Mad Men's Best Moments

The agency has bent over backwards for the tobacco industry. They fired Sal at the request of Lucky Strike, when Sal’s only crime was not sleeping with the Lee Garner Jr. When they lost that client, it represented over 70% of their billing, so they tried to land another tobacco client, Phillip Morris, but failed. With their backs against the wall, Don follows his own advice to “change the conversation”, and takes out a full-page in the New York Times to run a rant he titles “Why I’m Quitting Tobacco”. For the characters on the show, it seems like career suicide, but we know better. We live in an age where cigarette commercials don’t exist, and anti-smoking campaigns are a billion dollar business. Whatever happens to Don over the course of the series, whether he finds happiness or the agency goes down in flames, we’ll always know he got the last laugh. Don Draper is the man who brought down big tobacco.

Don once again proves that he is the smartest man in the room when he faces off against a competitor for a big contract with Honda. The Japanese motorcycle manufacturer makes the terms clear: Each agency has a budget of $3000 and may not turn in any finished work. Don knows they can’t win, but he’s reading The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, America’s post-WWII guide to Japanese culture. He rents a studio and pretends to shoot a commercial. While his rivals at Cutler Gleason and Chaough see equipment being dragged into a studio and hear motorcycle sounds, all Don really does is pay Peggy to ride in circles on the Japanese bike for hours. The trick works, and when Cutler Gleason and Chaough show their own commercial, violating Honda’s rules, Don returns the $3000 budget to the Japanese execs. This not only wins him their respect, but also first crack at their upcoming automobile accounts. Don’s rivals never saw the roundhouse kick coming.

We first got to see Don’s penchant for revenge in Season One. When Roger hits on Betty, Don doesn’t get mad, he gets even. The next day starts out with Don paying off Hollis, the elevator operator. We quickly forget that, though, because Roger comes in to apologize and Don accepts, inviting him out to lunch so they can go over the Nixon campaign before Tricky Dick’s people arrive. At the restaurant, Don goads Roger into keeping up with him, and to Roger’s credit, he matches the younger Don drink for drink and oyster for oyster. When they get back to the office, Hollis informs them that the elevator is out of service, revealing the reason for Don’s payoff earlier. They climb all 23 flights of stairs, with Don reminding Roger that he’s old and out of shape all the way up to the top. When they finally arrive, Roger is winded, sweating like a pig, and can do nothing but puke in front of Nixon’s men. Don gets even without throwing a punch and we get one of the best laughs of the series.

Mad Men is a great show because it makes us laugh at the horrific. It’s like listening to a drunk uncle rattle off impossible stories from his youth at a family reunion, but without all the embarrassment. One of the craziest tales from the show came in Season Three. Ken Cosgrove lands a big account with John Deere on the eve of Independence Day, and the office is already in celebration mode because some executives have shown up from London. One of the execs, Guy MacKendrick, is there to replace Lane Pryce, and indeed, everyone but Lane gets completely toasted. Somewhere in the bacchanal it is decided that they should let a drunken secretary take a riding mower for a spin around the office, but she quickly loses control of the machine and mows over Guy MacKendrick’s foot, sending him to the hospital. It’s a career ending injury in the world of advertising, and Lane gets to keep his job. Apparently, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an appendage.