Nixon Defeats Kennedy! Um... Er... Not?

Matt Weiner, who made his name as part of David Chase’s crackerjack writing team on The Sopranos, has got himself a cult hit, if not exactly a ratings winner, with his Golden Age-of-advertising series, Mad Men, on AMC. Production design is a HUGE part of what makes the show a hoot to watch, but what’s got our attention is Weiner’s insistence that his Madison Avenue ad agency set—with the Brylcreemed and Brooks Brothersed gents arrayed malevolently in offices around a buffonted and bullet-bra’ed secretarial pool—is a “science fiction” environment (watch the clip above for the reference, and watch to the end, and enjoy—and thanks to AMC for giving us the code so we can freely post this revelation). We thought we detected a tip of the fedora in MW's comment, beyond its obvious throwback metaphorical implications as far as the sexual-politics wayback machine is concerned. That the first season takes place in 1960, with the Nixon-Kennedy presidential race being run, gave us additional hope that Weiner would throw the audience for a Bikini Atoll-by-way-of-Philip K. Dick loop and commence an alternative history of the ’60s, with Nixon winning and Camelot never emerging and GOD KNOWS WHAT ELSE!!! (Like, for example, the entire Apollo program actually happened and we still opened up China). All viewed through the lens of advertising. Now that would’ve been some bombshell SF, babydoll hepcat. Sadly, it did not come to pass. JFK won. Which only leads us to wonder: Will Weiner arrange to have the fictitious Sterling Cooper agency involved in faking the Moon landing? Time, and a gimlet or three, will tell...

Memo to Hollywood: Give the people what they want! And yes, that's more than a smoke and a drink.