I'm with you, Stef, (she said with bleary eyes!) I meant to just kind of drop in and watch here and there all day on that marathon, but I ended up hunkering down and absorbing it all...I saw things I had forgotten about and it was so fun to just see it all again and have it fresh in my mind for next Sun. night!

@ stef I sure do know what you mean about the ciggies. I'm goin on my 3rd month of trying to be a non smoker and by setting and watching the shows one right after another I could almost smell the smoke in my own home Hee Hee.Just a word of encouragement. You hang in there! Think how hard it would be to try to quite AGAIN! I turly just want to done with them. The smoking on the show won't go away thru. It was main stream in the 60's and very accepted in any business to light one up. Good Grief did hyou see the Doctor light one up when Peggy went to get her birth control pills. That is one scene that the younger generation probably drop their mouths open with. Also the way the Doctor talks to Peggy is not tolerated these days. Many, many, many things have changed and by viewing thru the eyes of Matt and his team of writers & directors we are able to see what civil liberties have changed for the better. Are there some things that were done in those times that we have forgotten how to do now? Yes indeed. Teaching our next generation manners and respect is important. Value of life and family. I could extend my ideas yet for now I'll end on that note. Season 2 Yipeeeeee!!

I know what you guys are talking about -- I'm not even a smoker and the show makes them look so appealing. I can't imagine what it would be like if I was trying to quit!

I had a friend who tried everything when she was trying to quit smoking. She was getting so stress out that she decided to try meditation. A revelation hit her after the first session. She realized that the reason she liked smoking so much is because it relaxed her. It was the stopping and taking deep breaths that made her enjoy her cigarettes. She decided to use the breathing techniques everytime she stressed about wanting a cigarette and it finally helped her quit. There are studies that show we don't breath enough during the day due to stress (like holding your breath when you get scared on a roller coaster). It is the lack of oxygen from holding our breaths that cause us to be oxygen defiencient. An oxygen deficient body results in illness. Too bad cigarettes come with carcinogenics and nicotine in those deep breaths. But those who smoke stop their days long enough for a cigarette versus non-smokers who rush through their days without a single stop. I am not suggesting everyone takes up smoking, I suggest we take up deep breathing and ten minute breaks. We would feel the ecstacy that smokers feel without the all the smoke, nicotine and bad stuff.

Yeah, I'm trying to quit smoking and failing. Jeez, and I didn't start until I was 26! Acupuncture worked for me for 5 years, and tried it again later and it didn't work. So, on with the patches. I see them light up and oh boy, off I go to the deck.

Reading all your comments about smoking looking so good on MM. So True...I recall as a child my parents both smoked (b. 1951) and I always thought it looked so yummy and cool...once my mom had a cig lit and sitting in the ashtray and when she left the room I quickly went over (I was about 10) picked it up and tried to hold it like my mom did-- in the same elegant way Joan does-- and took a puff...yeck...maybe that's why I've never since been attracted to it--trying it at such a young age and wow it made an impression on me.

Hahaha -- makes you wonder how anybody can pick up the habit to begin with, huh scfan? Damn that subliminal advertising -- Draper!

What'll really be interesting is when they start to really incorporate "sex in advertising" that really took off in the mid sixties. Because they were pushing the boundaries hard in the music, movies, clothes, and everything else. Remember that stupid looking swimsuit that was topless? Or with the entrance of Twiggy and mini-skirts, bye bye girdles, garter belts, silk stockings and hello pantyhose! Girdles were torture - we were wearing them in '67 if we had on nylons - garter belts were kind of tough to handle and horrible to sit on in school. And you had to have something because wearing pants wasn't allowed - not even for the occasional snow in Seattle. Can you believe it?

Oh God, JAMM54, your post made me recall how in elementary school (1950's) if it was a freezing day, us girls had to wear corduroy (or some other thick fabric) pants UNDER our dresses. Pants alone were not allowed for girls! It even sounds nuts to me and I actually lived through it...but it was the way it was. All us little girls running around with dresses on and those tacky pants underneath to keep from freezing. Nobody thought anything about it then but it was stupid. Also, in high school (1960's) the principal had a yardstick he used for miniskirt measuring. If your skirt came up too high on it (more than 4 inches above the knee) you were sent home to change! So funny to think of now! Also, Clayton, I was not downing folks who smoke and try to quit, I was just saying how my early experience with it might have been the reason I never took to the habit. I tried smoking in college (doing those shorthand assignments that were long and laborious) Kools or Salem, I think I tried. I smoked for 3 months and was lucky I guess that I never got addicted. I do feel for people who are trying to quit as I know it is so hard and justifyiably so.

