Adieu To Don And Mad Men And Women We Love

"Mad Men" ends tonight and so will the closest I will ever experience a fetish in my lifetime.  I'm willing to succumb to the most self-indulgent continuing confection ever captured on film. I ask for no mercy relieving me from "Mad Mens" creator, master storyteller, satirist, and magician.  

How did the world of "Mad Men" collide with present times? For starters, it changed the landscape of the internet. 

It kick started the birth of the fan-obsessed blogs examining every trivial historic reference.The Weiner cruel teases, clues, and conspiracy theories. I always loved the bloggers who would notice that the neckties worn in the show were not historically accurate for that time period. They weren't nearly as thin as you can see in a Brooks Brothers ad from 1962.

A giant esoteric hole will be left where the loyal fan base once existed. Gone will be the thousands of iTunes podcasts. The thousands of Google searches for the "roly poly tumbler" or the "fat Betty."

No one should be sadder than AMC. This once pathetic excuse for a cable station took the bait, Weiner's six-year-old script, where HBO and Showtime stupidly did not. $2 million per show was a big risk when "original content" was a dirty word. 

That was back in 2007. It didn't take the world long to figure out and fall in love with "Mad Men" -  it won the Emmy in 2008. If it had run on network TV it would have been cancelled three shows into the season. "Mad Men" never garnered the audience of "Walking Dead" or "House of Cards." But that remains its singular appeal. It is in the pantheon of a mass-merchandised vehicle, but at the same time maintains an air of elitism.

It also did something else. 

It gave birth to the binge-watcher. It captured the zeitgeist of a new phenomenon, ignited by the plethora of new technology more than willing to "feed the beast."

By 2008, iTunes sold more than 200 million Mad Men episodes. The AMC licensing fees are $3 million an episode.

AMC did not make money from "Mad Men" initially, but stands to make $100 million off iTunes alone. Talk about a revenue stream they never saw coming. Draper would have been proud.

AMCX was spun-off as a public company and with a $2.5 billion war chest, it was a whole new ballgame. 

As Don would say "the future is something you haven't even thought of."

But for me, "Mad Men" is simply remembering a time when my mother's hair was Betty Draper's Clairol Blond Creme Toner #5409. Where she baked, in a Betty Crocker apron, drove a Buick station wagon, and watched Perry Como every Sunday night from our suburban home in Williamsville, New York. When my father was still young, strong, and successfully running Stanley Greens, a wholesale floral business, I would wait for him to come home every night and tell me stories about how he nailed another account. Much the same way Pete Campbell did as he poured his Glenlivet neat. 

Where I would sit on the edge of my parents' bed and with saddle shoes dangling,and watch them get dressed-up for a cocktail party where ladies in sleeveless Lily Pulitzers would mingle with men in Brooks Brothers madras blazers, holding Marlboros and martinis. 

"Mad Men" allowed me to go back to that time when my parents were young and I was loved.

Thank you "Mad Men" for making me ten-years-old again.

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Robert Ries 4 years ago Member's comment

Thanks for share

Clifford Hurt 4 years ago Member's comment

Thanks for share

Susan Miller 5 years ago Member's comment

Have a new favorite show, Carol?

Alexis Renault 9 years ago Member's comment

I'm confused by the math here - so AMC licenses each episode to iTunes for $3 million? So iTunes has to pay $3 million fore very single episode regardless of how many they sell? Why would iTunes ever take a risk selling anything other than proven blockbusters? I thought iTunes did a revenue split where they only paid a percentage if it sold? Are you sure this is accurate?

Carol W 9 years ago Contributor's comment

That's the game of the business. you have to pay for it before you sell it..I Tunes was in competition with the Yahoos and won. Or other portals. Xfinity Krackel all pay upfront to access to unique content. You put money at risk before you have sales. It's called the upfronts. there's one upfront for every form of content By the way, getting into the nexus of Media compensation is not why I wrote the piece.But you are certainly encouraged to dive into it..let us know what you find out. cheers

Alexis Renault 9 years ago Member's comment

Thanks. Looking forward to your next post. Didn't mean to focus on this one aspect of the article, it just happened to catch my eye and I got curious.

Carol W 9 years ago Contributor's comment

I hope they answered you question..they kinda beat me to it..thanks for reading it! Cheers, Carol

Carol W 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Hey no problem Alexis, and thanks so much for reading it. Have a great evening! cheers,Carol

Alexis Renault 9 years ago Member's comment

Not really, I'm still not clear. So the $3 million per episode is accurate? Did they agree to that price before or after Mad Men became a hit? To pay so much for an episode when it is unknown that so many people will download it seems a bit crazy to me. Though I suppose Apple must know what it's doing.

Harry Sinclair 9 years ago Member's comment

They need to make their money from somewhere. It's unlikely they were able to make much from product placements. :-)

I suspect all historical pieces have the same problem

Carol W 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Check out the Museum of Broadcasting sometime. A wealth of info on the early years of TV and how advertisers dominated content.They CREATED the content so they could fill it with their products. Overtly. Much more so than today.

Vintage Vixen 9 years ago Member's comment

OMG how old are you, Harry, 15? We did have electricity, and television, and supermarkets and products back in the '60s. We had brands, too! Like not just Coke but Ford, GM, Heinz, Alka-Seltzer - I doubt product placement was a problem for a show set in the '60s. My goodness, how do you invest if you don't understand the 'legs' many blue-chip companies have to stand on?

Harry Sinclair 9 years ago Member's comment

Actually Carol, I must confess that I've never seen an episode of Mad Men. It's been on my to do list for many years, but I never quite found the time. I heard it was a great show though. I just assumed it would be hard to have product placements for a period piece, but I suppose some companies like Coca Cola were certainly around back then.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Carol W 9 years ago Contributor's comment

trivia: The online conversation sparked a 991% increase in Coke's digital consumption after the episode aired,

There were 21,204 tweets involving Coca-Cola in the three hours following the Mad Men finale,

"Hilltop" ad, which in real life was the creation of Bill Backer, a former creative director at McCann Erickson.

I personally didn't like the ending. I could never stomach that spot. I couldn't get that awful tune out of my head. I wanted to jump!

Carol W 9 years ago Contributor's comment

did you notice the advertisers on the final episode? Heinz Heinz Heinz..but no coke! too funny... Talk about the utlimate spoiler. Coke running a spot halfway thru the show..woot!

The Good Doctor 9 years ago Member's comment

I know Netflix paid $1 million per episode (source: www.thewire.com/.../50354/).

But Netflix has a very different model than iTunes since subscribers pay a flat fee to watch as much as they want. $3 million per episode when Apple gets nothing unless someone pays for it sounds high. But perhaps the price went up once it became a hit. Millions of people likely downloaded them on iTunes so Apple could have still made money off this.

Carol W 9 years ago Contributor's comment

you got that right!

Joel Santiago 9 years ago Member's comment

You hit the nail on the head.

Dan Jackson 9 years ago Member's comment

It truly is the end of an era!

Carol W 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Hi Dan- yes, it was groundbreaking...I don't think we'll see anything quite like it ever again. I shall miss it tremendously. Thanks for your comment.

Anastasija Janevska 9 years ago Member's comment

I'm so sad it's over! They had a great run though.

Carol W 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Yes, I am going thru withdrawal myself..it's so hard to let it go! Thanks for reading it, Have a great day! Cheers Carol

Marcy Brown 9 years ago Member's comment

Great post Carol, and not to worry - I'm sure you are still loved!

Carol W 9 years ago Contributor's comment

thanks so much for your comment..and yes, I believe I still am.:) cheers! Carol