Dave Cohen

I’m a Mad Man
July 20, 2007

Despite the fact that David Cohen is a fairly common name -- ask anyone who’s ever had to deal with Comcast, or, for that matter, anyone who lives in Manhattan -- I can honestly say I don’t remember any TV characters named David Cohen until Thursday night’s debut episode of AMC’s Mad Men.

Sadly, it appears that my namesake will be a one-and-done character, as he was merely the token Jew brought upstairs from the mailroom to try to influence a potential Jewish client.

But despite the likely demise of my namesake, I loved the show. I thought everything about it was well done, from the acting, to the scenery, to the music.

And I even enjoyed the commercials. Why? Someone at AMC had the brilliant idea of inserting short, five-second-or-so factoids about the advertising industry and the types of products about to be featured in the upcoming commercials directly before each ad.

Granted, this would be difficult for other networks to duplicate. After all, not every network has a show based on the advertising industry.

But the short pre-spots really grabbed my attention and caused me to actually watch the commercials, rather than refreshing my Gatorade (while wishing it was the Jack Daniel’s being consumed by the executives of the series’ fictional ad agency, Sterling Cooper), catching up on my still-unread Sports Weekly from last week or waking up the cats.

After watching Thursday night’s debut episode and reading news editor Mike Reynolds’ recap of a well-flowing conversation with show creator Matt Weiner, I truly hope Mad Men sticks around for a while. I found it to be a great watch, even if the “other” David Cohen never resurfaces.

Posted by Dave Cohen on July 20, 2007 | Comments (1)