News of the Week: Don Draper, Dyed Eggs, and The Daily Show

Which city has the best park bench for selfies with Don Draper; why Jon Stewart’s replacement faces controversy; plus, Easter recipe ideas in this week’s roundup.

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It’s finally April, and we here at The Saturday Evening Post hope that you’ve recovered from both the nasty winter and the devastating news that Zayn Malik has left One Direction. Here’s this week’s roundup.

The End of an Era

The Saturday Evening Post "Mad Men" cover from March/April 2014.  Click to read the cast interviews.
Rockwell-inspired Mad Men cover by Sharif Tarabay
The Saturday Evening Post, March/April 2014
Click to read the cast interviews.

We had to wait a year, but on Sunday at 10 p.m. we’ll see the first of the last seven episodes of Mad Men, AMC’s brilliant drama about advertising execs in the 1960s. I’m going to miss the show — it could be my favorite TV drama of all-time — but on the other hand, seven seasons is a nice, solid run, right?

The cast and creator Matthew Weiner have been making the rounds promoting the show:

Everyone stopped by Today to talk about the last season.

AMC installed a bench at Rockefeller Center where you can sit with Don Draper.

Weiner talked to Esquire about how Mad Men came about and why you’ll never see a spinoff show.

Producer Josh Weltman also talked to Esquire, with the story behind five ad campaigns featured on the show.

If you’re having a finale party, you can get some tips from The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook .

The Saturday Evening Post has an interview with the cast, an interview with Weiner, and a great gallery of Mad Men-era advertising.

And if you want to read a great history of the show and get all the links to stories I might have missed, take a look at Basket of Kisses, probably the biggest fans and promoters Mad Man has had over the years.

New Daily Show Host Already Has a Controversy

It took about 12 minutes from the time Comedy Central named the new host of The Daily Show to the eruption of a big controversy involving that new host. Trevor Noah, a comedian from South Africa who was a cast member of The Daily Show, will take over for Jon Stewart when Stewart leaves the show later this year.

Now, since this is the age of Twitter and everyone finding out everything about someone at the click of a button or two, it wasn’t long before people found tweets by Noah from a few years ago that joke about women and Jews.

Comedy Central says they are behind Noah and have no plans to replace him as host. Noah himself made a statement about the controversy. Where? On Twitter of course:

I don’t know if this will turn out to be a big controversy as the weeks and months go by. Comedian Jim Norton says that Noah isn’t the problem, we are. I think more people are wondering who Trevor Noah is. Many wanted someone like Tina Fey or Amy Poehler to take over the show, but that wasn’t going to happen. Bill Simmons at Grantland says that Poehler, Louis CK, and Amy Schumer were all asked to be host but they all turned it down.


McDonald’s Testing All-Day Breakfast

Bikeworldtravel / Shutterstock.com
Bikeworldtravel / Shutterstock.com

Have you ever found yourself wanting an Egg McMuffin, but when you look at your watch (okay, your smartphone) you realize it’s 1 p.m. and McDonald’s isn’t serving breakfast anymore? Well, you soon might be in luck.

McDonald’s is testing all-day breakfast service in San Diego, and if it’s successful every McDonald’s would let you order some OJ and hashbrowns, even if it’s 8 o’clock at night. This isn’t something that’s going to happen across the board this year; it might take a while to implement the change. So if you want breakfast at Mickey Ds, remember that breakfast stops at 10:30 a.m. (11 on the weekends).

McDonald’s hasn’t been doing too well lately. So many other options for people now. All-day breakfast isn’t the only change they’re experimenting with. They’re also thinking about table service and having customers be able to make their own custom burgers.

Can Blogging Kill You?

