Basket of Kisses

The print edition of today’s New York Daily News (September 6, 2009) has a feature on “Super Fans,” featuring yours truly as a super Mad Men fan, and mentioning Basket of Kisses. Unfortunately, the article does not appear to be online.

This news does not include the fact that Mad Men won the Golden Globe for Best TV Drama. We so already knew that. Nor that Matt Weiner signed. Cuz, y’know.

• Buddy TV did the top 100 television episodes of 2008. Ambitious! Flight 1 came in at #45.
• The Mad Men Golden Globes party was the place to be. Well, DUH!
• The Daily News is gossiping about how much swag January Jones snagged backstage at the Globes, and snickers at Jeremy Piven’s Speed-the-Plow departure.
• Mad Men is one of the reasons that staying home and watching cable is better than going to the movies.
• This cracks me up: An article about Jenna Fischer opens like this:
  

  She had just finished talking with a pal — the actor who plays the pretentious writer guy on Mad Men when I pounced.

  Michael, you reading?

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• I am a TV Junkie uses his knowledge of Don Draper for good.
• Denver blogger John Scherer muses on the huge technological changes in office life since Mad Men (which is, hello, two words).
• Newsday interviews Elisabeth Moss, and like a dork I comment with a correction. Dork!
• Memphis-based Commercial Appeal does a homegirl article on Janie Bryant and the remarkable Mad Men clothing. I didn’t know that Betty wore Janie’s grandmother’s wedding dress!
• The Boston Globe examines parenting on Mad Men.
• How to achieve Don Draper hair: The New York Times launches a 2 part investigation.
• Variety thinks Jon Hamm is the next George Clooney.

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• None of the Mad Men stars have contracts. Fox News tells us that Jon Hamm, John Slattery, and the rest of the cast have yet to sign for a third season. ARGH!
• However, a couple of days later, AMC came out saying Jon Hamm does have a contract, and viewers shouldn’t worry.
• And Alan Sepinwall gets the money quote from Matt Weiner:
  

  “I love the show and I love the characters and we just started (negotiating),” he said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “I have every intention of being part of this show forever. I love doing it and I love the experience and I love working with everybody I work with. There’s no crisis.”

  Paste that to your bathroom mirror and read it over and over.

  As with every Weiner interview, virtually every word is quotable, so go read.

• Bryan Batt interview with Richard Jay-Alexander.
• Buzz Sugar asks readers what they want from a third season of Mad Men (other than, y’know, JON HAMM).
• Stickers and Donuts shows you how to buy everything Mad Men and basically gives lessons in fan-type worship. Woo!

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• The Austin American-Statesman looks at the influence of Mad Men on the fashions in local ad agencies.
• Newsday is using a mantra to make sure Mad Men wins the Emmy.
• Newsweek has a really fun and lengthy roundtable with Emmy nominees, including John Slattery.
• Fox News speculates about the Emmys, quoting Hamm and hoping for a wardrobe malfunction (in separate paragraphs—if a Basketcase had written it, she’d be hoping for a Hamm wardrobe malfunction).
• SF Gate’s Tim Goodman also discusses the Emmy show in general, and then gets into Will Win/Should Win. For Best Drama, he gives both nods to Mad Men, for Best Actor, he gives neither to Hamm (the rat!) and for Best Supporting Actor, Slattery is not on his radar either.
• The Star Press of Indiana gives the should/will to House for both drama and actor, saying it “has all the quality of Mad Men, plus an audience” (except that House is a formulaic medical mystery drama and Mad Men is not. Other than that, of course). As House himself would say, they’re “idiots.”

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• Panopticist, a blog that looks at culture from a very inside-advertising perspective, criticizes the fonts in Mad Men’s closing credits. It’s kind of dorky if you’re not interested in fonts, but I found it fascinating.
• The Hanover, PA Evening Sun is interested in the appearance of Hanover company Utz in Mad Men.
  

  Utz was flattered with the recognition it received but was not involved with the decision to be included in the show, said Alec Sivel, director of marketing for Utz.

  “They just wrote us into the script,” Sivel said.

• The Chicago Tribune has found the real Tilden Katz! (Scroll to the very end.) Now that’s what I call journalism!
• The New York Daily News discusses Mad Men as the future of television, nodding to the potential Emmys sweep coming up on September 16.
• It seems fans are more upset over Duck’s mistreatment of his dog than any mistreatment of other humans. (Hat tip to Basketcase Peter G.)
• The New York Post compares Don Draper to Tony Soprano.
• TV By the Numbers analyzes Mad Men’s marketing strategy, comparing AMC to Duck Philips.

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• George Hatza perceives how Mad Men’s look at the past is a lens on the present.
• The Las Vegas Review-Journal understands that Mad Men is not about the props and period detail, but gets caught up in them nonetheless (sound familiar?). Author Christopher Lawrence also gets off what will probably be the quote of the week:
  

  The two greatest joys of “Mad Men” are admiring Draper as he smokes his ever-present Lucky Strikes as though he’s angry at them and watching office manager Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) walk, her limbs moving as if independent from her body and her hips swiveling in ways that kept parts of Elvis off TV.

  (The two deserve their own spinoff. Call it “Smoking & Walking.” Just an hour each week of them doing their thing — smoke, smoke, smoke; walk, walk, walk — with a little lounge music in the background. It would be a sensation.)

• Or maybe you just want to look at pretty pictures. Holy cow, I almost died when I saw Hamm on the motorcycle.

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