A Mad Men fan sent us this waaaaay back. The picture is difficult to read, but, well, let me quote her:
when Don sits down at the table with his father-in-law after having words with William. Look at the back of Don’s New York Times. It looks like a Blackberry to me.
Love Among the Ruins goof?
(Click to enlarge.) It’s a grainy photo: What do you think?
34 Responses to “A Love Among the Ruins goof?”
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Must have been a split second moment! Oops!
Happy Thanksgiving All!
I think it looks like a tube of gel or something–It seems to narrow towards the bottom. I can see how it looks like a blackberry though.
Hope everyone's Thanksgiving is fantastic. I can say one of the things I am thankful for is BoK.
Matt Weiner and co. are so meticulous about the details of the show that I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it's not a BlackBerry. I don't have it on my DVR anymore but I'll be sure to look at this scene the next time I see this episode, though!
After reading this I went back to my iTunes download of MM. I don't think its a Blackberry. The shape isn't quite right and there aren't enough buttons on it. They also don't go all the way across. As the page moves you can briefly see a gap in the "buttons" on the right side.
Honestly, I assumed it wasn't a goof, but it did have quite a curious resemblance, and I think these discussions are fun.
I agree with #3. Matt W. & company is so meticulous about detail that letting Don hold a current newspaper w/so obvious a goof seems implausible. I give them the benefit of the doubt as well! I am also thankful this Thanksgiving for BoK- a place I go to for me pleasure time. Thanks Lipp sisters. BTW-the AMC/Mad Men site is looking for leaders to manage their blog & give insightful commentary. Too late, you are all here!
Maybe it was a calculator?
Actually, I don't know when the hand held electronic ones came out but thats what it looks like to me.
A couple of things. I doubt it's a Blackberry, but the subject of newspapers is an interesting one, especially in NYC, and especially for an ad man.
In 1963, NY newspaper publishing in NYC was in freefall (kind of like today, except the competition then was TV, not the internet). In 1900 NYC had 15 daily papers. By 1967, there were the three that exist today – the Times, the News, and the Post.
In 1963, it would not be certain that Don would be reading the Times. There was the Herald Tribune ("Who says a good newspaper has to be dull?" read the ad in, if memory serves, left field of Shea Stadium.) A key element in all this were numerous strikes at the newspapers. I remember a joke about Cardinal Spellman having to read the Christian Science Monitor, and daytime TV shows featuring newspaper columnists. Why would this be important? Well, advertising and advertising. Newspapers were a major part of selling in NYC, especially for department stores. And, some did a better job than others helping business people keep up with the ad world. (The Times still runs an advertising column.) I remember commuting on the Long Island RR with my dad and observing, among other things, the various newspaper types. My dad was a Daily News man. The garment execs were Times or Trib. The bankers? Wall Street Journal all the way.
So, what would Don Draper read? My money would be on the WSJ. That's where you would see hints of things like mergers & acquisitions, which as we know are OH so important. And if he didn't read the Journal, Sterling & Cooper certainly would.
Oh, and at home in the evening, probably not the broadsheet he read on the train in the morning, or the WSJ he might have had delivered (by mail, it's how the Journal was delivered in NYC) at the office, but either internal memoranda or something like Advertising Age.
One final note – it's not just the ads on the back. I remember when the Times dropped the "." at the end of the "The New York Times." on the masthead. We'd need a higher resolution image to see that bit of detail!
Not a calculator. We were still using slide rules in high school in 1963-67. I also remember a calculator we used to run some simple stats in college in 1970 or so – it sat on a desktop, about the size of a cash register.
Roger Sterling was reading The New York Times in his office about the Cuban Missile Crisis when Don returned from his jaunt in California.
In one episode (can't remember which) Don's reading the Poughkeepsie Journal which, as a former Po'towner myself, struck me as very odd. Surely someone from Ossining wouldn't be reading an upstate-ish newspaper.
As for this, I think it's a goof, just looking at the image here. Oh well, can't get everything right. What else would we talk about for 9 months while we're waiting for next season? Plus, it must be a little bit gratifying to the MM staff that their fans are so obsessive that they'd both catch and more, importantly CARE about this.
I sent this picture in after my dad spotted the "Blackberry." Thanks so much for posting it! I thought everyone might be interested in this article about all the print and ephemera props used on the show (perhaps you've already read it): http://www.marksimonson.com/article/236/mad-men-m…. It raises the interesting point that most of these props are yellowed with age; the newspaper Don is holding here seems brand new though. Just a thought!
Ok, I'm a child of the late 80s. The 60s were my parents'/grandparents' time. I'll be asking my grandmother interesting questions about this when she flies in today. I'm studying advertising and marketing in school (I'll be graduating next month). Usually, I will notice electronic ads in the NYT or WSJ and they are mostly sales ads for phones/laptops, etc. Usually, it'll take up the whole page and most of them are placed in the back. Also, it'll just feature the product placed in the middle (for instance, a Blackberry), small print at the bottom, logo and most times a headline. The advertising copywriting today is subtle, straight to the point, abstract art, etc. Sometimes it just looks simple like this: http://fdbnetwork.com/upload/709/image/Mka1XmIhg2….
