During the agonizingly long wait between Mad Men seasons (and while Season Five has blessedly been gree nlit, its premiere date is still very much a mystery) it’s exciting to get the characters, spoilers, and offseason info in form we can get it.
A Funny or Die “exclusive” featuring Mad Men favorites Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) and Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) falls into an unusual category. It’s a fictional skit that’s supposed to be a little bit funny while pushing a cause (the bit was produced in conjunction with PIRG, an advocacy group pushing for investment in high speed bullet train development, Salon reports). The set up is that old Pete and Harry are bantering about an ad campaign to push train travel in favor of cars or planes. Harry makes a good point to New Yorkers in saying, “Would you rather fly into Queens or take the train into Manhattan? Trains take you directly into the city.” It then goes into a bit of shtick when he follows up with, “I read a piece that said in 40 years gas is going to cost almost $1 dollar a gallon.”
Politics and policy aside, it’s fun to see Pete and Harry back in action, if but briefly. The skit has the feeling of a conversation that theoretically could take place between actual Mad Men episodes, as in on a work day where not enough of interest was going on to actually make it into a full blown Mad Men episode.
For my money though, the all-time greatest Mad Men-related skit comes from Jon Hamm’s first hosting gig on Saturday Night Live, where he brings us the brilliantly funny “Don Draper’s Guide to Picking Up Women”:
