Wow!! Thank you, thank you, Janeeyre! This is fascinating and boy, does it make me long for Season 3, as if I had not been longing for it enough already. Some really interesting characters!!

i think i'll audition for the part of the 50'ish british guy or the 20 year old female prostitute. i'm a 37 year from new jersey, so i think i have a good shot at either role.

Looks like we're going to get some background on Dick's mother in Season 3... can't wait!

Do you all think the British characters are due to the London Fog account or due to the merger? I hope it's London Fog because I'm not crazy about the merger. However, if SC doesn't merge I think Roger will kill Don! My favorite line EVER was Don's come back to Duck... "I don't have a contract"... In your face Duck!

.....Interesting. We'll finally see who "Burt Peterson" is.....remember Pete mentioned something about "Duck called Burt Peterson a moron" or something.....

And I guess if there's a bellhop, there's a hotel, and that means more sh**cking up for Don Draper.

I hope there is a new boyfriend for Joan in there - maybe the handsome pilot.

.....I received the AMCtv.com May Calendar this morning, and although Mad Men is indeed airing in May, it appears NOWHERE on that calendar schedule!

How many people receive that monthly e-mail?

What a gross oversight!!!

Just one more way to punish Matt and the show, I guess.

Also, I read somewhere this morning that Mad Men will be airing at 11 pm, instead of midnight.

Since I can't remember where I saw that, I can't confirm what I read, either way. AMC's online schedule currently shows it still airing at midnight.

I get that e-mail, too, Dry...glaring omission is an understatement!

I can't, just CAN'T, understand why the ceaseless trumpeting of BB and the under-the-rug treatment of MM -- oh well.

I'ts only the show that got AMC known as something besides "that 'other' little movie channel"....

What gives?????????

also, I get a feeling that "Evangeline" mentioned(prostitute) might be Dick's mother....who will be nice to have some background on -- in addition to making him a "whore child"....

Can't wait to see how all those new characters flesh out!!

Hmm, I have reservations about a casting call. Perhaps DarkUFO was projecting his ideas for Season 3. A source was not even hinted at and I don’t think MW would let out a spoiler like that. Besides, there are plenty of establish character actors that MW can draw from.
All-in-all, It could be a wonderful hoax and fodder for great conversation until S3 is on the air. We shall see.

Looks like we're going to have a little more history of DW-DD. On the other hand, maybe it's Roger's true antecedents. Nah...

Lots of new directions with the Brits coming in.

A bellhop and other new women? Lola (does she get what she wants?) Don't tell me she's going to be Don's new secretary. (After Lois and Jane, he should be insistent on what he wants when he talks with Joan.) Will Shelly (with the note of partial nudity) be DD's latest, ah, friend?

Evangeline, Theda and Carrie are probably all in the same or related scenes.

Lorelai, Shelly and Jack, probably in the same or related scenes.

.....That is a LOT of new characters. I'd consider the source.

I take EVERYTHING with a grain of salt on this forum. There are so many "new people" on here right now, masquerading as fans, it's becoming quite the Dysfunction Junction.

And, for the record, kids, they are laughing AT us, not WITH us.

SCfan, I thought the same thing about the prostitute, and also thought that Evangeline seems very much like a Depression-era name.

Who knows - if there is one thing Mad Men isn't short on, it is prostitutes!

I'm sure that even if that particular character is not his mother, we will still be treated to at least one flashback in S3. I think we all still have questions about young Dick Whitman.

When I posted that Woody Guthrie tune, House of the Rising Sun, the other night, it was because the second I played it, a series of Depression-era Dick Whitman scenes were swirling before my eyes.

If there is anyone you want to hear singing about life during the Depression, it's Woody. It also struck me as a great choice to stick on the end of said episode, the way Matt likes to do.

.....Interesting, Ritt1.....But don't the names Lorelei, Theda and Evangeline seem "old-timey" to you?

.....Damn, I meant to hit "Preview," not "Submit." Just ignore that post - thanks.

SpoilerTV is a legitimate site. Why would I share the link if it wasn't? I always get spoilers for my favorite TV shows there.

Anyway, I think Evangeline is definitely Dick Whitman's mother and we're going to see her die giving birth to him. I wonder how they are going to show this as a flashback, though, since Don can't obviously remember being born.

I also wonder if the new Brits at Sterling Cooper are going to be this season's "bad guys", since Duck is presumably gone.

Maybe Don will encounter someone older (the midwife, some long lost relative), who does remember his birth and the flashback will involve that person. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a memory of Don's.

Don't you just love it when Don goes into flashback mode....eyes glaze over, thoughtful look comes over his face....and then we get treated to yet another "mystery" solved...or at least getting closer to being solved....

@ 485Madison:

The casting call is legitimate. I have a friend who was invited to participate, and they were very VERY specific about the requirements for auditioning. Her casting notice was similar to the one announced on that site.

Matthew Weiner can only hide so much about the show. If casting directors need to fill certain roles with certain types of people, that information is going to get out. Even if they don't release the name of the show, the specificity of the requirements would betray the show any way. Matt doesn't want anyone who looks too contemporary or too Californian. No visible tattoos, no plastic surgery, no collagen lips, no tans, etc. Men have to cut their hair, and this year, the women also had to have shoulder length or shorter hair, which seems to conform to the fashion trends for 1964 or '65, as well as the British influence.

Now why do you suppose the character of the bellhop--- ie., his facial appearance-- has been spelled out so specifically? It sounds like his task will involve something more than carrying luggage... hm.

I also love the way the actors on MM do not have the (usual) physical trappings of today's hi-glam, Tinseltown beauty. It's not only refreshing... it's downright shocking. It makes for TV with a dazzlingly new feeling.

