film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

dondraper-whatface.jpg

What Was Behind That TERRIBLE Don Draper Impression On Last Week's 'Mad Men'?

By Vivian Kane | Miscellaneous | May 10, 2015 |

By Vivian Kane | Miscellaneous | May 10, 2015 |



This back half of the final season of Mad Men has been a fantastic jumble of non-sequiturs. Every character feels like they’re suffering from major Senioritis, or maybe they’re just trolling us, daring us to try to figure them out in these last few hours as they go off the rails and chase waitresses and stuff. Case in point:

peggyrollerskates.gif

One of the biggest WTF moments of last week’s episode, “Lost Horizon,” was Ferg Donnelly’s impression of Don Draper. If you remember, his take on Don sounded weirdly like Richard Nixon.

donimpression.png

Does Ferg think Don Draper and Richard Nixon have the same voice? Can Ferg just only do one terrible impression and applies it to everyone? Is Ferg just a human garbage person? (YES.)

FERGDONNELLYGROSS.jpg

New theory: Does this have some mega-conspiracy tie to the Nixon speech Don was watching a few episodes ago because Richard Nixon went by Dick and Don’s real name is Dick and OH MY GOD IS DON DRAPER ALSO RICHARD NIXON?

Paul Johansson explained to Uproxx what the hell the deal was with that bit. Apparently it wasn’t even supposed to be an attempt at Don. Or something.

Well, it was supposed to be Richard Nixon. In the script, it was supposed to be an impersonation of Richard Nixon. I don’t know how it came across, but I remember thinking, “He (the actor portraying Jim Hobart) just asked me to do an impression of Don.” Basically, (Jim Hobart) was saying, “Oh, he does impressions…here, he can even do one of you. Show him one.” But in the script, it doesn’t say I’m supposed to be doing one of Don. It said I was supposed to be doing one of Richard Nixon.

I mean, how do you do Don? How do you do Jon Hamm doing Don Draper?

So Matthew Weiner wanted a Nixon impression? Did he really give no explanation to Johansson as to why he was asked to do Draper but came back with Dick? Was this some sort of trick or joke?

It could be. Either that or I just failed miserably.
Does this make any sense? Not entirely. Is it therefore completely fitting with the rest of the season? Absolutely.

madmen-cheers.jpg