Excellent insights @fifty-two. I noticed that about Oliver! as well... I was like, "But what if they've already seen it?"

Literary references. Great topic. Let's see, here are some from earlier episodes...

TS Eliot
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Frank O'Hara
Katherine Ann Porter
William Faulkner
Ayn Rand
Leon Uris ("Exodus")
don't know if this counts, but the James Bond series were novels by Ian Fleming before they were made into films, i.e. when Peggy refers to "Moneypenny"

Good list, Bluegirl!

How about Rona Jaffe's "The Best of Everything" which Don is reading, and Betty makes her comment about the film version with Joan Crawford and Suzy Parker?

Remember Joan and the girls at the office passing around the dog-eared paperback of "Lady Chatterley's Lover"? So we have to add D.H. Lawrence to the list, too.

And of course the references to Henrik Ibsen's plays, both Peer Gynt and A Doll's House, even if the second one was a little obscure.

Should we count Alice in Wonderland? Betty and the caterpillar last week, and now Betty and the baby boy who turns into a pig! :-D

"Speak roughly to your little boy
And beat him when he sneezes.
He only does it to annoy
Because he knows it teases.
Wah! Wah! Wah!"
(Lewis Carroll)

Thanks fifty-two! I had a nagging feeling I had forgotten a few. Awesome memory you have there! I think you got all the ones I missed. Anyone else want to chime in?

If theatre references are included there are a bunch more we can list! The Drapers went to see Fiorello. There was some discussion with Bobbie Barrett re: "A Funny Thing Happened...", Duck mentioned getting tickets for his kids to see a show and they said they'd already seen it (I forgot which one?), and then Sal said that he saw the original "Bye Bye Birdie" on Broadway before it was made into a film.

Do magazines count too? Then we'd have "The Atlantic Monthly" and "The New Yorker" of course.

Sure, theater counts, as far as I'm concerned! Was there some character who mentioned "My Fair Lady" way back in season one?

And what was the name of the David Ogilvy book on advertising?

Magazines definitely count. And newspapers. Anybody notice the names of any NY papers? Is it The Times, The Wall Street Journal or something else?

Sorry I misquoted from Lewis Carroll-- the last lines of the poem are "Wow! Wow! Wow!"

fifty-two and bluegirl, how about:

Edward Gibbon, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Sally read this book aloud to her grandfather.

Shakespeare, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Connie asked Don if he had ever seen “A Midsummer’s Dream” with Mickey Rooney (title corrected by Don), “No matter how expensive my cufflinks, I feel that I have the head of a jackass.”

Magazines: "Boy's Life" was mentioned as a possibility for publication of a short story written by Pete Campbell. I think "Advertising Age" was the magazine/newspaper where Adam saw the picture of Don that led to their unhappy reunion.

There are more references from Seasons 1 and 2, but they are a little fuzzy in my memory at this point.

Thanks for starting a very interesting thread, fifty-two.

Great additions Suzette L.! Keep 'em coming kids. I love this thread, what a fun topic. Thanks fifty-two!

There have definitely been a few shots of newspapers but I can't recall which one(s). Probably the Times, yes. I remember Don was shown picking up a paper on the day of or the day after Marilyn Monroe's death-- it was outside his hotel room door when he was staying there during his "banishment" from the house by Betty.

Last night we saw "Time" magazine with Mr. Hilton on the cover. I also glimpsed what I think was a Better Homes and Gardens "Hostess" book in the Draper kitchen either during "Guy Walks..." or maybe it was in "The Fog".

Didn't Francine and Betty discuss a parenting book at one point? Dr. Spock?

Ladies, kudos! Great thread. I think you've covered them all. Applause, applause!

Yes, Francine and Betty discussed "the book" while they were playing cards with their husbands in the Draper living room; Betty mentioned that Bobby had been caught in a couple of lies and Francine mentioned that "the book" said they exaggerate at that age.

Well if they refer to it that way, Chopin, then it has to be Spock. It was 'the Bible' for parenting back then. My mom, who is Betty through and through, used it for all three kids, and gave me her copy when I got pregnant with my first. But in the 80's, it was considered passe. We were influenced more by the Gesell Institue/Ames and Ilg school of thought, or Dr. T. Berry Brazelton.

Ladies,
Another literary/film reference comes to mind: The 1951 film, “A Place in the Sun” (Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters), based on the 1925 novel, An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser. Killing two birds with one stone here!

