-Duck's real first name was Herman and he called Peggy 'Pee Wee'.
-Hooker answering the phone and telling Pryce "London calling"
-Pete yelling "Hells bells" at Trudy.
Not sure if that was supposed to be intentional but those kind of things always stuck out to me.
I must not understand your post.
Herman was a common enough name back then, and pee wee just referred to something, or someone, small. In the 50s and 60s there was Pee Wee baseball for little boys, too young for Little League, for example.
"London calling" is something an operator-assisted international call would say to the recipient of the call, way back when.
Hell's bells was an expression Pete's parents, or grandparents, would have used. No one from Pete's generation would have said it, except Pete.
Why wouldn't Pete or someone from his generation have said it without learning it from his parents or grandparents? Too old-fashioned? It certainly seems to be now, but I have no idea about its use for young adults in the 1960s, and perhaps it sounds so normal to me because I say "hells bells"... thanks to hearing it from my grandparents, who were born in the 1913 and 1922. :)
shareRight, too old fashioned, but that was part of his character. He also danced the Charleston.
shareIt's humorous I never thought of "hells bells" as old-fashioned even in the 60s. I suppose it is because I'm so familiar with the term. I didn't even realize I got it from my grandparents until you mentioned that's likely where Pete got it, but you're right. I wonder if, when I say , "hells bells" in present day people thinks It's peculiar, lol. I know I'll say some words or phrases to my mother, and she'll comment on how I sound like her parents. It's funny what one picks up.
I can go from saying things like "hells bells" or "full of applesauce" to writing the comment I did in the current thread on this board asking who was the "hottest" woman from Don's escapades. There must be some dichotomy to my language of which not even I'm aware.
Yeah, it was definitely considered an old-fashioned and very out of date expression.
This was the start of the period in time when "the generation gap" became a big deal. At no time before -- OT since -- as far as I'm aware, has the gap between generations been so wide as to be given an actual name, and so highly publicized in the press, or anywhere else.
It's less the case now in many ways, but back then anything considered as "modern" was IT: architecture, furniture, clothing, any and everything, In general, old was bad, and "modern" was good, including expressions used.
I sometimes use old expressions as well, such as "holy moldy," or similar. Most people use these expressions now with a certain sense of irony, so they're not looked down on as they would have been in Pete's time, when modern and current meant everything, and anything old-fashioned and outdated would have been looked down upon in ways they generally aren't now.
I don't think I've ever used the expression hell's bells, or full of applesauce although the latter did make me laugh. Yeah, it's old-fashioned, but probably has a certain sense of irony sbout it that other expressions didn't back in the ultra moderne 50s and mid-60s didn't.
Language, like many other things back then, meant more than it does now. Like Ted awkwardly saying something was "groovy."
Holy moly! That's another one I use as well. :)
Great analysis about how important modern styles, including language, were back then and how most "anything goes" in present day. Saying "the right thing" was very important to Pete, whether it was using a term like "swell" when it was very "in" and abandoning it when it was "out," or making sure he upheld the etiquette a person from his upbringing surely would have been taught. (I'll always remember how Pete corrected the men saying "congratulations" to Megan upon the announcement of her engagement. "You don't say, 'congratulations' to the bride; You say, 'best wishes.'")
I realize it was essential for Pete to walk a line: be modern but still uphold traditions that a man from his generation and background surely would care about.
I think you mean “Holy moly,” Catbookss. I think this discussion is beneath both of us.
shareWhat is it about period TV shows and movies that makes some viewers decide and then insist that they have discovered anachronisms that are actually not anachronisms? This was also common on the Stranger Things board as well--people over there insisted (with no basis in fact) that a show set in the 1980s was anachronistic for things like mentioning 911 (the emergency telephone service) or for using dialogue like "are you serious?" or "you're a douchebag."
Just because you haven't heard of these things doesn't mean that they didn't exist or hadn't happened yet during the time Mad Men was set.
I remember when I was a kid in the 1960s and expressions like "groovy", "fuckin' A", and "outa sight" were popular. I assumed they were newly coined, and was surprised when my mom told me they used to say "groovy" in the 1930s and it probably went back to at least the 1920s, and my dad said they said "Fuckin' A" in the 1940s. Then I was reading the novel "Blix", written in the late 1890s by Frank Norris, in which a character exclaims "outa sight!". It's often surprising how far back pop expressions go, but sometimes anachronisms are obvious, egregious, and jarring, like when Ben Franklin said "batshit crazy" in the miniseries "Sons of Liberty". I would be extraordinarily surprised if any researcher could turn up any reference to that full expression (not just the word "batshit") existing in the 18th century, or for that matter before the 1980s.
shareHAHA....I think this a common misconception of many young Americans....probably any slang you know unless specifically related to new technology of the last 20 years has a much older reference than imagined....almost all "gangsta" rap slang is derivative of the prohibition era...drug culture goes way back to when drugs were legal in the end of the 19th century and early 20th.,....our culture is homogenizing and much more boring on most levels every generation that passes....certainly including language
shareThey stuck out to you because you weren't aware that those terms existed a long time before you thought they did.
