tell anyone. Although you were so brazen,
Speaker 5: you don't deserve clemency. What did you say to Sheila?
Speaker 3: Who Chila?
Speaker 5: My girlfriend, describe her to me very funny. I know
Speaker 5: it's first on the list.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I knew you were a lot of things.
Speaker 5: I'm not a phony you're so proud of It's so
Speaker 5: obvious why you're seeing her a supermarket checkout girl. Conversation
Speaker 5: must be stimulating. Let us cost a nickel.
Speaker 4: What a relief.
Speaker 5: You're just jealous because you're the one who goes away.
Speaker 5: You out there in your poor little rich boy apartment
Speaker 5: in Newark or wherever, walking around with your pipe and
Speaker 5: your beard, falling in love with that girl, just to
Speaker 5: show how interesting you are. Go ahead, what part is wrong?
Speaker 2: I think even Christina Hendrix mistook that speech as proof
Speaker 2: of Jones of racism, when in fact it's the opposite.
Speaker 2: It's Joan throwing light on white, liberal, well meaning racism,
Speaker 2: glimbing on to the nearest black person for credibility, while
Speaker 2: giving literally nothing back on paper. Joan only ever had
Speaker 2: a chance of getting to the point where we meet
Speaker 2: her in the pilot head of the secretary pool, with
Speaker 2: an eye toward marrying some wealthy executive and dispensing dating
Speaker 2: advice alongside where to find the typewriter ribbons advice. She
Speaker 2: spends a goodly portion of the first season dispensing to
Speaker 2: the second of the big three women of mad Men. Overall,
Speaker 2: the series itself is concerned with its own big three.
Speaker 2: That's Don Draper at the center and two recently hired
Speaker 2: employees when the series begins. Those are junior accounts executive
Speaker 2: Pete Campbell more on him later, and secretary turned copywriter
Speaker 2: Peggy Olson, played by Handmaid's Tail and invisible man Stomper
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Moss. Peggy takes to her new position in the
Speaker 2: traditionally male dominated feel of copywriting like a duck to water,
Speaker 2: but not duck Phillips. I will never forgive you for
Speaker 2: turning your dog loose on the streets of Manhattan. Duck,
Speaker 2: What's wrong with you? Peggy is one of the few
Speaker 2: characters depicted on the show with a real world counterpart.
Speaker 2: That would be Mary Wells Lawrence. She died last year
Speaker 2: at the age of ninety six, which means Peggy Olson
Speaker 2: was bound to have outlived everyone from Sterling Cooper, including
Speaker 2: those kids. They all had heads full of bad wiring.
Speaker 2: I don't have any hope that those kids were going
Speaker 2: to live past the turn of the century. Lawrence was
Speaker 2: responsible for a ton of influential ads throughout the twentieth century,
Speaker 2: PLoP plomp, PiZZ phizz for Alca, Seltzer or Ford. Quality
Speaker 2: is job one, raise your hand if you're sure. And
Speaker 2: the wildly simple and yet fucking indelible I Love New York.
Speaker 2: The I Heart NY logo is Mary Wells Lawrence. Like Joan,
Speaker 2: Peggy transcends her occupation and the station in life society
Speaker 2: has deemed for her. And it's through Peggy we get
Speaker 2: glimpses of not just the underground in avant garde art
Speaker 2: scenes of New York, but as perhaps the poorest character
Speaker 2: on the show, he delivers a lot of the class
Speaker 2: struggle plot lines of the nineteen sixties, and while spoiling nothing,
Speaker 2: Peggy's romantic outcome is particularly sweet. Artists and writers belong together,
Speaker 2: and she has one of my favorite scenes in the
Speaker 2: whole show. The Agency is switching buildings, leaving the old
Speaker 2: one a shell except for a lot of broken drywall,
Speaker 2: fallen ceiling tiles, and an electric organ. Mad Men's resident
Speaker 2: rake Roger Sterling, ends up playing that organ while Peggy
Speaker 2: glides room to room on roller skates. It's breathtaking Peggy
Speaker 2: in the first season is also the guinea pig and
Speaker 2: first victim of mad Men's crazy adherence to fat suits.
Speaker 2: It would improve in future season, both in the padding
Speaker 2: and the prosthetics on the face of Miss Betty Draper.