At the stables in “The Benefactor,” Sara Beth remarks to Betty that “He (Arthur) reminds me of Monty Clift in “A Place in the Sun,” learning how to ride so he can worm his way into the upper crust.” Betty responds, “Somewhere there’s a pregnant girl floating in a lake.”

Thanks Suzette, that was an awesome one.

I just remembered something else literary. In "Out of Town" at the London Fog meeting, Sal quotes Balzac-- "Our worst fears lie in anticipation."

Suzette-- "A Place in the Sun", before Monty's accident. Interesting to watch it now with the knowledge that he was gay. Liz made him look so totally hetero, didn't she? Good for you, catching that one!

This thread can't die yet because we have to add David Ogilvy to the list. "Confessions of an Advertising Man" and "Ogilvy on Advertising" were "bibles" on the subject, as well as his sales instruction manual "The Theory and Practice of Selling the AGA Cooker", which landed him a job as an adman with Mather and Crowther in London. Did you know he worked for Gallup, British Intelligence during WWII and later tried to retire to a farm in Lancaster PA to live among the Amish? He later started his own agency.

"Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency" is straight from his early experiences in London. He came up with a great campaign for (wait for it)... a hotel owner who just walked in!

Can anyone remember when Katherine Ann Porter was mentioned? Was it "Ship of Fools"? What scene and which characters?

fifty-two, you've reminded me of one of my favorite scenes in Season 2!

In “Six Month Leave,” Betty is recovering somewhat from the trauma of discovering Don’s infidelity and throwing him out. Wearing a housecoat and looking pretty drab (no makeup, stringy hair), she defrosts the fridge (carefully placing a towel on the floor to absorb the water) and relines the cupboard drawers. Then she walks into the living room carrying her glass of wine, puts on some music, sits down on the couch and opens up Katherine Anne Porter’s novel "Ship of Fools."

I was struck by this scene because I thought it was not exactly the most upbeat choice of reading matter for Betty, given her state of mind.

Oh Suzetta, now don't you cry for me, for you solved the mystery on my mind, and I'm happy as can be!

Well, at least she wasn't reading "Revolutionary Road." I'm going back over that one after several years, and I'd forgotten how relentlessly bleak that marriage is! Ever seen the movie "Ship of Fools"?

Fifty-two,
Yes, I have seen the film “Ship of Fools,” twice in fact, once in 1965 when it first came out and again last year on loan from my local library. All the actors were excellent, but the best part for me was Vivien Leigh’s portrayal of a bitter, once-beautiful, aging alcoholic. Read the book on-the-fly in 1963, but being a busy young woman, didn’t take the time to do it justice.

Still, better for Betty to read “Ship of Fools” rather than “Revolutionary Road,” which might have sent her looking for the nearest cliff to jump off!

OMG, I hope Betty doesn't go anywhere near "Revolutionary Road"! I don't want it to give her any ideas. If we see her reading that, I'm gonna start worrying big time. Great book though. So sad.

I just downloaded "A Place in the Sun" due to it being mentioned so much on this forum! Already know the general storyline due to having read "An American Tragedy" years ago. Looks like a really good film. Has to be, with Liz and Monty. Now I'm curious to see the movie version of "Ship of Fools" too.

Looking forward to seeing where they go with the David Ogilvy references tonight.

In season three The Grown Ups, Sterling Cooper's offices alternate between freezing and broiling heat, which I took to be an idirect reference to Robert Frost's poem Fire and Ice -- which has the same theme as the show -- the end of the world as we know it.

In season 2 The Jet Set -- Joy is reading Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, the stream of consciousness novel about the breakdown of a long established family. Don even takes a page out of the book to write down Anna Draper's address. The reference carries through season through, which chronicles the demise of the Draper family, with Carla standing in for the stoic Dilsey who endures the Compson family's demise in the novel, much as Carla maintains her dignity while the Draper family falls apart.

In season three Paul quotes T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland in the episode where he Smitty and Peggy get hig. Again, right in keeping with that season's theme of cataclysmic world change. This is also echoed by the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire reference which someone else pointed out.

And of course there's the obvious reference in season two to Frank O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency, which Don sends to Anna and which becomes the title of the final episode of the season.

I'm sure there must be many others that skipped righ by me.