Can we all agree that Mad Men is not as good as previous seasons? Don Draper is barely even showing up for work (he’s too busy being John Hamm elsewhere on the screens). In fact, the great advertising world, inner sanctum stuff has been considerably reduced (so far). In double fact, maybe that is why AMC is premiering The Pitch, a real life, contemporary fly-on-the-wall-Survivor-esque show devoted to showing two advertising agencies in mortal combat over one client.
Whatever. Madvertising or Up Madison Avenue by Dick De Bartolo and illustrated by Bob Clarke, may not take the place of the missing Mad Men inside nostalgia, but this 1972 vintage volume is MAD’s way of biting the hand that never fed it. MAD was once so totally advertising-free that it could take hilarious shots at the advertising establishment. This is not one of the best of MAD’s satiric achievements, but it is a curio of a time when advertising hyperbole was frowned upon. Now, it is celebrated.
