Mad Men/YMMV

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• Acceptable Professional Targets: Lampshaded by Roger.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Duck is an unabashed Jerkass, but he gets a Tear Jerker when he is confronted with the news of his ex-wife's remarrying. He lets go of Chauncey, the dog he loved so much in the Season 2 episode, "Maidenform".
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Betty a bitch, or a victim? Quite possibly both at the same time, but good luck getting two fans to agree.
• Base Breaker: Betty, as evidenced by the above trope.
• Creator's Pet: Glen. Played by the producer's son, he increasingly moves into this role as it becomes harder and harder to tell if he's supposed to be a Creepy Child or the kid just can't act.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: Don's girl-watching and PowerWalk to the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" in "The Summer Man".
  • Back in season one, "Babylon" ends with a gorgeous version of the 18th-century round "Waters of Babylon".
  • The entire score by David Carbonara can also qualify, particularly the three most notable pieces: "Lipstick," "The Men of Sterling Cooper," and "The Carousel."
• Draco in Leather Pants: Don's many flaws are often overlooked due to this effect, even though the show itself does its best to illustrate the double standard.
• Dude, Not Funny: Joey's rape comment to Joan. Really, really not funny.
• Ear Worm: "Zou Bisou, Bisou..."
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Miss Blankenship dies a few episodes after she is introduced but seems to have won a lot of fans for being a queen of one-liners Roger says that's not all that she was queen of. The cantankerous old woman can even put Bert Cooper in his place and totally get away with it.
  • It may not seem like it anymore but during the first season Joan is definitely this trope.
  • Sally Draper also counts as one, too. She gets much more screen time and sub plots then her brother Bobby.
  • Also, Rachel Menken.
  • Sal, early on, was better-liked than the other junior executives, as he was less of a Jerkass and was a sympathetic portrayal of a deeply closeted gay man.
• Fan Nickname: "Dr. Rape" and "Dr. McRapey for Greg Harris, Joan's husband.
• Follow the Leader: Like The Sopranos, it inspired Lighter and Softer network TV shows trying to steal its thunder. Most notably Pan Am and The Playboy Club.
• Growing the Beard: Both figuratively and literally.Season two's improvement on the already excellent first Season is reflected in Paul Kinsey's new facial hair.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Roger complaining in "The Color Blue" about how he 'found' Don. We learn in "Waldorf Stories" that he didn't think a thing of Don when they met - and at the very least only hired him because he was black-out drunk, and may not have actually hired him so much as Don just convinced him that he did and forgot about it.
  • While discussing the film adaptation of 'The Best of Everything' with Betty, Don mentions how Sal couldn't stop talking about Joan Crawford, a famous gay icon of the 50's and 60's.
  • Sterling mentions getting drunk and trying on the suit of armor in Lane's office. Sounds like something his son in another franchise would do...
  • Megan reads an audition script for Dark Shadows and is soon ranting about how terrible it is. This episode, itself titled "Dark Shadows," happened to air on the very weekend that Tim Burton's film version of the classic soap opera was released.
• Ho Yay: Don and Roger, the epic bromance of the Sixties. They drink and womanize their way through the show, and while they may fight, they always make up. In season three, Bert Cooper stages an intervention for them when their fighting (over Roger's second marriage and Don's lack of respect for Roger) causes problems at Sterling-Cooper, and their reunion assists in finalizing Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce. Don's conversation with Roger in "The Suitcase", with Roger begging Don to accompany him to dinner (albeit one with Freddy Rumsen and Cal Rutledge, neither of whom Don or Roger like) is even more Ho Yay-ish than usual:

Roger: I've still got your ticket.
Don: It's an attractive offer.
Roger: Look out your window, see me waving?
Don: (smiling) Goodnight, sweetheart.

• • Sal has a crush on Ken Cosgrove, which he attempts, all too subtly, to get across in "The Gold Violin." By remaining completely oblivious, Ken doesn't really do any more to dispel it than he does to encourage it, so at end of the episode it's still just hanging depressingly in the air.
  • What about Don and Lane Pryce in The Good News (season 4, episode 3.) Lane is in the doghouse with his wife so Don takes him out for a nice dinner, they all get very drunk, act rather Ho Yay-ish to each other..their behaviour is even lampshaded by a comedian who sees them sitting together in the crowd like a couple, and makes jokes about how they are a cute couple. Cue Lane yelling out "We're not homosexuals, we're divorced!" Funnily enough Don and Lane aren't particularly upset by the suggestion.
  • Joey receives some compliments from Harry Crane and immediately tells his buddies that he's being hit on by an old queen. This is more likely a manifestation of Joey's tremendous narcissism than a sign of any conscious attraction on Harry's part. (Subconscious could be another matter...)
• Hollywood Homely: Peggy
• Les Yay: Joyce, the photo editor from LIFE magazine, seems to have a thing for Peggy and takes her to a beatnik party in the Village.
  • She also seems to have a thing for Megan, one of the SCDP secretaries, as she lightly hits on her and brings her friends up to the office to see what she looks like. Peggy even tries to get Megan to come along to lunch with them.
    • And then Jossed by Megan's engagement to Don.
• Magnificent Bastard: Don Draper is the best of them. Duck and Pete both try and fail. Peggy is rapidly becoming one. Bert Cooper is one when the situation calls for it. Roger has his moments but his propensity for killer one-liners far outshines his actual cunning.
• Mainstream Obscurity: The show is standard name-dropping fare for people who want to sound cultured, but the show's ratings are pretty mediocre.
• Mary Sue: There is some feeling among some of the fandom that there are a few too many "Peggy is awesome" moments without her having the counterbalancing failures and torments that afflict others, such as Joan, Don, and Sal. (Her pregnancy storyline being a notable exception.)
  • This could partly be attributed to the fact that Peggy is simply not as morally corrupt as most of the cast, rather than being especially great on her own. It is really is that cynical of a show.
  • As of season 5, this could be plausibly aimed at Megan. She is perfect with Don's children, and seems to have 'cured' him of his adulterousness. She comes up with the perfect idea for the difficult Heinz account that has been tormenting Peggy. Then, she adeptly rescues the account at dinner when they are about to be fired. Don adoringly tells her that it took him 10 years in advertising to get to her level of brilliance. When she quits advertising to follow her artistic dreams, Peggy gazes after admiringly and comments that she has guts.
• Memetic Badass: What Would Don Draper Do?
• Memetic Sex God: Don Draper. Seriously, the man's idea of solving problems with a client's wife is shagging her in a coat room. It works too! SNL even posted a guide to how you can be one too.
  • It's getting to the point where he can't shut it off.
• Misaimed Fandom/Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Some viewers seem to genuinely view the show as a depiction of "the good old days". They also tend to hate Betty Draper the most for being the character that rains on their parade for showing how "the good old days" could really wreck a person.
  • Which, considering that the show's viewpoint is that of a privileged white man, that all women except the three main characters are stereotypes, and that other minorities or classes are pretty much nonexistent, isn't really much of a surprise.
• Moe: Peggy.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Any chance that the majority of the audience might have had to sympathize with Duck Phillips disappeared along with his dog, Chauncey.
  • Also, Greg, Joan's fiance, crosses this line when he rapes her.
  • Pete finally crosses it late in Season 5 when he tries to convince Joan to prostitute herself without understanding why she is offended by the suggestion. The fact that Bert, Roger and Lane ultimately support him in this pushes them into Moral Event Horizon territory as well and undoes a lot of Character Development. Some might view it as a Moral Event Horizon for SCDP itself since the agency is now irredeemably 'dirty'.
• Replacement Scrappy: Stan Rizzo. Though he replaced Sal Romano as the Art director, he's really the new Paul Kinsey. And he's even more of a douchebag. Though eventually it leads to...
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Stan was pretty much just a sexist Jerkass foil to Peggy in season four, but in season five he turned into much-needed comic relief.
• Retroactive Recognition: Any fan of Community who watches this show tends to be very surprised by Alison Brie as Trudy Campbell.
• The Scrappy:
  • Pete-fucking-Campbell, initially. He undergoes major Character Development, develops a conscience, is unexpectedly the guy at SC/SCDP who is most aware of the social change on the horizon, and eventually swallows his own pride. By the end of Season 3, he actually knows the meaning of love and of remorse. However, all of that character development doesn't make the moment in Season 5 when Lane Pryce kicks Pete's ass any less satisfying.
  • Greg Harris. He has yet to get out from under the shadow of his Establishing Character Moment, and likely never will.
  • As of season four(and to some as early as Season 3), Betty is becoming this for a lot of viewers. It's not unusual to look at message boards and see comments like "I liked this episode a lot. Probably because Betty wasn't in it."
  • Michael Ginsberg.
• Stoic Woobie: Bobby Draper.
  • Don't forget Trudy Campbell, whether she knows it or not.
• Straw Man Has a Point: Don, having just worked on a campaign for Mohawk Airlines, is displeased when Duck wants to bring on American Airlines. It is certainly partially because the switch was unexpected, and it wasn't Don's work that attracted their interest.
• Stunt Casting: Utterly averted. While real people frequently show up as characters (like Conrad Hilton), they're played by regular actors, not by any random celebrity AMC wants to bring in to boost ratings.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Roger, after surviving a heart attack.
  • Duck abandoning his dog on the streets of New York.
  • Don's Kodak pitch. Just ask Harry.
  • Peggy's stint in the crazy house and Don coming to see her.
  • Joan -- Joan -- bursting into tears during her farewell party. After finding out that her date-rapist husband isn't going to get the job that their future financial security was hanging on. Shortly before proving herself to be the most competent damn person in the building.
  • The scene where Joan puts make-up on Roger Sterling after he's just had a heart attack in Season 1. Joan genuinely cares for him, and while he's being his usual blunt, funny self, he pointedly speaks of their relationship in the past tense. Joan is visibly hurt.
    • It's heartbreakingly inverted in season four when Joan acts as if nothing is wrong when she plans to have an abortion. She refuses to let Roger go with her, drive her home, or even speak to him afterward, and their keeping the child is out of the question. Roger is now the one desperate for the emotional connection in their relationship, which Joan will not allow because they're both married to other people.
    • It's later revealed that she didn't go through with the abortion, and is passing off the baby as her husband's. It remains to be seen how this will play out.
  • The JFK assassination episode. All of it.
  • Don, when he tells Betty of his past and is driven to tears.
  • Sally's reaction to news of Grandpa Gene dying. Especially the rant she delivers at her parents later that episode.
  • Sal being fired and insulted for being gay by Don after he turned down Lee Garner, the Lucky Strike heir's, advances. The implication is that he never goes back to his family or life again.
  • Don and Anna in 4x03. When we find out Anna has cancer. Jon Hamm acts his little heart out as he says goodbye to a seemingly-oblivious Anna.
    • The tears are already flowing before the end, considering Anna is the only person in his life Don seems to completely and unconditionally love and trust. Losing her is going to devastate him.
    • "I know everything about you and I still love you."
  • Don finding out Anna has died in "The Suitcase" and breaking down in front of Peggy, who tells him that Anna isn't the only person who "really knows" him and doesn't care.
  • Lane's suicide and its aftermath in Commissions and Fees.
• Unfortunate Implications: The civil rights movement was one of the most important, arguably the most important, occurrence of the early 60's, but the few black characters are relegated to the background and have few lines. Arguably intentional - we're meant to feel uncomfortable with the hypocritical racism of these rich white people. For more on this see the Headscratchers tab.
• Values Dissonance: The writers seem to go out of the way to highlight how different '60s attitudes are different from the 21st century. See the aversion to Politically-Correct History at the bottom of the main page.
• Truth in Television: The show seems to be slapping you in the face with Deliberate Values Dissonance, but things really were like that. The only way the show isn't realistic is that, in addition to casual racism and rampant misogyny, date rape and unplanned pregnancy, and drinking and lying, men swore constantly when women^[1] weren't around (you can probably blame the FCC for that). Women from that era find it difficult to watch the show because it triggers so many painful memories. And that's before the rape(s).
  • It is probably Truth in Television for the larger culture in terms of the treatment of women. However, for large advertising agencies, their treatment on the show was pretty much outdated for the early 1960s. Advertising agencies had hired large numbers of female copywriters by then and there were even some female executives. Given that women control the large majority of consumer spending, advertising agencies were pretty quick to see the advantages of hiring women in creative positions. On the other hand, there's a definite implication in the early seasons that Sterling Cooper is a rather conservative agency, and by the time the characters start SCDP, they have a woman as their head copywriter.
• The Woobie: It's a testimony to the writing of the show that basically anybody but the British overlords can be Woobies. Few of them are pure Woobies though; the vast majority of the characters have both Woobie and Jerkass moments.Some more than others though.
  • Sally Draper, thanks to Character Development.
  • Lois Sadler, especially after the lawnmower incident.
  • Sal, especially in "Out of Town" and "Wee Small Hours".
  • Don's secretary Allison, after he pretends their sexual tryst at his apartment after the office Christmas party didn't happen and continues on for days like that. She finally has enough and throws a paperweight at his head and quits.
  • Anna Draper, the one person in the world Don loves and respects hits Woobie status in 4.03 when we find out she has terminal cancer.
  • Pete in the earlier seasons is usually too much of a Jerkass, but after a while you begin to feel for the guy, as the world just seems to have it in for him.
  • Lane Pryce. His superiors at PPL frequently take advantage of his inability to stand up for himself, he has an unhappy marriage, his father is still abusive (physically and emotionally) toward him in his forties, he isn't respected by most of the other partners despite being one of two people holding SCDP together, he falls in love with Joan but she's not interested in him (his obnoxious means of hitting on her don't help), abusive tax collectors force him to embezzle from SCDP and after Don finds out about his embezzlement and forces him to resign, he commits suicide.
  • Joan, in the later seasons, especially after being raped by her fiance.
  • Betty has become kind of a Jerkass Woobie. Sometimes, when she's her most Catch-You-Next-Tuesday-ish, she looks like she's about to start bawling any second.
  • Michael Ginsberg, after we learn his backstory that he was born in WWII concentration camp and that the man viewers assumed was his father actually found him in a Swedish orphanage when he was five.
  • Paul Kinsey. He's hit rock bottom after having been Put on a Bus, becomes a Hari Krishna because of a genuinely frightening girlfriend who wants him to stay with him, and she doesn't want him to leave and make his own life with her. Then said girlfriend has an affair with Harry and tries to blackmail him which would result in hurting Paul. His gratefulness to Harry after he helps him pretty much cements this status.

1. ↑ "the help" didn't count as women