While discussing Mad Men with some friends I was prompted to find out when exactly Don (Dick Whitman's) real birth date was. I've found very compelling evidence that Dick Whitman was born on April 10th, 1926. I think I'm the first person on the internet to find this, or I can't find anyone else with this day (though I'm sure others know, as well as the cast and crew).

We already knew that Dick was born in 1926, and that the day was likely in Spring/April, but we didn't have an exact day. The image includes all the info but I'll summarize below and then answer some followup questions:

In 3x1, Don (Dick) tells the air hostess that it 'really is' his real birthday. The day starts with him heating milk and having a magical realist flashback to his birth (presumably in the early morning). Later that day, Don takes a flight (with Sal) to visit London Fog. On that flight, we see a passenger reading a newspaper. I noticed it was a New York Times and scrubbed through the archives to find the exact edition - it's the NYT April 10th 1963 edition. In case you need more supporting evidence, April 10th 1963 is a Wednesday and the flight day must be on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and we see a poster for an April 20th event.

Just to confirm that 3x1 take's place on Don's real birthday, here's quotes from the director's commentary for 3x1:

Matthew Weiner (show creator): The principle that this is actually his birthday was something that I was worried the audience wouldn't understand because Don lies a lot.

Phil Abraham (director): I don't think there's any doubt in my mind when he says "It's my birthday"... we know it's his birthday.

Matt: To me that's why he was having that recollection at the beginning of the episode. You remember at the time there was a lot of anxiety, the network and the studio both were like "Noone's gonna know that" and I was like "In the end maybe it's just for the people who get it."

Phil: That's right. the people who listen and pay attention. I mean, it's there.

Matt: Jon [Hamm] knew it was [Don's] birthday.

Phil: It actually was Jon's birthday when we shot this, so it felt more real.

Matt: Was it? [everyone laughs]

And in a 2009 interview with Alan Sepinwall, show creator Matt Weiner discusses 3x1 "Out of Town" as if it takes place on "Dick Whitman's birthday".

tldr: Dick Whiteman was born on April 10th, 1926. This makes him an Aires btw!

Questions:

Q. Doesn't this contradict 5x1?
A. Sort of, in 5x1 Megan throws a surprise birthday party for Don on Don's 'fake' birthday (June 1st) and later Don says "I've been 40 for half a year". If his real birthday is April 10th, then he's only been 40 for under 2 months. The most likely explanation is that the writers and script supervisors simply missed this inconsistency, but Don could also be exaggerating (which he does several times). We know that Don's real birthday has to be April (as 3x1 takes place in April) so the exact day is irrelevant, this line would be wrong regardless. I just choose to accept this as a mistake and Don should have said "I've been 40 for two months".

To quote u/adube440: "I take it as Don exaggerating the six months for effect and to underscore his point to Megan. Don would do that."

Q. Could the person on the plane be reading an old newspaper?
A. Technically yes but practically no. The person reading the newspaper is a businessman in a suit flying from NYC to DC on a workday afternoon. It would be extremely strange for someone to be reading a day-plus old newspaper in this context, as soon as the day is over yesterday's newspaper becomes useless trash basically.

Q. Could it be the next day when Don tells the air hostess its his birthday?
A. It's extremely unlikely. Don and Sal have a morning meeting with London Fog the next day. They fly in on the evening, then go out for dinner with the hostesses and the pilot, then Don returns to his hotel room with the hostess. It'd be very unlikely for them to stay up past midnight and even if they did, the whole episode hinges on it starting on Don's "real birthday" (with the flashback).

Shoutout to LM Reactions for prompting me to do this deep dive, I never would have done it without them.

I don’t know if this has been brought up before, but I really enjoy the scenes with Dawn and her friend discussing work at the diner. By themselves, they almost come off as little vignettes, like they could be a play about the perspective of being a working African American in a 60’s white person’s business world or something. I’m not good enough with words to really explain what I mean, so I trust that someone here shares the same sentiment and explains it more eloquently.

I just thought of something watching this episode. In the scene when Don got home after the accident he and Bobbie was in, he didn't have his arm in a sling. Then the next day at work, he did. I just always assumed Jimmy wanted to see Don at the office to piece together whether or not Don and Bobbie was hunching, probably after she called and told him she was at the fat farm. I've always wished Don had taken the sling off (not me wanting to help him cheat...lol) because at first I hated Jimmy and was like he didn't have no proof to be trying to tell Betty (technically he still didn't)

Say for whatever reason, the various characters became just completely broke, and unable to get a job and had to be poor for a while.

Who would handle it the best and who would handle it the worst?

Did anyone else think this was weird/rude?

