Mad Men fans were delighted when HBO announced back in November that it would be releasing the hit drama in 4K on Max the following month. Well, now it's streaming, but unfortunately the super sleek restoration seems to have come with some unexpected issues, including one heck of a post-production goof.
As pointed out by user b345tbr34th on Reddit and "Johnny" on Twitter, two crew members holding a fake vomit machine can be seen in a shot during the first season's seventh episode 'Red in the Face'. In the scene, John Slattery's Roger throws up in front of some clients after indulging himself at a boozy lunch and then being forced to climb the office's 23 flights of stairs. Obviously, Slattery couldn't puke on cue, so a little behind-the-scenes magic involving some sick-like substance and a tube had to be worked.
"How is a mistake like that even possible lmao," one replier wrote on Reddit, prompting another to chime in: "It can be caused by changes in aspect ratio. Things that were formerly out-of-frame are in-frame with the changes. I know Friends had a bunch of scenes with random stand-ins for the main cast.
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"In this case, it looks like they digitally removed the crew in the original version, but used the pre-altered version for HBO Max."
"If this was a true 4K remaster, which would involve rescanning the 35MM negative, any post production work done at the time, like digitally removing these crew members, would have to be re-done… or perhaps in this case, missed," added another.
Elsewhere, tuner-inners have claimed that some of the episodes and their titles are jumbled up, too. "Are the episodes out of order as well?" wrote one confused subscriber. "I tried to find this and it was under episode 1.6 on HBO MAX app on my iPad. Episode 1.5 "5G" isn't the episode that plays. It is skipped. Maybe it is somewhere else in season 1 by mistake."
This isn't the first time HBO has had to own up to such errors. Back in 2019, the US network aired 'The Last of the Starks', the fourth episode in Game of Thrones' final season. In one shot, eagle-eyed fans spotted a Starbucks-like coffee cup in front of Emilia Clarke's Daenerys during the Winterfell feast.
"In response to inquiries from those who saw a craft services coffee cup in Sunday night's episode of Game of Thrones," HBO responded in jest. "The latte that appeared in the episode was a mistake. Daenerys had ordered an herbal tea." We can't wait to see if they address this in a similarly humorous way...
Mad Men is streaming now. For more, check out our picks of the best shows on HBO Max.
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