Everybody has secrets — that pretty much sums up last night's episode of Mad Men. The least of Lane Pryce's secrets is that he's a key holder at New York's Playboy Club. Yet that key is likely something he'd brag about in 1965 rather than hold tight to the vest of his three-piece suit. Hugh Hefner opened the first Playboy Club in 1960 in Chicago to bring the Playboy magazine experience to Read more

Just the fact anyone ever coined the phrase "career girls" proves they were a real anomaly. Peggy Olson is the resident career girl on Mad Men. She differs from the secretaries in the obvious way: she holds what's considered a man's job. Even Joan, who is unequivocally competent and clearly likes her work, is really just a queen-bee secretary. The only comparable woman is Dr. Faye, the market Read more

On last night's episode of Mad Men, a flashback scene gave us a look at Don's early work, as well as a hint of women's liberation to come. Before moving on to Madison Ave., Don sold furs and made an amateur ad for the shop (starring Betty Draper!) that read: "Why wait for a man to buy you a fur coat?" While Don's copy paid lip service to independent women, the rest of the episode suggested that Read more

On last night's Mad Men, 10-year-old Sally's sleepover is declared over when she's caught playing with herself while watching TV. But what is she watching that's such an impetus? The Man From U.N.C.L.E (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement). It's a fictitious spy show starring the then 31-year-old David McCallum as a secret agent. If we've learned anything in 2010, it's that spies are Read more

Well, 1964 came and went in the first three episodes of Mad Men and last week the show rang in 1965. So what real-life events will set the scene now that the '60s are in full swing? Malcolm X is assassinated in Manhattan on Feb. 21. The Sound of Music premieres on Broadway in March. Alabama state troopers clash with over 500 civil rights workers on — what's later dubbed — Bloody Sunday. It's Read more

Two-piece bathing suits may date back to antiquity, but modern history's first two-piece was designed in 1913 by Carl Jantzen. The same brand that came to Sterling Cooper Draper Price Sunday night on Mad Men to make its floundering suit desirable but not too sexy. Notice I say two-piece not bikini. It wasn't a bikini Jantzen sold; it was a two-piece. The difference was the waistline: a two-piece Read more

Last night on the season four premiere of Mad Men, Peggy and Mark, her junior-level helper who looks like he was sent from 1997, cooed "Johhn" and "Marrr-sha" mock-seductively to each other. I knew it was a reference, but to what? The 1951 album John and Marsha. It was recorded by comedian Stan Freberg to parody soap opera dialog by only using two words — "John" and "Marsha." He later became Read more