However, I noticed most print ads from the 60s/70s feature the product being used in a certain environment with a big bold headline, a paragraph about the product, straightforward art, etc. Like this one: http://wellmedicated.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/…
My point is, whatever the ad was in Don's paper (I highly doubt that it was an ad for a Blackberry…being that Matt Weiner is so huge on details). The ad looks too modern (maybe they were ads like that back in the day?) and too minimal.
Perhaps it could be this? http://www.flickfilosopher.com/blog/2009/06/watch…
argh…I just wrote a huge paragraph comparing/contrasting electronic ads from the 60s and today…and it didn't go through!!
Anyway, perhaps its an ad for a remote control?
http://www.flickfilosopher.com/blog/2009/06/watch…
Pamela, these were caught in our spamcatcher–hyperlinks will do that.
Lucy, we've seen that typography/props post before. It's wonderful.
What they do with things that are aged is use them as samples and recreate them. This is often the case with novels, for example, when Don reads Exodus.
It looks like it. It's funny, and no big deal.
I love this.
Don and Gene reading the paper, ignoring the ads, no one there to look at the back page and say, "What the hell is that?"
So a spaceship landed on page A-10. Who cares? If I were a visitor from the year 2009 (and I am), that house is exactly where I'd land. Right after a swing past Joan's.
*sigh*
Not only is the spaceship an anachronism, but I don't think the Times introduced sections (A, B, etc.) until sometime in the '70s. I have a question in to answers.com about when they ditched the period in the masthead, do I have to find out when sections were introduced?
In "New Amsterdam" in Season 1, Roger snaps open the Herald-Tribune (much to my delight).
http://www.thomascrampton.com/newspapers/madmen-r…
I'll have to watch the episode in question, but another clue to whether it's an old newspaper or not, would be the width of "broadsheet" newspapers.
In the early 1960s, they were much wider, with as many as eight columns across the page. In recent years, most newspapers have significantly reduced their size.
If I remember correctly, the standard back then was a 15-inch width. Now, it's more like 12.5-inches.
The front of the paper shows that it's the Herald Tribune. The headline says something about a probe on Wall St. that found something "basically sound. Can't figure out the back, though!
My uncle and aunt had one of those brown, hefty tv remote control devices in the early '60s.
Sorry, but it looked nothing the Blackberry thing (or other modern-day phone) on the back of Don's paper.
could be a transistor radio, walkie talkie or a tv remote
or maybe a tall drink? i have to stop guessing.
Gee, everybody has perfectly straight, bleached white teeth… a little unusual for heavy smokers in 1963. Does this count as a time error too?
Jerry I know you’re playing devil’s advocate but technically, yes. However the variety in body types, as compared to other tv shows, is not a coincidence. If Jon Hamm were bulkier he might not have been cast (this is my guess, of course).
One thing that has been pointed out is that more people would have been wearing glasses–as many people as wear contacts today, which is a much larger slice of the population than we are conscious of.
I agree with 25 Elle-elle. I know they wouldn't use a modern newspaper as a prop. The layout of the ad looks an example of early creative revolution. When I looked at the image blown up, I thought it looked like a walkie-talkie.
I'm not going to be near a computer for a few days, so I'm going to use this to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all of the basketcases and the Lipp Sisters.
Nope, I was alive and sentient in 1963, had a transitor radio, relatives had a TV remote, brother had walkie talkies — and am familiar with variations in the period on all those things — but none resembled the thing on the back page of Draper's newspaper.
It is unmistakably a phone from this period in time, Blackberry or not.
Can't think of any gizmo in the early '60s with that shape. Didn't exist, at least not in any object that would be advertised on the back page of a contempory newspaper.
Interesting conversation and links. However, I can't believe they would let this slip. Doesn't each episode of Mad Men occur on a specific day? Find out the day and look at a microfilm copy of the NY Times.
Yes, the newspaper definitely is the Herald Tribune.
I noticed that when Don first opens the paper, on the lower right portion of the back page ad, there is a figure of some sort. I can't tell if it's an upright vacuum cleaner or a person holding a briefcase/suitcase. Maybe it's a big potted plant.
The only time reference in the episode is when Spring Break is mentioned, but if a date could be established, I bet the reference desk at the NY Library could find that edition of the newspaper on microfilm.
Knowing what a fiend Matt Weiner is for authenticity, I'm sure the prop master for the show just did a reproduction of the paper, thus avoiding the usual yellowing that would be seen, had the original newspaper been used.
I have downloaded a copy and ran it screen by screen. It's definitely not a phone. To me, it looks like some sort of desk light or lamp. Before that image, there is a preview or quick snippet of something else on the same page. Its hard to explain but it looks like something that has a bottom and then extends up and then over to that side of the page.
There is no pic up anymore, but I'd guess if it looks like a Blackberry to someone in this century, that it's a TRANSISTOR RADIO.