Speaker 2: You remember fat suit Betty? Don't you? Whoa fat Betty
Speaker 2: rayam malamlamb? Whoa fat Betty rayam alamb Missus Betty Draper
Speaker 2: or missus Betty Harris, Let's just call her Betty. She
Speaker 2: is played by non human Luminosity. In January Jones, Hey,
Speaker 2: what's up, Marvel? You got room in your multiverse for Electra,
Speaker 2: who no one ever cared about, and none for Emma Frost,
Speaker 2: who no one has ever cared about. You know who
Speaker 2: else was in the first class with miss Jones, Kevin Bacon.
Speaker 2: Kevin Bacon is part of the MCU. At any point
Speaker 2: in the future, Kevin Figy can bring home the Bacon.
Speaker 2: Did I mention? We have a Patreon channel Patreon dot
Speaker 2: com slash father alone where you will get episodes early
Speaker 2: and free from fucking terrible jokes like that. Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna indulge in what the kids are are calling kids
Speaker 2: being people in their thirties. A hot take Betty Draper
Speaker 2: is the best character on mad Men. Oh I know, boo,
Speaker 2: she's awful. Well, you can piss up a rope, you pricks.
Speaker 2: Betty Draper is the pinnacle and the tragedy of American advertising.
Speaker 2: You want to get down to them, brass tacks. Don
Speaker 2: Draper starts out as a dirt poor farmer's orphan. He's
Speaker 2: raised in a whorehouse, and then he assumes another man's identity,
Speaker 2: eventually becoming an ad executive. The reinvention that he represents
Speaker 2: and the advertising that promises it is the pointed theme
Speaker 2: of the show. But Betty is the only true victim
Speaker 2: of advertising, because the America that Madison Avenue kept screaming
Speaker 2: about during the forties and fifties had a rapidly decaying
Speaker 2: shelf life. And while the generation just below her would
Speaker 2: make a meal of rejecting all of those ideals they'd
Speaker 2: been sold, it was too late for Betty. She's got
Speaker 2: the pearls, she's got the tiny soaps shaped like seashells,
Speaker 2: and she's got her own horse and a stable. Benny
Speaker 2: is an easy character to hate outright. I think I
Speaker 2: did the first time I watched the show, until I
Speaker 2: really figured out who the villains were. I thought Betty
Speaker 2: was a nag, and I thought she brought down the
Speaker 2: good times with pitdling complaints like the total lack of
Speaker 2: fidelity of her partner, or frankly, any support from him
Speaker 2: at all. But on Rewatch, I was quickly on Betty's side. Yeah,
Speaker 2: she can be stringent with Sally and Bobby and even Henry,
Speaker 2: and she's too old fashion at times, and she's never
Speaker 2: going to be hip or clued into current culture. But
Speaker 2: all those fantasies of what America should have been in
Speaker 2: the fifties, which on the surface are pretty fucking great fantasies,
Speaker 2: are fantasies only except in Betty. She's the anthropomorphized American fifties,
Speaker 2: perfectly quaffed, perfectly styled, loves her man, loves her kids,
Speaker 2: loves her home, and loves showing them all off. Betty
Speaker 2: embodies that ideal. She's carrying that torch long after the
Speaker 2: rest of America has collectively blown out the flame. There
Speaker 2: is a beautiful sorrow in watching such an otherworldly creature
Speaker 2: absorb so much of the worst that times have to offer.
Speaker 2: And as one who's kind of always felt this way,
Speaker 2: she's a great representative of the character who has out
Speaker 2: lived their time. She would fit in with the Wild
Speaker 2: Bunch or film projectionists. Part of my admiration for Betty
Speaker 2: as a character, a lot of it, if I'm being honest,
Speaker 2: is because of the performance of January Jones. There's nothing
Speaker 2: more I enjoy than seeing an actor thinking on screen,
Speaker 2: not just thinking, but coming to a definite conclusion. Watch
Speaker 2: any Spielberg film, You're likely to find a shot nestled
Speaker 2: in there somewhere like Doctor Jones. We're talking about January
Speaker 2: Jones here. January Jones is a fucking master of a reaction,
Speaker 2: mistress of reaction. She's fucking amazing at reacting. Now, given
Speaker 2: most actors will tell you acting is reacting, that's a
Speaker 2: pretty fucking great skill to have, particularly the way she
Speaker 2: employs it. It's one of the few performances I've ever
Speaker 2: seen where a character is not thinking of some labyrinthine plan.