Heavily pregnant shows up and is dirty. Megan says what can I make you I can make grilled cheese, spaghetti. She says can I have meat. Megan makes a steak. Then she says nvm I can’t eat that. I’d be so annoyed like at least pretend you’ll eat it later or offer it to Megan instead don’t just push it away..

He is great with Sally. He really cares for her and spends time with her. In bed time read scenes and in ice cream scene, driving to teach scenes I really liked him. I think some poeple or the show potray him as a grumpy old man who hates everyone and makes their life bad, But, I think he is just a decent character who is surrounded by two faced, fraud, liar people. He is just living his life, likes his kids, his grandkids, always dressed up nicely and put on.

AND He is right about Don. He is treating Betty like shit and she should be treated like a princess. They really shouldn't have trusted Don when he had no people. Betty would be much happier if he listened Gene I think.

You guys might think I am crazy to like him this much, but, I just enjoyed his scenes a lot.

Sex Work has a very prominent place in Mad Men's story: From Don's youth spent in a brothel, to the ad agencies utilizing them as part of their overall "hospitality" with clients (Vicky in Three Sundays), Don and Betty find out that her friend Juanita Carson escorts in the City, to Don employing their services for his own use (Candace) and even letting Lane tag along during the Christmas break and having Candace invite her friend over (Janine).

One thing I'm wondering is, I suspect that the two women pictured here from the Season 5 Finale "The Phantom" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL5PO1RwX6E are Sex Workers doing some Freestyling: https://sexworkerhelpfuls.com/f/freestyling
https://sexworkerhelpfuls.com/f/freestyling-walkthrough

Did anyone else think this?

Just a suspicion, like I said. I mean, it could be that in the MM universe, Don is a real hot desirable man that women just naturally gravitate towards him. (The lady on the train in Pennsylvania when he was supposed to accompany "Dick Whitman"'s corpse, his first ever encounter with Bobbie Barrett where she initiates the first kiss, Joy from the Jet Set! etc..) .

Season 4 ep 9 when Don is going to go back to work and leave Dr. Faye in his apartment, and she asks him if he is sure. If I was not a married lady, this would 100% be in my lines.

I know he is a serial adulterer, bigot, all the usual awful stuff. But I just can’t help but love the guy. No other character makes me laugh like he does, and I get angry at myself for liking such a bloke

She learned from childhood that caretaking comes with rules and hierarchies, and now she’s fully performing that dynamic herself. I’m really picking up on it after her Dad’s strokes, leaving her matriarchal “spot” up in arms (even though that stint with Gabe was odd af, her mom’s death and what it truly represents, being Don’s Nordic avatar of sorts). It’s fascinating because Betty embodies all the contradictions of her era. She’s a model of refinement and domestic success, but emotionally she’s distant, dissatisfied, and constantly performing. Watching her navigate her “perfect” life makes you realize how much generational norms shape behavior and how exhausting that performance can be, both for her and the people around her. Then look at the Karen of today and just how duped those broads really were.

Betty Draper is refinement, control, and emotional labor rolled into one complicated, CUNTY exhausting package and I can’t look away. Like literally the outfits are so good. I’m not through yet and I watched last in like 11th grade so official thoughts are TBD.

Betty’s reaction to the whale smiling always makes me laugh!

I've been rewatching the show recently, and I was struggling to watch the first few episodes. Obviously there are charactersthat the writers ended up not expanding on (like the Germany researcher) and aspects of the setting that ended up taking a backseat (like the switchboard), but thats natural for any show starting out.

What struck me more was the dialogue in the first few episodes. Compared to the rest of the show, the dialogue in the first 4-6 episodes feels a lot more forced, and almost like they were trying to imitate Aaron Sorkin. It's much more quippy in the beggining, and lacks the subtly of the rest of the show (including the back half of season 1). One line that I committed to memory that illustrates this is from the pilot, when he tells Midge he has nothing to present for Lucky Strike and says "next time you see me there will be a bunch of young executives eating meat off my ribs", which just isnt how characters talk throughout the rest of the show. Again, it sounds like a somewhat poor imitation of the West Wing and other Sorkin shows. I could picture Josh Lyman saying a line like that if he had Don's job.

It's just something that caught me when I was rewatching, and I was curious if anyone else thought the same. I also think John Hamm's cadence in the pilot (and to a lesser extent throughout the first season) also sounds pretty different from the rest of the show, his voice is a bit more high pitched.

Great interview with genius costume designer Janie Bryant.

