The Lane Pryce Dancing GIF Is the New Best Mad Men GIF Ever! March 26, 2012

There are many a marvelous Mad Men GIF, for sure. Pete Campbell dancing and Peggy on a motorcycle come to mind, as well as homemade favorites like Sally’s sweet potato tantrum from the fourth season premiere and Peggy’s infinite faceplant. Still, Lane Pryce dancing GIF trumps all because it’s Lane Pryce’s reenacting Megan Draper’s “Zou Bisou Bisou” birthday burlesque. You simply can’t top Lane “Steaks ‘r Accessories” Pryce attempting a sensual French Canadian dance of seduction, y’all. PUT A WIG ON IT AND GIVE IT A DRAG ACT!

Much love to Gifulmination for this one.

Important Things to Pontificate While We Try and Play Catch-Up: Is Mad Men Too Sexist? August 9, 2010

Oh man, y’all.  If there’s one thing that’s great about summer Fridays at my place of work, it’s that I get every other Friday off of work.  If there’s one thing that’s not the new hotness, however, it’s that putting in the extra hours to get those precious Fridays off has made me a raggedy-ass bitch when it comes to tending to this particular corner of the interwebs.  Blog productivity has shamelessly fallen to the wayside, egregious errors have been made, and I still haven’t gotten around to discussing the eagerly anticipated/probable train wreck that is Burlesque.  Sure, this little blog may not buy my bacon and eggs, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel obliged to those of you out there who so kindly indulge my crazy.  Anyways, apologies are like the Lost series finale (obligatory, yet wholly unfulfilling), so point being: IT’S TIME TO BUST SOME BLOG ASS AND START GETTING CAUGHT UP ON EVERYTHING.  (That’s my motivational speaker voice.)

In the mean time, though, let’s all ponder the following important question:

I remain of the opinion that there’s no such thing as being too sexist Mad Men strives to create an accurate–not revisionist–portrait of the 1960s, and leveling charges of sexism at Mad Men confuses the sexual and gender politics of the era with those of the show itself.  Mad Men‘s “sexism” is in fact a meta-commentary on sexism, if you will, but that’s just my interpretation.   That being said, let’s go watch a short video that attempts to get to heart of the matter:

This Week in Irresponsible Mad Men Recaps: Sometimes We Just Want to Break Free November 9, 2009

Let’s just start off by addressing the moment I’m sure we’ve all been buzzing about from last night’s season finale of Mad Men:

That tea set is gorgeous, and those scones look scrumptious.  If you’re going to let a person know that you’re selling their company after barely a year of ownership, you damn well do it with fine china and tasty pastries.  That’s not good business, y’all.  That’s just good manners.

Anyways, in not-as-exciting-as-scones developments, Sterling and Cooper and Draper voted to start a new ad agency, and Lane Pryce is coming along as well:

Seriously, watching the four of them scramble to get everything lined up for Puttnam, Powell, and Lowe was nearly as delicious as I imagine those scones to be.  Pete in his bathrobe negotiating his role in the new firm and getting Don to acknowledge his talents?  Delightful, and only surpassed by Don’s plea to get Peggy on board as well.  But obviously the best part about the forming of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is the fact that–by episodes end–nearly everything I love in this show is all under one roof:

It’s a MotherTrucker to Irresponsibly Recap Mad Men in the Face of Historic Tragedy November 3, 2009

While much of this season, from the utter shock of the John Deere accident to the abject horror of Peggy taking a roll in the hay with Duck Phillips, much of this season of Mad Men has been one surprise after the next; however, one thing that had been foreshadowed from the moment we saw Margaret Sterling’s wedding invitation flash across the screen was John F. Kennedy’s assassination.  Well, it finally happened in this past week’s episode:

While my irresponsible blogging instincts have me inclined to skip all the way past all of this quagmire of historical seriousness and get straight to the matching shoes and dress Trudy was going to wear to Margaret’s wedding before Pete decided he was kaput with Sterling Cooper (seriously, that blue was fabu!), I think the above image really sums up what this past week’s episode was actually about, which was watching television.

Seriously, if we weren’t actually watching archival news footage reporting on JFK’s assassination and the subsequent murder of Lee Harvey Oswald this past, we were likely watching someone watching news coverage.  While Don assured his kids that everything would remain the same, and Joan assured Roger that the world was still turning as usual, the near omnipresence of the television in this past week’s episode served as a reminder of how things really were changing in the 1960s, and how integral a part television (and particular televised news) would play in this cultural shift that has led to our current era of media oversaturation.