"Pee Wee" is an old term, going back to the 1920's if not earlier.
"London calling" would be if the international operator from London was calling. You see back in the day you couldn't call overseas direct. You called the international operator, gave them the name and the number and hung up. Then when your call was completed they'd call you back and you'd be able to speak to the person you wanted to.
"Hells Bells", like Pee Wee is an old term. You didn't think that AC/DC invented it did you?
For the most part they've nailed the time period and they've done their homework to make it look like the 1960's heading into the 70's. The technology is about right for the time as are the clothes, decor and just about everything else.
Right before Duck got fired, they totalled up how little business he had actually signed:
"You'd better go make it rain. "
Way after Mad Men time:
Everyone from Lil Wayne to Fat Joe have helped popularize the term "Make it Rain," but did you ever wonder who coined the phrase? Well, DJ Drama credited Young Jeezy as the person who invented the phrase in the upcoming Jeezy documentary TM103: Hustlerz Ambition.
As with the OP, It's a good thing to research first, especially if you're from a younger generation.
The term rainmaker, from which "make it rain" derives, is quite old. A century or more before Jeezy. It comes from American native Americans and dates back to the 1700s:
rainmaker[ reyn-mey-ker ]SHOW IPA
noun (among American Indians) a medicine man who by various rituals and incantations seeks to cause rain.
a person who induces rainfall by using various scientific techniques, as the seeding of clouds with silver iodide crystals from an airplane.
Slang. an executive or lawyer with exceptional ability to attract clients, use political connections, increase profits, etc.
What Is a Rainmaker?
Jan 30, 2020 - A rainmaker is any person who brings clients, money, business, or even intangible prestige to an organization based solely on his or her associations and contacts. The rainmaker is usually regarded highly within the company by other employees and is a key figure like a principal, partner, or executive.
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/rainmaker.asp
History matters.
OK, I sit corrected! I'm not "from a younger generation", born 1960's, but from my experience anyway, I never heard the term prior to 2000.
"As with the OP, It's a good thing to research first, especially if you're from a younger generation."
"History matters."
Wow, how condescending.
"As with the OP, It's a good thing to research first, especially if you're from a younger generation."
"History matters."
Wow, how condescending.
In the 1960s and earlier, "Pee Wee" refered to something or someone small. It was a common phrase.
My mom was a telephone operator from the early 1940s to the 1960s. "London calling" would have been used for a long-distance call.
My mother (again) often used the expression "Hell's bells", and she was in her mid-thirties in the early 1960s, when "Mad Men" is set. She probably got it from her dad, who grew up in the early 1900s.
I think OP was thinking more in a "meta" sense, like connections we might make as the viewer.
shareSo, "meta" must be a euphemism for "ignorant". In that case, it sounds like the OP and the viewers he or she is addressing are at fault, not the show. He or she criticizes the show for including these expressions which he or she says didn't exist yet, when in fact they did exist. If the viewers don't know that, it's their responsibility to educate themselves, not the show's writers responsibility to dumb it down.
shareOthers have pointed out that those "references" weren't anachronisms at all.
But I do grin a little bit whenever I watch the pilot and Don yells at Pete for going through his trash with the line, "It's not like there's some magical machine that makes identical copies of things!"
I can't remember when they first got a Xerox machine at the offices of SCD&P.
It would have been funny if there was a knowing glance between Pete and Don at that moment.
Some callback reference would have been good, yeah.
I think that episode was already pretty stuffed, though. The xerox getting moved from office to office and frustrating the daylights out of Joan was an amusing B-plot.
If you like those things then check out a show called Murdoch Mysteries. He is a detective that invents machines all the time but gives a slightly off name to them. Very funny.
shareIf you're a Discworld fan, you might recollect Leonard of Quirm, who invents fabulous device (and paints fantastic pictures), and then gives them names that are just a bit "off" from their real-world counterparts.
"Because it is submersed in a marine environment, I've always called it the 'Going-Under-the-Water-Safely-Device'."
The first Xerox copier was marketed in 1949, and their use increased throughout the 1950s. They were not ubiquitous in all offices, but it's likely Don and Pete would have known about them. I remember Xerox copies in the 1970s and even into the 1980s being shadowy, printed on slick paper that would curl up.
shareThanks! I didn't know that about Xerox. It clearly slipped Don's mind...
share