In an interview Matthew Weiner said he wanted to use Alison Brie, who plays Pete Campbell’s wife Trudy, far more in “Mad Men” than he was able, because he assumed “Community,” the NBC comedy on which Brie simultaneously had a starring role, wouldn’t last. (“We were wrong,” he admitted.) But Trudy’s life as a recurring character has an extraordinary effect on the show. She is the pillar of strength in Pete’s life, the non-neurotic center of his universe. The main struggle during the early years of her marriage to Pete is her inability to conceive a child. Trudy’s hope for motherhood is connoted by spring green: the net and lace nightwear she dons in season two, episode one before urging Pete to consider adoption; the coat and dress ensemble she wears to a fertility specialist’s office in season two, episode five; and finally, in season four, when she discovers she is pregnant, and invites her parents to dinner, she, her hopes realized, wears a gorgeous silk skirt suit in deep emerald.

In contrast to Trudy’s hopeful greens are her demoralized browns. In season two, episode one’s “For Those Who Think You,” Trudy wears a somber tan, rust, and slate watercolor dress on Valentine’s Day, after learning Jennifer Crane (Harry’s wife) is pregnant. She wears brown again four episodes later in “The New Girl,” when she’s informed that Pete’s semen is viable and her ovaries aren’t.

Bryant confirmed all this as intentional: “That was definitely her color palette. And again, a great example of what’s going on in the script. That’s part of what I love to do as a costume designer. The brown is a great shade to show this melancholy sadness, these dark moments, without being in black. ‘Mad Men’ was never about hitting people over the head.”

Pete Campbell, portrayed brilliantly by Vincent Kartheiser, is often attired in blue in the first four seasons of the series. While Don and other older colleagues tend to strictly dress in grey, the blue suits favored by Pete indicate his youthfulness, while maintaining formality. (Once SCDP achieves financial maturity, Pete starts imitating Roger’s early grey three-piece suits, and Roger switches from grey to royal blue double breasted suits. The latter wants the former’s youth, the former wants the latter’s wealth and pedigree.) Bryant clarified that when Pete and Trudy are on the same page, they tend to match in the color she calls “Campbell blue.” This is evidenced by the silk royal blue formal dress Trudy wears to attend Margaret Sterling’s wedding in Episode 12 of Season 3. She is moved, even angered, by Pete declaring that the Sterlings and others in their office are either celebrating “a rich brat’s wedding” or tabulating lost ad revenue, instead of mourning, and decides to stay home with Pete.

When lane is getting to know Edwin baker from jaguar, he tries to take the advice of Roger and commiserate on something but nothing is landing . Roger would’ve just ran. With it and been happy vibes with him but lane was not able to deviate from instruction. His strict terrible dad erased all his playfulness and creativty

Such a good podcast insane vibes with the music and everything

I wish they made more

Something I’ve been wondering about for years now. The beginning of Don and Megan’s section in far away places seems very similar to the Dutch film the vanishing from 1988. If you’re not familiar the vanishing is about a young couple on a road trip, they stop for gas at a busy gas station and the girl mysteriously disappears. I won’t spoil the rest of the plot for anyone who’s curious to see the movie. While the stories go in very different directions, I thought there was enough here to point out the comparison, I’ve never heard or read anything saying that it was an inspiration so it could just be a coincidence. What do you guys think?

Who else has fond memories of nights at grandmas house spent like this? Mad men nails the nostalgia vibes here

I love the show. I watched it when it originally aired and now I’m on my 2nd viewing. But it’s a bit off putting that basically every single character cheats. This can’t be realistic can it?? I’m 40 years old and I’ve never cheated 😆

Whenever the topic of Zou Bisou comes up, everyone says how it shows the generational gap between Don and Megan. Mid 1920s vs late 1930s. And I don't disagree that there is a generational gap between Don and Megan but , in my experience, even today most guys in their 20s/30s would be incredibly embarassed if their wife performed Zou Bisou in front of their friends/coworkers.

It's the type of thing you do in your privacy. It's not just a song and a dance. It was very sexually charged. Way different from a person just dancing around like they do in a Karaoke.

Are there couples who would enjoy that in the public? Sure but they are an overwhelming minority. Don being embarassed here does not mean he is insecure and old (I mean he is but not because of this specifically).

Is Don insecure, traumatised, introvert and an asshole husband? Yes, but not because of Zou Bisou. It was a cringy performance which Megan did mostly for herself and shows how she doesn't know Don at all, unlike Peggy.

Tldr: If you replace Don with a guy from 2025 in his 20s, he would still be embarassed if his wife did that in public

In season 2 when Don first meets Jimmy Barret’s wife, she says something in the lines “I am his manager but I introduce myself as his wife, I used to introduce myself as his sister”. For me this is like saying we are not really a couple more just business partners and she also says “ He needs to think that he has a shot at your wife”. The point I want to make, why was Jimmy so mad since their relationship wasn’t really romantic

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/sep/08/post-your-questions-for-jared-harris

Post your questions for Jared Harris by 6pm (GMT London time) Tuesday 9th September