Speaker 2: She's thinking of the next thing she's going to say,
Speaker 2: not I can't remember my lines. It's Betty Draper confused
Speaker 2: or angry or engage, listening to what's being said, absorbing
Speaker 2: and reacting. There are so many fucking gunslingers in this cast,
Speaker 2: as far as talent is easy to overlook subtlety. But
Speaker 2: the next time you watch or rewatch, keep an eye
Speaker 2: on her. A different kind of value, a different kind
Speaker 2: of value pervs. Now, before we leave these madmen, that's
Speaker 2: a fake term made up for the show. It gets
Speaker 2: a pass because the whole series is based on deception,
Speaker 2: but it's a writer's creation. No one, by the way,
Speaker 2: has ever broken bad fake term. You're more likely to
Speaker 2: gleam the cube, you know what. And along those lines,
Speaker 2: even the most ardent John Hughes apologist has to admit
Speaker 2: that Neo Maxi Zoom Dweeby was a whole cloth creation
Speaker 2: of some forty year old dude. And it makes Bender
Speaker 2: lame when he says it. Anyway, before we move on,
Speaker 2: I said we'd get back to Pete Campbell, the other
Speaker 2: third of the unholy Triumvirate at the series center. Pete
Speaker 2: Campbell is awful. He's at times racist and sexist and
Speaker 2: petty and cruel. He's told in the pilot he's going
Speaker 2: to end up bitter and bald and alone because no
Speaker 2: one likes him. He ends up bald anyway, a fact
Speaker 2: of which I'd like to share Vincent Cartheiser, who plays
Speaker 2: Pete Campbell, instructed hair and makeup to shave back his
Speaker 2: hairline a little more each year at the start of
Speaker 2: each season to mark the passage of time and Pete's
Speaker 2: approaching baldness. In the end, he's a shiny marshmallow of
Speaker 2: a man like Benny. I would also like to defend
Speaker 2: Pete Campbell, mostly because I fear I'd be just like
Speaker 2: him in that time period. But I'd also like to
Speaker 2: think that I would evolve the way Pete does. He
Speaker 2: never stops becoming a fuller person, a better human, unlike
Speaker 2: most of his contemporaries. But it's his romance with his wife, Trudy,
Speaker 2: played by Alison Brie that really gives me hope. They
Speaker 2: have every kind of up and down happen to them,
Speaker 2: and they still manage to muddle through as a family,
Speaker 2: and Trudy and Pete in an early season have my
Speaker 2: absolute favorite scene in all of Mad Men. They're attending
Speaker 2: a function when a swing band starts up and they dance.
Speaker 2: Watching them is pure fucking joy. If you could solidify,
Speaker 2: crush it up, and snort it, you'd be an instant
Speaker 2: millionaire without any advertising required. And you better save me
Speaker 2: some If by somewhere chance you want more of this
Speaker 2: mad Man coverage, please drop me a line and let
Speaker 2: me know. I for one would have a blast getting
Speaker 2: super granular with the show, but that's up to you.
Speaker 2: This Sunday Round Up is going to be back with
Speaker 2: fellow midnight viewing host Chris Stashu and Mike White as
Speaker 2: we take a look at the newest Marvel offering Thunderbolts
Speaker 2: asterisk by the way, two months ago, I told them
Speaker 2: how excited I was for Thunderbolts and the scoffing that
Speaker 2: they uttered could be heard from space. Just to rip
Speaker 2: off a suicide squad tune in Sunday, I guarantee you
Speaker 2: they're going to have a different opinion for a little
Speaker 2: miss Ripley gen No no rip speaks this week, maaa
Speaker 2: next week, baby, I am father Malone. Here's Betty Draper
Speaker 2: talking to a nine year old Glenn.
Speaker 6: I'm not supposed to talk to you.
Speaker 3: Who says who said that? My mother and my father?
Speaker 3: But I don't care. My mother is going to come out.
Speaker 3: I don't care, Glenna. I can't talk to anyone. That's
Speaker 3: so horrible. I'm so sad. Don't cry.
Speaker 2: Please, please tell me I'll be okay.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I wish, Hilhold.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 3: Adults don't know anything, Glenn.
Speaker 6: I don't really know how long twenty minutes is.
Speaker 3: Of course, h