.يا رب يسوع المسيح ابن اللّه الحيّ إرحمني أنا الخاطئ
Saturday, September 17, 2011
The two ‘Mad Men’ copycats: crossover episodes and/or fanfic stories I’d like to see Of course I’ve seen neither new show yet (but ‘The Playboy Club’ has been leaked onto YouTube). Lots of fanfic is laughable and/or icky (from what little I’ve seen, mostly love-starved fans’ fantasies about the actors) but these have possibilities, limited only by the characters and shows being owned by different people/companies, some of which might be competitors.
There was an episode of ‘Mad About You’ (sweet show, the only ‘Must-See TV’ I could stand in more than limited doses) that established the characters lived in the same imaginary world as ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’ with the crossover character being Carl Reiner’s ’60s-TV star Alan Brady, still a celebrity in this make-believe ’90s America.
So on that note:
It’s 1963. ‘The Playboy Club’ is in Chicago and from the commercials it seems partly to do with crime (the Don Draper clone is in some shady business killing people). Perfect: hire younger carbon-copy actors (even though Dennis Farina’s irreplaceable) to play the MCU cops and Outfit guys from ‘Crime Story’ in one episode/story about a crime to do with the club.
‘Pan Am’? Easy. Come clean and acknowledge the tribute/emulation and have Draper and/or Sterling or another character in passing at an airport or on a plane, on a business trip. It also reminds me of Catch Me If You Can.
Commercial from then, stylish down to the Mid-Atlantic-sounding announcer (I use that voice doing voiceovers for commercials occasionally):
One of my hats has a picture of the new 707 jetliner in the lining.
There was a ‘Mad Men’ fanfic I liked, now regrettably offline, set in the early ’90s in which ‘Mad Men’ and ‘30 Rock’ are in the same what-if world: young Jack Donaghy dates grown Sally Draper (they’re about the same age) and is a big fan of her father, who’s written books on advertising used in courses teaching the biz and is dying of cancer.
Some jottings about the news
