History YMMV / MadMen

** Sal, especially in "Out of Town" and "Wee Small Hours," and his [[TheBeard wife, Kitty]].

** Trudy Campbell has always been popular with the fanbase, but her SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome when she [[spoiler: kicks Pete Campbell out with a rousing ReasonYouSuckSpeech]] pushed her into a bit of a twitter sensation.

** Bob Benson (for those that [[BaseBreakingCharacter don't consider him]] TheScrappy) is this among quite a number of fans, due to his intelligent tendencies, his almost creepily optimistic nature, and the strength of James Wolk's performance. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpUWrl3-mc8 "NOT GREAT, BOB"]] [[MemeticMutation meme]] that emerged following the Seallson 6 finale probably helped ascend him to this position.

* HateSink: Lee fucking Garner.

** Kinsey growing a beard in season two becomes this after he writes a script for an episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''. (Wrong show, right franchise.)

* LoveToHate: Pete Campbell.

* "I don't think of you at all."

* {{Moe}}: Peggy and Trudy; even in their thirties they still have rather youthful looks and wide eyes. Even without Beth Dawes, it makes one wonder if Pete has a type...

** Stan was pretty much just a sexist JerkAss foil to Peggy in season four, but in season five he turned into much-needed comic relief, and one of the firm's more honest and likable employees. He even sometimes acts as the OnlySaneMan when Peggy's MarriedToTheJob tendencies cause her to stress out too much and Ginsberg's... [[CloudCuckooLander being Ginsberg]].

** Pete-fucking-Campbell, initially. He undergoes major CharacterDevelopment, develops a conscience, is unexpectedly the guy at SC/SCDP who is most aware of the social change on the horizon, and eventually swallows his own pride. By the end of Season 3, he actually knows the meaning of love and of remorse. However, all of that character development doesn't make the moment in Season 5 when Lane Pryce kicks Pete's ass any less satisfying.

** Diana The Waitress: A plain, dour waitress that Don becomes obsessed with. While they have parallel, self destructive lives and tragic backstories, a multi-episode arc for her never really went anywhere and just seemed to irritate viewers.

* StoicWoobie: Bobby Draper.
** Don't forget Trudy Campbell, whether she knows it or not.

** Harry became quite unpopular in the later seasons due to losing pretty much every remotely likable trait of his, but thankfully he often is on the receiving end of insults and misfortune to balance this out.

* TrappedByMountainLions: The Hilton sub-plot of Season 3, Don's affair and his second trip to California in Season 6.

* TheWoobie: It's a testimony to the writing of the show that basically anybody but the British overlords can be Woobies. Few of them are pure Woobies though; the vast majority of the characters have both [[TheWoobie Woobie]] and JerkAss moments.

** Kenneth Cosgrove had his foot broken and was shot in the eye before he left the Chevy account and was chewed out for it, while he was still wearing the eyepatch. In the opening of Season 7B, he's fired by the firm's overseers from [=McCann=] Erikson, who didn't like the way that Cosgrove acted towards them, and Roger puts up absolutely no fight to save him.

** Bob Benson (for those that [[BaseBreakingCharacter don't consider him]] TheScrappy) is this among quite a number of fans, due to his intelligent tendencies, his almost creepily optimistic nature, and the strength of James Wolk's performance. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpUWrl3-mc8 "NOT GREAT, BOB"]] [[MemeticMutation meme]] that emerged following the Season 6 finale probably helped ascend him to this position.

** Bob Benson. The split generally comes between those who enjoyed his MagnificentBastard machinations and James Wolk's delectable performance as him, and those who thought he got too much screentime at the expense of the main characters for a payoff that was underwhelming, given how it showed that he was basically another Don Draper.

** Bob Benson (for those that [[BaseBreakingCharacter don't consider him]] TheScrappy) is this among quite a number of fans, due to his MagnificentBastard tendencies, his almost creepily optimistic nature, and the strength of James Wolk's performance. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpUWrl3-mc8 "NOT GREAT, BOB"]] [[MemeticMutation meme]] that emerged following the Season 6 finale probably helped ascend him to this position.

* MagnificentBastard:
** [[EccentricMillionaire Bertram "Bert" Cooper]] is a senior partner and co-founder of Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency whose [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass eccentric exterior]] hides a brilliant and determined mind earning the respect and admiration of his fellow workers. Bert makes his authority clear within the agency by foiling Pete Campbell's plan to {{blackmail}} Don Draper by saying that he doesn't care about Don's past, then himself later uses Don's past to successfully blackmail him into signing a contract that would merge Sterling Cooper with a British Agency. When the agency sells Sterling Cooper, Bert and his partners decide to form a new agency, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (SCDP), where Bert uses his love for [[OccidentalOtaku Japanese culture]] to get them their first major client in Honda. Bert temporally leaves SCDP when Don's ad article puts the agency in hot water before returning again, conspiring with Pete and Joan behind Don, eventually getting Don kicked out from the agency with the help of Jim Cutler. Bert later rehires Don as creative director to foil Jim Cutler's plans to take over the agency before Bert passes away as he watches the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, [[GoOutWithASmile dying in complete bliss]].
** [[ProfessionalButtKisser Bob Benson]] is a conman who uses his charisma to persuade people into hiring him without looking into his criminal past. Working as an accountant for SCDP, Bob wins Joan Harris's friendship when he gets Joan immediate treatment for her abdominal pain by lying to a nurse that Joan has been poisoned and gets along with [[SmugSnake Pete Campbell]] when working on the Chevy account, until Pete discovers Bob's homosexuality and criminal past. Bob remains undaunted by Pete's threats, merely threatening him back and uses his likability to get people to turn against Pete. When Pete believes that his mother was killed by the nurse that Bob suggested for her, Bob becomes [[EvenEvilHasStandards disgusted]] when Pete accuses him of being an accomplice to his mother's murder and manipulates Pete into humiliating himself in front of Chevy, getting Pete removed from the account. Leaving for Detroit, Bob proposes to Joan for an executive position at General Motors before accepting Joan's decision to decline Bob's marriage proposal.