(Shutterstock)
(Shutterstock)

I know that sounds like a headline from one of the magazines you see at the checkout counter or maybe something from those sites that do a dozen listicles every day (“10 Biggest LOL Cat GIFs Ever!”), but it was actually a fear that longtime politics and culture blogger Andrew Sullivan had. Sullivan recently quit blogging after doing it for 15 years. He said he had to quit because he was doing “40 posts a day, every 20 minutes — seven days a week.”

Now, as someone who has blogged for 19 years, I can confirm it can be intense, especially if your actual job is blogging and you have to feed the always hungry Web beast several times a day for many readers. Though I’m sure there are people who will read about Sullivan and want to switch places with him because they work in a coal mine or work double shifts in a hot restaurant kitchen. I wonder if Sullivan actually had to blog that much.

This doesn’t mean Sullivan is going to stop writing, of course. He’ll still write articles and books, he just needs to take a break from the type of output he was doing, and I can understand that (I hope he stops social media too). I’m not completely convinced that he’s done with blogging for good though. Maybe he’ll cut way down, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he returned in a year or two, depending on what your definition of “blogging” is. He still has a site. Even after his announcement Sullivan blogged a few more times.

But even if he does stop, I hope this doesn’t mean that people think this is another example of “the death of blogging.” Even if social media has taken over, blogging will still be around.

4-Year-Old Girl Wants a Slushie (at 3 a.m.)

(Shutterstock)
(Shutterstock)

We’ve all had this happen. We go to bed, but we wake up a few hours later with a craving. Maybe we’re thirsty or maybe we really want some ice cream or potato chips. As adults we can just get up and go to the kitchen and have what we want, or if we’re really craving something we can jump in the car and drive to the 24-hour convenience store a few blocks away.

But what if you’re only 4 years old? What do you do then? Well, if you’re this little girl in Philadelphia, you hop on the city bus. She really, really, really wanted a Slushie, so she put on her raincoat and got on a bus, and as she sat in the seat said, “All I want is a Slushie.” Which isn’t too much to ask for in life, if you think about it. We all just want our Slushies. The bus driver called the police, and she was reunited with her parents.

I hope she finally got her Slushie. Also: “3 a.m. Slushie” would be a good name for a band

It’s Easter Already?

J.C. Leyendecker April 15, 1933 See more Easter covers
J.C. Leyendecker
April 15, 1933
See more Easter covers

Easter seems to have sneaked up on us this year. At least it did with me. Maybe it was all the snow and cold we had during the winter. But Easter is this Sunday, and there are many ways to celebrate.

You could go the Martha Stewart route and take the time to blow out the inside of your eggs and fill them with confetti so you can throw them at people, or you could just sit back and read this list of 9 Things You Didn’t Know About Easter Eggs.

If you’re cooking, you can make these Bacon, Egg and Cheese Easter Baskets, Tyler Florence’s Tangerine-Glazed Easter Ham, and then top off the meal with one of these show-stopping desserts.

Upcoming Anniversaries and Events

Howard Hughes dies (April 5, 1976)
Wikipedia has a detailed timeline on the life of Hughes, including the physical and psychological problems he faced.

U.S. enters World War I (April 6, 1917)
Read Saturday Evening Post archives director Jeff Nilsson’s article, “Did the Post See World War I Coming?”

Henry’s ‘The Gift of the Magi’ published (April 10, 1906)
Here’s some background on the contributions that O. Henry made to The Saturday Evening Post , including “The Ransom of Red Chief.”

The Beatles officially break up (April 10, 1970)
Here’s why the Fab Four broke up, and you can read Cable Neuhaus’ SEP feature, “Long Live The Beatles!”

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Comments

  1. I always find the POST’s Week in Review (by you)interesting, but the story about the four year old girl to me is disturbing. Some people may read this and think “it’s cute” that she wanted a Slushie at 3 a.m. Well it’s not cute at all. Anything could have happened, and the fact nothing did is fortunate but beside the point. Even if she were 14 it still could have been dangerous. Hopefully lessons have been learned for all parties concerned here so there won’t be repeat performances.

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