All the mad men and all the mad women need an extra order of cream

Season 3 Finale of Mad Men this Sunday night, and here’s a sneak preview:

Milk Men - A Mad Men Parody

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Whoops.  Sorry about that.  Oh well.  At least there were no spoilers.

The best thing in this is the Milk Man’s Draperesque speech about milk being bottled innocence, although that one actresses’ Peggy-isms are hilariously dead-on too.

Are any of these actors old enough to remember real milk men?  Once, when the sixteen year old was five, we were in the Dairy Pavilion at the New York State Fair and I tried to explain to him what a milk man was and what he did.  “Your nana used to put a note out at night in the milk box and very early in the morning the milk man would come in his truck and leave whatever nana ordered.”

His response was, “You’re joking with me, Dad.”

Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny made more sense to him.  Of course he had proof they existed.

When did the last milk men deliver their last quarts of buttermilk?

Back to the milk as bottled innocence speech.  That was perfect, but it reminded me of that episode of Naked City I wrote about a few weeks back.

David Janssen’s character, the proto-Don Draper, delivers a speech to his mad men that could be written straight into an episode of Mad Men without the slightest edit:

Gentlemen, Sparrow Farm Products spent six and a half million dollars this year on an advertising campaign we designed for them.  That campaign did not say tractors are great, it said Sparrow Tractors are great.  The farmer buys a tractor and gets up in the seat.  He doesn’t know whether that tractor’s going to be good or bad but he does know that Sparrow Tractors are good.  He knows it because we sold him.  We told told him.  So let’s reassure him.  Let’s make it very clear to him he’s sitting on a Sparrow Tractor.

I wonder if the writers of Mad Men have been cribbing.

Doesn’t make any more sense than the things Draper tells his staff, but David Janssen gives it an authoritative edginess that makes you believe his guys are going to snap to in a way Draper’s won’t because they’re going to waste time trying to figure out what the heck it all means.  Janssen’s speech comes across as an instructive order.  Hamm’s speeches have a opiate haze about them, as if they were zen koans delivered by a master who is completely but not necessarily blissfully stoned.

That’s not a criticism.  It’s an illustration of the different ways the two shows see the time period.  On Naked City, a product of the time, the early 1960s is a period of energy, dash, and forward momentum.  Characters who can’t keep up or who get too far ahead or who are otherwise out of synch get into trouble, which is sometimes comic, more often tragic, but not inevitable or inescapable or irreparable.  On Mad Men escaping the time is the desired end, but that escape is practically out of the questions and most of the characters don’t even know they need to.  They’re trapped in their era as if in a giant bottle of mineral oil in which they swim in extreme slow motion with the object of simply not sinking.

The only way out is if someone breaks the bottle from outside.

Which is sort of what happened last week, isn’t it?

Big thanks to Greg Mitchell for the video.

Comments

[chachabowl]

Good point about the early 60's and that feeling of jet propulsion; I thought about the Billy Wilder movie, "One, Two, Three" with James Cagney, and how he delivered his lines like a rapid-fire machine gun no matter what the situation.

What I'm hoping to see soon on "Mad Men" is a character that shakes things up at Sterling Cooper (or in some character's orbit) through his or her energy or intensity, burning through the amber that people are stuck in. Somebody that tells the truth and scares people because of it.

(p.s.-Hey, didn't that cow in the video use to be known as Elsie Whitman?)

[Gary Farber]

We had a milkman when I was a kid. I had to carry the empty bottles out.

This, like a gazillion other things, makes me feel mildly ancient.

We also had phone numbers with letter prefixes.

[Gary Farber]

You can still get your milk delivered in the UK.

Although that's a bit of a way to travel for you to get your milk.

Of course, you can always order some Tuscan Whole Milk.

[Victoria]

This post made me daydream, thus:

What do I want to happen on Mad Men?

Betty
Leave Don for what’s-his-name, who falls out – in very short order – either because of his own secrets or because he fails spectacularly as a lover… so there she is… The Dreaded Unattached Divorcee, which makes her go a little bit crazy in bizarre ways that force Don to have the kids full time.

Pete
Oh, let him spend some time trying to put together his escape to Duck. I’d actually like him to go for a while so that they can move Harry into his office … which gives them a reason to hire JOAN to run the TV desk, which she was masterful at.

Maybe the buyer of SC can also buy Duck out, partially dismantle him (Bye, Duck.), and fold it in under SC, which would bring Pete back. Awkward. Pete's character is constructed on Awkward.

Joan
Once Joan is hired in a more creative function, everything becomes much more dynamic at SC. She can become a girlfriend-ally who helps Peggy put together a decent in-house strategy and tap her own personal power. I want to see these two women starting to shift the yin-yang power balance at the ad agency in ways that unsettles the lot of them. – Meanwhile, once Joan has a job worthy of her talent and presence, she can begin to deal differently with that hideous husband of hers, who needs to be gone from her life eventually, But for now, he can just go to Vietnam, so Joan can become Roger’s best friend and spiritual muse.

Kinsey
Paul has woken up to Peggy three times now. First, when she smoked dope. Second, when she played the competition card so skillfully. Third, the nooner. Lets assume the former girlfriend has moved on. Time for these two to begin their genuine love affair, which must be kept secret in the office. This will get particularly tricky as, together, they become more and more political and activist. And he – oh please let him be a vocal atheist - has the potential to drive Peggy’s blubbering mother to distraction.

Don
Single fatherhood should be interesting to track – especially when Betty has her breakdown and the whole thing falls on his shoulders. See Don juggle. He (with Carla’s help) will notice the dark signs in Sally for the scary things they are and end up falling for her psychiatrist, which can only be helpful and terrifying to Don. I’d like to see Don really transform himself internally, now that he’s practiced doing it externally.

Somebody needs to go to India.

And now, back to you, Lance.