** Leonard, the group attendee with whom Don unexpectedly connects in the series finale (played by Creator/BrettGelman).

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrJuq0fQyYk Don's girl-watching]] and PowerWalk to Music/{{The Rolling Stones|Band}}' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" in "The Summer Man".

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrJuq0fQyYk Don's girl-watching and PowerWalk]] to Music/TheRollingStonesBand' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" in "The Summer Man".

* SpiritualSuccessor: To the fiction of [[Literature/TheStoriesOfJohnCheever John Cheever]]. Cheever wrote novels and stories that were very similar in style and theme to ''Mad Men''--lots of TheAlcoholic (both alcoholic businessmen and {{Lady Drunk}}s), suburban ennui, neglectful parents, rich but frustrated businessmen, heartless seducers. Notably, Don and Betty Draper live in Ossining, New York, which is where John Cheever lived, and Cheever's usual suburban setting of "Shady Hill" was an expy of Ossining.

* AcceptableProfessionalTargets: Psychiatrists and Ad Men like themselves, as [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by Roger.

** The final scene of the series when [[spoiler: Don smiles contently and imagines the iconic "I'd like to buy the world a coke" ad".]]

* ReplacementScrappy: Stan Rizzo, at first. Though he replaced Sal Romano as the Art director, he was really the new [[KnowNothingKnowItAll Paul Kinsey]]. And he was ''[[UpToEleven even more of a douchebag]].'' However, it eventually led to him getting RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap.

* More or less everything about Don's sexual behavior after it is revealed in "The Crash" that his first sexual experience was to be [[RapeAsBackstory raped by a prostitute when he was a teenager]]. And then he was beaten with a wooden spoon for it by his adoptive mother. It... explains a lot. There's also the fact that his mistress for most of season six, Sylvia Rosen, has a beauty mark in the same spot as the aforementioned prostitute.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrJuq0fQyYk Don's girl-watching and PowerWalk]] to Music/TheRollingStones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" in "The Summer Man".

** Did Bert Cooper brush off Pete Campbell's revelation about Don Draper's true identity in the first season because he truly didn't care? Or because Cooper plays the long game, deciding that Draper was more important in that moment than Campbell, and deciding to use that information later on when it could be used most effectively?

* StrawmanHasAPoint: In Season 2, Don is visibly displeased when Duck tries to bring on American Airlines and forces Sterling Cooper to dump Mohawk Airlines. While Don attempts to argue against it using customer loyalty, it's fairly clear he's opposed because he's not the main attraction.

** Pete jokes in season 3 that "Moneypenny" (Lane) "hasn't self-destructed yet." [[spoiler:Lane commits suicide two seasons later.]]

* FunnyAneurysmMoment:
** More or less everything about Don's sexual behavior after it is revealed in "The Crash" that his first sexual experience was to be [[RapeAsBackstory raped by a prostitute when he was a teenager]]. And then he was beaten with a wooden spoon for it by his adoptive mother. It... explains a lot. There's also the fact that his mistress for most of season six, Sylvia Rosen, has a beauty mark in the same spot as the aforementioned prostitute.
** Every scene with Pete's hilariously senile mother in Season Six becomes this after [[spoiler:Manolo marries her and then murders her for her money.]]
** Pete jokes in season 3 that "Moneypenny" (Lane) "hasn't self-destructed yet." [[spoiler:Lane commits suicide two seasons later.]]
** In "The Monolith", Ginsberg gets some good zingers at how the IBM machine is going to replace them all. [[spoiler:In "The Runaways", this gets a whole lot less funny when it's revealed Ginsburg wasn't joking and his paranoia over the machine leads to a psychotic breakdown.]]
** In "A Day's Work", Sally jokes about getting time off from school if her mother died when she attends a funeral for her roommate's mother. [[spoiler: In "The Milk And Honey Route", her mother Betty is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.]]

** Harry Crane, after he TookALevelInJerkass at some point in Season 5. Except for the episodes where he reunited with Paul Kinsey in Season 5 and warned Don his job was at stake in Season 7, most of his scenes in the latter few years have consisted of nothing but KickTheDog moments (particularly when Joan is involved).

** Back in season one, "Babylon" ends with a gorgeous version of the 18th-century round "Waters of Babylon". %%Don McLean didn't write it; he just popularized it. Which is also why it's not an anachronism, as ''American Pie'' didn't come out until about a decade after the time when the episode was set.

-->'''Roger''': I've still got your ticket.\\
'''Don''': It's an attractive offer.\\
'''Roger''': Look out your window, see me waving?\\
'''Don''': (smiling) Goodnight, sweetheart.