History Series / MadMen

* TeethClinchedTeamwork: Petty and professional rivalries run wild all over the office, where moments of abrasiveness can be followed by a mutual understanding. In season 6, the SCDP and CGC partners retain a mindset that makes them work like two different entities for a while.

* TooSoon: Several in-universe examples:
** The third-season Aqua Net campaign, whose TV spots would've featured two couples in an open convertible, has to be retooled. It had reached the storyboard stage by the JFK assassination.
** Peggy also notes after Creator/MarilynMonroe's death that it's a good thing their idea of a [[BettyAndVeronica "Jackie and Marilyn"]]-themed ad campaign for Playtex bras was turned down, because they'd have had to pull it all immediately.

** Joan and Peggy may be an even straighter example. Joan initially sees Peggy as one of numerous interchangeable secretaries under her charge, to the frustration of the ambitious Peggy. Peggy's rise through the ranks in the Creative department rankles Joan, who's apparently hit her own glass ceiling. At the end of the series, when Joan leaves [=McCann=} Erickson, Peggy is the first person she wants to work with.

* BadassGrandpa: Robert Pryce. It comes as quite a shock when it happens.

* NeverLiveItDown: InUniverse:
** Don's anti-tobacco ad. Two and a half seasons later, it's still costing the agency business but it can't be overlooked that it did help them first from bankruptcy.
** In Season 7, his Hershey's proposal fiasco is making the rounds in the ad industry rumor mill.

* GilliganCut: When a younger Don first met Roger Sterling and offered to buy him a drink, Roger fired back, "It's 10:30 a.m.!" Cut to Roger in a bar enjoying a drink.

* {{Expy}}: This show is basically if someone took the characters of ''Theatre/HowToSucceedInBusinessWithoutReallyTrying'' and gave them some real dramatic development rather than sticking them in a musical comedy. Say if the boss's affairs were taken seriously, what if the HelloNurse SexySecretary had actual HiddenDepths, etc. This is especially highlighted in the casting of Robert Morse, who is best known for playing the lead in ''How to Succeed...''.

* HelloNurse: Hello, Joan and her two best friends! This trope is deconstructed when it shows that Joan has to fight to be taken seriously at work, especially when she's a partner.

* DrinkOrder:
** Don will have an Old Fashioned, made with Canadian rye (he keeps a bottle of Canadian Club in his office).
** Betty seems to like gimlets, but will often drink wine (white on social occasions, but red when day-drinking at home).

** In Season 5, Sally orders coffee in a restaurant, prompting Megan's friend to say they won't bring it to her. When they do, Megan suggests she try to order a(n alcoholic) drink while Sally starts ''pouring'' sugar into it.
** Henry Francis will have a brandy.

** The emphasis on cocktails and hard liquor in general. The post-Prohibition decades in America were the Golden Age of the Mixed Drink and the sophisticate's choice was nearly always a cocktail of some sort. Wine, unless it was French with a price like a car payment, was either "ethnic" or something that bums drank from paper bags; beer was strictly an industrial product consumed only in the most informal settings, and hard cider was completely off the radar, and non-alcoholic drinks were strictly for children and members of weird teetotal religions (see notes about drunk driving).

* {{Blackface}} / UncleTomfoolery: Holy DeliberateValuesDissonance [[Series/{{Batman}} Batman]], Roger Sterling's singing while in blackface! Pete is shown to disapprove of this as one of his socially conscious, forward-thinking moments, but Don is the only other person who seems bothered by it, and that's almost certainly just because Roger's acting like a moron.

** Taking out a newspaper ad to attack one of their competitors after their employees are caught racially abusing some civil rights protesters gets SCDP some favorable publicity... and roughly two dozen African-Americans showing up looking for employment, forcing the already struggling agency to hire one as a secretary just so they don't look like hypocrites. Subverted when the person they hire, Dawn, proves extremely competent at her job.

** In Season 7B, Joan takes a liking to cocaine.

** Don's frequent lapses when it comes to taking care of his kids can be considered a form of emotional neglect. He eventually lays bare where his ParentalNeglect stems from.

** Peggy appears to be the Child: the NaiveNewcomer to the world of advertising, the youngest, ambitious and hopeful. By season 2, she fits the surprising mould of The Seductress much more closely, as she has had a baby with the married Pete out of wedlock. Then, by Season 4, she has become the most stable and professional woman in the cast, and thus fits the role of the Wife much more easily, despite being single and constantly UnluckyInLove.

* ThreeFacesOfEve: Deconstructed with the main female characters from Season 1 to 4:

* SharpDressedMan: Being the 1960s, a smart suit is practically a must for men in business. Three-piece or two-piece is an interesting generational divide: three-piece for older suits like Roger, while younger execs like Don and Pete wear more modern two-pieces with dangerously sharp and narrow lapels. 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.

** Don's frequent lapses when it comes to taking care of his kids can be considered a form of emotional neglect; however, his very real goodwill towards them seems to indicate that he just doesn't know how to be a father properly. He eventually laid bare where his ParentalNeglect stems from.

** Don's father, physically.

** Don's frequent lapses when it comes to taking care of his kids is sometimes interpreted as a mild form of emotional neglect; however, his very real goodwill towards them seems to indicate that he just doesn't know how to be a father properly. He eventually laid bare where his ParentalNeglect stems from.

* TheManIsStickingItToTheMan:
** In "Person to Person," it's heavily implied that [[spoiler:Don was inspired by his experience on the hippie commune to create the famous "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" ad. In real life, the ad was created by [=McCann=].]]
** The series itself critiques advertising and consumer culture while airing on an ad-supported cable network.