Wednesday, October 13, 2010
THE HOBO CODE: Last night at trivia, we had, for the first time in memory, a successful appeal on a question--the question was pretty simple--"On the TV series Mad Men, what character, present since the first season, has been played by three different actors?" The "correct" answer, which we got, was "Bobby Draper," who's been played by different actors because of the aging timeline. One team's answer, though, led to an appeal--"Don Draper," with the contention that 3 actors have played a character we know as "Don Draper"--Jon Hamm, the guy who played original recipe Draper in Korea, and the guy who played young Draper/Whitman in flashback episodes. Lively discussion ensued as to whether the third one in particular counted. (Ultimate ruling--half a point, rather than the full point.) Correct or incorrect? (Receiving a full "smart-ass point" for making the host and room laugh, however, was the answer of "Darrin Stephens.")
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No dice. One character is the real Don Draper. The other two are the character of Dick Whitman, who stole Don Draper's identity. That guy's a different character, even if he fraudulently uses the Draper name.
ReplyDeleteCredit for Original Recipe and Young Dick must be mutually exclusive. If you use a definition that includes one, you have defined away the other.
ReplyDeleteI'd give credit for Draper, even though I thought Hamm played Dick/Don in Korea.
ReplyDeleteNow that Pete, Betty, Dr. Faye, and the waitress know him to be Dick, you can't draw the hard and fast line.
No--Hamm did play Dick/Don in Korea, but another actor played the "real" Don Draper in that flashback.
ReplyDeletePrecisely - those are two different characters. There should, I believe, be credit given for 2 actors due to Dick-as-child and Dick-as-Don, but no credit for Actual-Don, though it's an interesting argument.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that show was this complicated.
ReplyDeleteThe reasoning there is incorrect - the Don Draper that married Anna Draper and the Don Draper (Dick Whitman) that married Betty Francis are two separate characters.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Don Draper/Dick Whitman *has* been played by three different actors - as an adult by Jon Hamm, as a child by Brandon Killham in "The Hobo Code", and as a baby in "Out of Town" by, um, a baby. So the answer was correct.
Aha, but only one actor played him, while the individual who grew to be creative director, SCDP, may have had 3, per Ramar. I guess in this universe, Saul Kripke is mistaken.
ReplyDeleteI could see someone accepting a total of two actors who have played Don Draper on Mad Men: the real Don Draper from the war flashback and the current (albeit fake) Don Draper played by Jon Hamm. If you look at the casting, e.g., on IMDB, Jon Hamm is listed as Don Draper.
ReplyDeleteBut the younger incarnations of Jon Hamm's character before the war were not Don Draper. They were Dick Whitman, because he had not yet assumed the identity of Don Draper. So, I might agree that three actors have played Dick Whitman (Jon Hamm and the two younger actors from flashbacks), but at most there have been two actors who played Don Draper.
Slightly off-topic, but thought Mad Men fans would enjoy: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/13/allison-williams-brian-wi_n_761128.html - Brian Williams' daughter singing the theme song (well, another song transposed onto the theme song).
ReplyDeleteOOH! Well done!
ReplyDeleteShould've gotten the full point. Dick Whitman has been played by three actors, if you include the baby
ReplyDeleteIf the answer had been "Dick Whitman" and they'd offered that justification, I suspect they would have gotten it. The answer was "Don Draper" and the justification they gave was Hamm, Hobo Code Draper/Whitman, and Korea Draper.
ReplyDelete