History Series / MadMen

** Averted with alchohol and marijuana, as most of the characters have an affinity for the two (especially the creative staff with the latter) with hardly any ill effects shown. Hell, pot basically turns Stan from an aggressive bro-ey frat boy type into a cool laid back stoner type.

** And it seems from the montage at the end of "Lady Lazarus" that Peggy and Stan seem to do this on a regular basis while working.

** Ted and Roger grow mustaches as well in Season 7B.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Sterling Cooper is absorbed into [=McCann=] Erickson. After being chased out of the advertising industry, Joan starts her own business, although this costs her her relationship with Richard. While Peggy doesn't like her job at [=McCann=], she is thriving there and finally gets together with Stan. Betty is terminally ill, but she has accepted her fate and is at peace. Don is stranded in a hippy commune and it's unclear if he ever intends to return to his old life, but he is finally happy. It is implied, however, that he returns to his old job and uses his commune experience to create the "I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke Ad."]]

* BeenThereShapedHistory: Sterling Cooper in general (a fictional company) is shown to be responsible for a few pieces of real life advertising. For example, in the first episode, Don coins the Lucky Strike slogan "it's toasted", and in the first season finale, he names the Kodak Carousel (previously called the Wheel). [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]], since these are not exactly huge historical events.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Sterling Cooper is absorbed into [=McCann=] Erickson. After being chased out of the advertising industry, Joan starts her own business, although this costs her her relationship with Richard. While Peggy doesn't like her job at [=McCann=], she is thriving there and finally gets together with Stan. Betty is terminally ill, but she has accepted her fate and is at peace. Don is stranded in a hippy commune and it's unclear if he ever intends to return to his old life, but he is finally happy.]]

* NoPeriodsPeriod: Messily averted when Sally has her first period while at the museum in "Commissions and Fees".

* DescriptionCut: Don and Lane decided to catch a movie, checking the movie listings in the newspaper and settling on the French romance film ''Film/TheUmbrellasOfCherbourg''. "For all the young lovers in the world," reads Lane. Cut to them watching ''Franchise/{{Gamera}}'' instead.

* {{Joisey}}: Of the "Shore-As-Place-Where-Rich-White-New-Yorkers-Go-In-The-Summer" flavor: Betty's family has a house on Cape May, and her father seems to live there much if not most of the time. Of course, the Hofstadts are rich white ''Philadelphians'', but same difference.
** Also, in Season 2, Paul Kinsey lives in Montclair.

** Peggy in Season 2, she gets Freddy Rumsen's office (much to Harry's chagrin, "I'm head of television!") then in season 3 she bitches about her "girl" to Joan, much like Don does about his "girl" in season 2. Standing up to Roger's imperiousness at the end of Season 3 continues her arc.

** Peggy swaggers into [=McCann=] Erickson at the end of "Lost Horizon" with a cigarette dangling from her lips and cool sunglasses on (plus Bert Cooper's erotic octopus painting is under her arm).

** Rachel Menken and Betty Draper in the 1st season: well-educated, both lost their mothers, came from very comfortable backgrounds, Daddy's little princesses, [[spoiler: soon die from cancer]], and involved with Don. But Rachel grew up motherless and quite lonely, is Jewish, urban, fights for her familys' business and what she's entitled to, is more open and kinder, relies on her intelligence rather than looks, and finally got the husband and children she's always wanted without sacrificing her career. Sharp contrast to the spoiled, passive, WASP-ish, suburban Betty who grew up with a mother that sent the message that womens' worth lie in their beauty and gave up a lively career of being a model and the humanities for marriage and motherhood, and was an unhappy homemaker.

* SharpDressedMan: Being the 1960s, a smart three-piece suit is practically a must for men in business. Don epitomizes this trope, but pretty much all male staff in the corporate world, outside most of creative, are always seen in suits of different cuts. The optional [[NiceHat fedoras and trilbies]], [[WaistcoatOfStyle waistcoats]], and overcoats during the colder months, may add to the look.

** Of note is Don's own very neutral, all-American accent, which for him ''is'' his regional accent: born in rural Illinois and raised there until the age of ten, that really is how people spoke out there back then. (It also matches Jon Hamm's background; he's from St. Louis, which has a similar accent.)

