Mad Men's Tiny Anachronisms
AMC's Mad Men, about Madison Avenue ad execs in the early 1960's, is meticulous in its period detailing—just the right mod sofa is moored in every living room, the ladies could have purchased their outfits on 5th Avenue just that afternoon, even the food is done retro (heavy, simple, ew). So it's sort of hilarious to see a dedicated fan of the show nitpick over its tiny details, finding cracks in its carefully put together 1960's veneer. Mark Simonson has done just that, down to the aging of a plastic shield on a typewriter and the fonts on various briefly-shown adds. Some examples of Simonson's delightfully obsessed Madness lie after the jump. "Gill Kayo did exist at the time, but wasn’t in style yet and feels out of place on this church flyer. Gotham (2002) is just wrong. The blown up vintage clip art seems odd here, too. The whole layout has a Kinko’s feel to it."
"This beer label caught my eye: Was there really a Fielding beer brand that had labels exactly like Hamm’s beer, but with green instead of blue? (By the way, the beer cans in the show are opened with can openers. No pop-tops here. Nice detail.)"
"Whoops—Zapfino (1998). I guess they use Macs."
"Alert fans have noted that Seventies-era IBM Selectric II typewriters are used on the show, but even these have visible signs of age, such as the yellowed plastic shield you can see in this shot. I wish they would figure out a way to make these props look less aged. I sometimes feel like these characters are living in a retro museum instead of 1960s New York."