There’s something so antiquated yet prescient about being reminded of a time where news didn’t travel by Facebook or 24-hour news network.  Added to that, seeing the phones at Sterling Cooper go dead from the overload was comically surreal in that it was like seeing 1960s version of Twitter go down, but nobody turned to Western Union telegrams to vent their frustration.

This Week in Irresponsible Mad Men Recaps: Where’s My Betty Draper Hysterics? October 20, 2009

Responsible Mad Men recapping blogs probably try and follow the narrative arch of the episode, and they’d probably delve a little more into the fact that Sterling Cooper is once again up for sale, which makes Lane Pryce sad and his wife very happy.  I am not that blog.  Now let’s do this thing irresponsible style!

So Paul Kinsey was intimidated by Peggy and her keen improvisational skills, and then he got too drunk while working on his Western Union account.  This taught us all the important lesson that you should always write down the brilliant ideas that you have when you’re drunk so you don’t forget them.  If he had written it down, we’d have instead learned the equally important lesson that the brilliant ideas that you have when you’re drunk are never as brilliant in the sober light of day, but that’s neither here nor there.  Anyways, Peggy fortunately used his screw up to save him, and I was I left baffled that telegrams were something people still actually used in 1963.  Also, maybe it’s just me and my love of all things of questionable taste, but Aquanet is doing wonders to Peggy’s hair.  

In other plot lines, Don’s relationship with Suzanne Farrell unfortunately continues to happen:

I find this plot to be like the narrative version of Ipecaca, and I blame this largely on the fact that Ms. Farrell hasn’t once seemed interesting enough to warrant such of devotion.  A scene with a Maypole, a drunk dial, and a few lines of straight up crazy is all it takes to have Don Draper all up in your lady business in a serious sort of way?  I’m deeply unimpressed with the both of them.  And the fact that the writers continue this charade.

The lone silver lining to their bumping uglies, though, came in the form of Suzanne’s epileptic brother, Danny, who was helped by Don to do what else?  Pull a Don Draper.  That’s just him being philanthropic by sharing his secret to happiness and success: it comes from running away from the unpleasant parts of your identity.  Or, in Don’s case, all of it.  You may be constantly haunted by your past and incapable of genuine human intimacy, but at least you’ll get signing bonuses and shiny awards at the fortieth anniversary Sterling Cooper parties.  Fair trade, I’d say.

And speaking of fortieth anniversary Sterling Cooper parties, Trudy Campbell’s party ensemble was some kind of wonderful:

The Mad Men Super-Gigantic, Three-for-One Recapapalooza September 22, 2009

Oh man, y’all.  I get a little bit tardy (for the party) with keeping my blog promise, and then Sunday night’s episode happened, which was the usual Mad Men greatness.  Until the end, which was easily the ballsiest (and most utterly insane) television Mad Men has put forth thus far.  I’m tempted to prematurely insist that this episode was a game changer for the show, but I’m getting way ahead of myself.

Before we talk about the crazy, let’s go quickly recap the highs and lows of the past three episodes.  A blog promise is a promise, after all, which means we have to discuss things like jai alai, the sport that Regina George would have a few choice words for if she worked at Sterling Cooper:

Maybe it’s the fact that any discussion of sports is inherently a discussion I don’t care about, or maybe it’s just that choosing such an obscure sport felt like an incredibly forced way of depicting Horace as spoiled to the point of delusion, but I was not having the jai alai plot.

Fortunately, when Mad Men tries to get all sporty and butch on me, they give us Sal talking about his vision for the Patio commercial:

Sal gets so excited about Ann-Margret that he starts camping about his bedroom.  Kitty makes a sad-face that is totally heartbreaking.  What’s not to adore about this scene? Oh, that’s right: NOTHING!

Also, behold what happens when Pepsi’s bad-idea ad baby shimmies and shakes its way out of the womb:

A Day Late and a Beef Bourguignon Short, We Finally Have a Mad Men Recap! August 18, 2009

So I spent my Sunday sipping Pimm’s cups and preparing a beef bourguinon for a Monday crock potting.  It was all very Betty Draper; however, as the cruel mistresses of food fate would have it, I didn’t turn on the crock pot before leaving for work the next day.  I headed back home upon realization and turned on the crock pot, but in my frenzy neglected to make certain that the crock pot was actually plugged in.  Ruh-roh:

Needless to say, I could’ve broken a chair (Betty Draper style), but I instead chose to drown my sorrows with chicken salad sandwiches and Cary Grant movies, so this recap will be more…impressionistic.  Sure.  That’s a fancier way of saying I’m distracted by my mourning over the loss of French cuisine (because I’m ridiculous), so let’s go with it.

ANYWAYS!

Culinary disasters aside, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the wait for Mad Men was worth it.  Seriously, sweet Don Draper deliciousness, y’all: