"Are You Alone?" Season 6 of Mad Men Starts Tonight!

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"Prepare to take a great leap forward"-Don Draper, Season 6 Mad Men

At long last Season 6 of Mad Men premieres tonight!!  When last we left Don Draper he was sitting at yet another bar when a woman approaches him and asks him "Are you alone?" 

For Don Draper, as well as the entire ensemble of AMC's Mad Men, this looks like the question that will swirl around the new season judging by the promo poster- designed by  1960s graphic artist Brian Sanders...

...and lest we forget that Season 6 of Mad Men will sit in the midst of 1968 so no doubt change will also be the undercurrent on which Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and friends will ride.

Season 5 of Mad men was dark and troubled and we were left with that question again- is Don Draper alone?  A question I think Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner will ask of all his characters in Season 6 which could be filled with anxiety, stress, upheaval and Mad Men style angst.  I can't wait!

We don't know much about what Matthew Weiner has created for this Mad Men ride, but we do know that whatever the new season has in store for Don, Roger, Megan, Betty, Peggy, Pete, Joan...the clothes will be fabulous!  Costume designer Janie Bryant never disappoints as she dresses the Mad Men characters to tell us their stories in pitch perfect style.

For a fun way to review and revisit the past seasons of Mad Men visit the series fave illustrator Dyna Moe's Tumblr- and if like me you are totally hooked on the fashion of Mad Men  check out  Dyna Moe's character Paper Dolls! 

Still "That" Girl!

“‘That Girl’ threw a hand grenade into the bunker, and all the other female characters walked right through.” Bill Persky, co-creator That Girl

45 years later she is still “That Girl”-Ann Marie, the first “girl” on television to live on her own, in New York City no less, chasing her dream to be an actress and doing it with great style—never could figure out how she could afford such a fabulous wardrobe,  but I know I wanted to be her one day—still do :)

In the rear view mirror Ann Marie was a little ditsy, and she did dream of an engagement ring from boyfriend Donald as much as she did a starring role, but she was full of enthusiasm and unwavering optimism about her life and her dreams. She always picked herself up and would never settle for ordinary.  Before Ann no girl on television had her own place in a big city, let alone her own thoughts and opinions. I was a very little girl watching That Girl in reruns but I saw something different in Ann Marie.

  No doubt I loved her clothes, and I had the That Girl Paper Doll books-there were That Girl dolls and McCalls dress patterns as well!  Sure she had her share of "Lucy-esque" escapades but I worry about young girls finding role models that show them the "Yes I Can" image most girls need to help them believe in themselves and to pursue their own dreams. I don't see a lot of that on television, sure there are professional women portrayed but are they really people girls can look to for inspiration as I did with Ann Marie, Mary Tyler Moore and later Murphy Brown, Ally McBeal and Carrie Bradshaw? The original That Girl, Marlo Thomas sees reason to hope:


"...the young women watching today will not only be entertained by these "girls", they'll also think, "Hey, that's me!" Or, " Wow, that could be me!" And that is one of the best things television can do: give people a chance to see themselves transformed. And to let ideas and characters come from below the surface and say, "I am here! See me!" 

Thank you Ann Marie for pushing open a door that let all those other characters take the screen and help so many girls think-"I can be her!"

Wheeere's Johnny??

In the midst of all the commotion over Jay and Conan and Dave and ... the question of who will sit behind the desk at 11:30pm eastern on NBC really seems irrelevant and pointless--does anyone really care anymore?

There was a time when that desk was the most famous desk in the country, next to the one in the oval office, and who sat there had relevance and was a fixture in every American's daily, or nightly, life. America went to bed with the Tonight Show and the man that kept us up after the nightly news and kept viewers tuned in even after they knew the sports and weather, was a guy from Nebraska who knew a little magic, how to tell a joke and how to play out a gag... Johnny Carson.

For over thirty years Johnny Carson tucked us all in and made us all smile before we closed our eyes for the night---truly one of the toughest jobs in television! You watched Carson, not the Tonight Show. No one ever did it better and though the format remains pretty much the same as it was when Steve Allen began hosting in 1954-a desk, a band, a monologue, a revolving door of celebrities and luminaries-the job of entertaining an increasingly diverse, stressed and multi-tasking audience has become more than one host can handle. Come Visit Applause!