Actually, there were a couple of good comedies in the 1960's with advertising backgrounds besides "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" (kudos Robert Morse). Jack Lemmon in "Good Neighbor Sam" and "Sex and The Single Girl" with Natalie Wood, Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda, Lauren Bacall. A great 1957 comedy of NYC sports and fashion is "Designing Woman" with Lauren Bacall/Gregory Peck. Fashions in all of them are great, too!

@scfan, yes wearing bulky pants under skirts! Talk about not being able to move. I think we took ours off once at school, and didn't go outside for recess. Luckily, I was just barely past the "on your knees/measure your skirt length" code (graduated in '72). I just remember late grade school (1966)/junior high (1967-69) officials flipping out over Yardley white lipstick, minis, patterned stockings, moccasins, hot pants, paper dresses, culottes, gaucho skirt pants, maxis, and by high school bib overalls.

Well, that explains it, JAMM54, you graduated 3 years after me...but all the other stuff you mentioned we did in college so there weren't officials policing us so much as long as we paid our tuition and didn't burn the place down! LOL

@scfan, yes I was the "middle" age group for the sixties. Just a little too young to partake of the complete wildness of it, but old enough to do the milder stuff, and follow the music, fashions.

I was born January 1954, and my brother was born Sept 1950. My public school years were 1959-1972. My brother's school years were 1955-1968. So, alot of times my brother was my introduction to things (Beatles, Jim Hendrix), and I tagged along (again 1964 Beatles concert, Hendrix in 1968), pot, speed, alcohol. Though I wasn't much into drugs, because I didn't smoke (I'd cough up a lung inhaling pot).

My wild times started from the early seventies on. That's why I make the comment that for all the free love/promiscuity of late '60s into the '70s, there was still the double standard, and alot of judgment toward women. Now, my biggest vice (besides those gawdawful cigarettes) is a Mike's Hard Lemonade and golf.

@scfan, I would be recognized in the movies as the annoying little 'sis who worships/copies either the older sister/brother, and follow you around. My brother and I had a 3 1/2 age difference. But we were very close as kids.

Hey it sounds like there is exactly the same age difference in your brother and you and in my brother and me---April 1947 (my bro.) and January 1951 (me) ! I also had a wilder older bro. to make me think twice when the temptation to be wild came over me! I was a lot tamer than he was in other words! I think by the times' standards I was pretty boring. Not a hippie or a druggie or any of that. I think having a brother and friends of his and friends of mine who did stuff that got them in trouble made me not do same stuff!

I remember having to wear dresses to school everyday except for P.E. day. They would let us wear pants. However, there were five children in our family and my mother could barely remember her own name somedays, much less remembering whether it was dress day or pant day. I ended up going to school in a dress and having to be left out of P.E. because we were doing gymnastics and tumbling. I knew it was going to be a bad day. You know how kind children can be - the teasing went on all day. It sucked!! Let's not forget springtime - sliding down a hot metal slide in a dress while your legs received second degree burns. We would never think to dress young girls today in clothes they couldn't play in. It was such a tragedy. Those were things that young people have today that we didn't, and those I would have gladly changed in a heartbeat.

@luvmadmne, I forgot about the feel of hot metal slides in a dress - yikes! Remember the bars you'd put one leg over, hold onto your knee, and twirl round and round, all with a dress on! Maybe that's why "I see London, I see France, I see .........'s Underpants" was so popular. If you were a tomboy, and at school, hard to not have that dress flying up all over the place!

I had a callous on the back of my knee from all the bar twirling! So fun! If you did it on the days you wore the pants (under the dress) you could really get some momentum going and speed! What a fun childhood we all had in spite of it all, huh? Or we just remember it that way because we have selective memory...

@scfan, oh selective only! But why not? What's the point of remembering the name-calling or being bullied by someone? We learned from those. But it's the fun, silly stuff that's worth keeping.

We used to tie our coats on the bar, and then twirl. It did hurt alot with a bare leg (tho we still did it), but it was so much fun!

What's a crack up about our childhoods is how easily we were amused. Playing outside and making use of whatever's at hand for a "game": Tarzan, Cowboys & Indians or War.

My brother would really get me good in war by nailing me in the head with "grenades" (rock-filled pop cans). Ouch! A deadly accurate aim with him screaming "your'e dead!" If I didn't go out, I was in for another one. So out I'd go.

Let's not forget using the front porch as the seats to a covered wagon. You'd tie up the youngest brothers and sisters as horses and imagine coming across the plains of the front yard. I guess we were pretty lame compared to the homemade hand grenades and war fare you experienced, jamm54. I'm still laughing. I'm glad my brothers never got ideas from your brothers, my Mom would have never survived.

I think we used to actually tie each other up to trees (Cowboys & Indians)! Arrows were whittled from branches, and we made the bows with branches and twine. It's a miracle we didn't commit the classic kid no-no ("don't poke your eye out!").

As for war, we even had plastic machine guns and the helmets. My brother could always get the vantage point for the grenade throwing by climbing up on the garage (I was too small). Darn!

I guess sci-fi was not big on our game radar (how to duplicate a space ship outside?).

Orrrrr....someone on the block got a new ice box (refrigerator, rather) and we all had a ball rolling around inside the box it came in--like a "tank"! As someone on these boards has said...it didn't take much! We were sooooo easily entertained!

That sounds about right! My brother had a Davy Crockett coonskin cap and "The Rebel" gun, but I didn't even get a Barbie. I did get something that was Dale Evans-inspired like the little cowgirl boots, blouse & hat (so in love with my cowgirl outfit!). Of course, I got girl stuff that didn't really hold my interest past the age of 8 (a collapsible clothesline, tea set, little Sears kitchenette set). All to groom me for housework! I was such a tomboy who had to do what my brother did. Still not interested in cooking - straight out of Campbells, Swansons, a microwave or a salad.

Step aside Roy Rogers, Wagon Train, Maverick, Rifleman, Cheyenne, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Palladine, Rawhide! Here we come......

Yep, JAMM54, the more they tried to groom us for housewifery the more tomboyish we became! Maybe having those older brothers caused it to be worse! My Dad always said all the trees in our backyard had the bark worn off from his tree-climbin'-part-chimpanzee little girl! But, it was fun!

I think all the kids today are so busy texting, cellphoning, etc. that they can't have a chance to develop their imaginations! If we'd had all this junk they have today, we'd probably have used it just the same way but we didn't. In retrospect, I'm glad.

Hey jamm54, I like the way you said our parents were "grooming us" to be housewives. I remember my first Easy Bake oven - you know the metal one that looked like a REAL oven. The ones today look like plastic microwave ovens. My grandfather made us an ironing board and an iron from wood. It was quite amazing, but very sexist. I liked how in the Shoot episode how Betty was telling Don that she was going to take the kids to the community center so they could watch the pool being filled up with water. Oh, the excitement that must have brought to Sally and Robert!! Maybe in the afternoon they were coming home to watch the paint dry with Betty. I loved Sally's new playhouse!! A playhouse like that today runs over $1,000.00 It made me quite jealous as our playhouses were covered with Maytag refrigerator labels. I did get a chuckle when I was watching Don guzzle down beer to help him survive the "assembly required" part of that beast. It was rather funny to see him frustrated and out of his element. A rather humanistic side to the Draper man.

Oh, I wanted that Easy Bake oven so badly! No wonder my interest in cooking never developed! I can blame it on my childhood.

Or how about the Sno-Cone machine? Even though I was a tomboy, I did like all my girlie stuff and would've cried if I hadn't gotten some of it at the age that I did. My interest was more for clothes, later (which I still love, but I don't look so good in them anymore!).

Anybody recall "Poor Pitiful Pearl" who came dressed in a tacky "poor" outfit and also had a snazzy "rich" outfit you could later put on her...but she still had that ugly face! I remember asking for one but never got one. They should have made her with a rotating head that had two different faces. There was some doll that had that but can't remember the name. I remember dying for a "Chatty Cathy" and finally got one but "pulled the ring" (on the string to the recorder inside her back) so much til she didn't talk right anymore...sounded like "Hal" getting disconnected in "200l A Space Odyssey"!!