I am reminded of drama serials--- your better ones--- from the 50's and early 60's--- which were all about the acting, and you saw a range of face-types, and plenty of unknowns.

I hope the flashback to Dick's mother dying in childbirth doesn't mean something bad happened to Betty or the new Draper baby.

@ grinandbearit: How far did your friend get in the casting process? Did she get to meet Matthew Weiner?

.....OKAY, "JaneEyre!!....."

@ janeeyre:

She didn't get very far, although she tried. LOL. As I said, they were very specific about what they wanted, and she just didn't fit the profile. For the audition she attended, she was told that the women had to be about 5'7", and had to have a 27" waist. She's about 5'6" with a 29" waist. She was cut before she even got in the door.

Cruelly cut, if I may say so. Heck, put her in those high heels they wore back then, with her hair piled high and one of those waist cinching long line bras, and hey, presto, she fits the profile. Her feet will hurt and she won't be able to talk and breathe at the same time, but we must all suffer for our art....

I had a casting director once tell me to my face bluntly that my teeth were too yellow and my ears were too big.

0-:

....Hollywood has folks working right now who were told they would "never make it in show business", for all kinds of stupid reasons --- quite a few stories over the years have surfaced about such things...Seems I've read that Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman were booted around a lot way back there, also Lucille Ball... and I think even Clint Eastwood?... I may have even heard Morgan Freeman (doesn't seem possible!) was told to forget it, but, that surely has to be a rumor!

I like MW's attention to detail and all, but there is something to be said for carrying it too far, I suppose.

Then again, I guess we should not argue with perfection...whatever that means..

oh and ras, that's about what they told Clark Gable, I seem to recall!

Sometimes it's not the perfection but the perfect mix... and I, for one, think CG was wonderful looking, as did millions -- even with the ears!

That's one of the charms of MM to me, every character, fven when they are good looking, is "real" looking, like they could be an actual, unmodified person.

...yes it does get tiresom, I know...
"fven" (wonder if that's an actual word in some language?)

.....,even (when they are good looking....) I meant....

....tiresome...

ridiculous ridiculous ridiculous.....

.....Ah, yes.....rejection.

In all of its iterations.

I'm throwing a shindig for those among us with big ears, yellow teeth and fat butts.

RSVP ASAP!!!

In this instance I think it's for practicality's sake over anything else. Mad Men is a period piece. It requires a lot of effort to be true to the period. The costume department devotes most of it's time and resources to the main characters and the prominent guest characters. The wardrobe people will devote hours and hours to make sure these people's clothes are right. But bit parts and extras? They have to take what's available (usually from a costume shop). The designers aren't going to waste a lot of time on them -- they aren't going to create a costume or even alter clothes to fit a character who's in the background or whose screen time amounts to just a few minutes.

Where's Nora?

She was a backgrounder in the Lutece scene, as I recall....Nora? Any comments about it first hand??

I do recall her mentioning JH in his T-shirt (white undershirt)...that tends to become a strong memory, I'll bet....

@ SCFan: Yes, you know my grandad was the man I inherited the big ears from. Now, back in the 1940's? he strongly favored Clark Gable! Mixed with a dash of Cary Grant. And I think he got PLENTY of "mileage" out of it, too... (-: I wish I'd inherited only HALF of grandpa's matinee idol looks-- and affable bonhomie.

Vis-a-vis 1960's costumes and do's: There are plenty of fashions and hairdos from the 1960's that just look, I dunno, risible by today's standards. Just comb through any American 1964 high school yearbook.

I get the impression that the MM decor/costumers have to tread a fine line between "period accurate".... and 60's downright campy (e.g. the looks seen in John Waters's HAIRSPRAY). It would not take much of a little "push" at all to turn all of the women's looks in MM into "camp", don't you think?

I have been much wondering, though, whether MM has some brilliant sewists who are sewing up vintage fashions tailored to the principals' bodies? Or whether they have been combing L.A. thrift stores for the genuine article? Obviously the MM gals are wearing period underwear, too... Custom-made or truly left-over from the 60's?

We saw, in the RIGHT GUARD scene, that cutie Aaron Stott wears a "tank" style cotton undershirt, as so many self-respecting fellows did in that time. (I remember, in the mid-1970's, my grandparents encouraging ME to wear such an undershirt! Were they CRAZY??)

Some modern sewists I know tell me that today's women simply would not tolerate an authentic dress made from a 1962 BUTTERICK pattern; the sizings were smaller! the armscyes are too tight, the bodice too, and few modern women want to hoist their "bust-points" up to ballistic horizontals.

There's a blog piece about that on the site somewhere, ras...it's been a few months ago....about MM's Costume Designer and how she hand makes some of the clothes and finds others in vintage shops....really interesting.

Wish I could remember her name to type in the blog search...anyone recall her name? Jane something....Bryant?

anyway, there's stuff about her in the AMC Blogs.

Oh yeah. One of my best friends is a cutter/fitter/tailor/seamstress for movies and TV. The principals' clothes are most definitely fitted to their bodies -- especially if the costume came from a retail boutique, estate sale, flea market or thrift store -- less so if it's on loan from a private collection, or rented from a costume shop. It has to look like it belongs to that person, so the tailors alter the garment so it fits the actor properly. If they can't alter the garment, then they hire an actor who "fits the suit." It's like that episode of the Brady Bunch when Greg became a rock star. Sure, they liked his talent enough, but he was really hired because he fit the suit.

The days of Edith Head designing every piece, and working with a team of seamstresses to produce them for a movie or TV show are long gone. Designers today are more like stylists, than actual costume designers. They find items that will more or less fulfill the requirements of the show, and adapt them as necessary. Sometimes this means creating garments from scratch, but usually it means taking something that already exists and adapting it to fit the needs of the production.