* {{Blackmail}}: Pete's intent when he learns about Don's past; of course, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome this backfires as Bert Cooper makes it clear he doesn't give a damn]]. Cooper later uses this secret to force Don to sign a contract.

'''Roger:''' Yes, yes we are. [[CrowningMomentOfFunny Happy birthday.]]

** Also a CrowningMomentOfFunny - "Get me my shoes!"

* YouGetMeCoffee: Almost all of the secretaries play it straight, but in the season 3 finale, Peggy subverts it with a [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome "No"]].

** The drug nicotine is responsible for Betty Francis not living to see age 40, as she's diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

** Office manager Joan Holloway and one of the partners Roger Sterling have a long love affair. She's in her early thirties, he is in his mid-to-late forties. Most people in the office don't know about it. Bert Cooper advises Joan she could "do a lot better" -- She thinks he means a professor she had a date with and Joan explains "he's just a friend", Cooper insists, "that's not what I'm talking about, my dear. Don't waste your youth on age."

** Bob Benson in Season 6. He's set up as Don 2.0. Pete Campbell finds out he uses a fake name and that he can't be traced back. It's revealed that he's a closeted gay and he's likely involved in a murder with but not much more is known about him.

** Don's anti-tobacco ad. Two and a half seasons later, it's still costing the agency business.

* ManlyTears: Don's breakdown in "The Suitcase."

* MysteriousPast: Don, at first.
** Bob Benson in Season 6.

* ParentalAbandonment: Portrayed quite negatively.
** When Don tries to run away with Rachel, she considers doing it, but is horrified when she finds out taht Don has a wife and two children, and still wants to disappear on them without any consideration on how it would affect them.
** Margaret bails on her husband and small son. Her father, not a paragon of fatherhood himself, tries to set her straight and get her back to her family, telling her that she is a mother first.
** Stephanie talks about how she feels judged for abandoning her son in "Person to Person", only for another member of the therapy group to essentially say that she ''should'' feel bad.
* ParentWithNewParamour: After Betty's mother dies, her father takes up with a new woman, whom Betty determinedly hates.

** Margaret Sterling to Peggy. For one, they started off as young women with a rather childlike 50s state of dress with their brown hair in ponytails and with a relationship with a father/mentor figure, the name "Margaret", parents that want them married, having sacrificed motherhood for a more fulfilling adult life, and slightly Joan wanting them to pick up some style tips from her; the resemblance ends there with Peggy having a more direct approach (especially later on) towards things she's entitled to (the directness impressing Roger) and having been trying to make peace with having her baby taken away, Roger also shares his working life with Peggy and has a night of bonding before they move on to [=McCann=] Erickson, Peggy lacks the relationship Margaret has with her father because he died before her 13th birthday, she didn't go down the traditional path her family wanted for her, and she develops a medium between the counter culture and the more traditional adult life set by her era albeit one that doesn't [[StayInTheKitchen place her in the home]]; Margaret was Daddy's SpoiledBrat who looked like a miniature of her Mother, got married after high school, has a strained relationship with her father, did the job her parents expected her to do (get married), yet later [[ParentalAbandonment leaves her husband and young son]] for a hippie commune and becomes "Marigold".

-->'''Don''': I don't think I ever wanted to be the man who loves children. But from the moment they're born, that baby comes out and you act proud and excited and hand out cigars but you don't feel anything. Especially if you had a difficult childhood. You want to love them, but you don't. And the fact that you're faking that feeling makes you wonder if your own father had the same problem. Then one day they get older, and you see them do something and you feel that feeling that you were pretending to have. And it feels like your heart is going to explode.

* ParentalAbandonment: Portrayed quite negatively. Margaret bails on her husband and small son. Stephanie talks about how she feels judged for abandoning her son in "Person to Person", only for another member of the therapy group to essentially say that she ''should'' feel bad.

* AllPsychologyIsFreudian: [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] [[AluminumChristmasTrees for the era]], as this was when Freudian psychology was just starting to became obsolete.

* InformedAbility: Don is evidently brilliant at his job, to the point where he can disappear for weeks at a time (in season 2) and suffer no real consequences, yet we never really see what makes him an advertising genius. He strikes out as often as he scores, and the bulk of his "work" that we see consists of criticizing other people's ideas.