This past Sunday night in Times Square, AMC planned a big shindig to celebrate the premiere of the fourth season of Mad Men. The paper said there would be a costume and trivia contest followed by a screening of the premiere on a giant screen in Times Square. I’m a big Mad Men fan so this sounded like fun.
It turned out to be a lot more fun than I anticipated.
My friend Damian (who lives for the show and Christina Hendricks) and I arrived at Times Square dressed in 60′s-ish attire. I say 60′s-ish because people really went out of their way to dress up and we just wore whatever looked dated from our closets. Once we navigated past the police blockades, we found ourselves in the middle of Duffy Square where there were rows of chairs set up for the screening. I immediately saw that there were two sections: the commoner section with plastic chairs still wet from the afternoon rainstorm and the VIP section; a section that was right in front of the screen and had complimentary snack and drink service provided by either a cigarette girl or a gentleman in a white suit. Also, since very important people have very important bottoms, the chairs were dry and cushioned.
VIP Seating Area
If I know one thing, I’ve never met a VIP section I didn’t like. Just standing on the other side of the rope, breathing all that average people air, made me feel itchy. We were going to have to try and sneak into the VIP section. My first ideas was to start by asking one of the men with a VIP badge how I could get a seat in the VIP area, since I consider myself (and always have) a very important person.
“Well, it’s sold out, but since there was all the rain there might be some no shows. You can ask them and I think they’ll probably let you in. I’d wait until later though.”
If I couldn’t hear the words, “I’ll take you in there myself” followed by him actually taking me in, I had to work on another way in, even if that did sound potentially promising.
I walked around to do some surveillance. I needed to find a weak spot where there was no security and ticket takers to stop us. It also needed to be congested enough for us to slip by, undetected. I found the perfect spot at the edge of square, where the velvet ropes were low enough to casually step over and into the VIP area. A few others gathered near the spot, for sure thinking the same thing. I knew if they saw us step over, they’d throw the hater card down and tell security. We played it cool and waited for the narcs to be distracted by something glittery.
However, we were all distracted by the crazy lady who marched by holding a three foot high plastic doll that was wrapped up with cellophane in a Easter Egg basket. She stepped over the rope and into the VIP section. And no one stopped her. What?! SHE’S HOLDING/SUFFOCATING A GIANT PLASTIC DOLL PEOPLE!
But if she could make it in…
Everything after this happened very quickly. Security came over and started to clear the area. We pretended like we couldn’t hear them, until they asked us if we were in the costume contest. If we were, we needed to go into the VIP area and wait in line to be judged.
Uhhh, of course we’re here for the costume contest! Can’t you tell? We are marginally dressed as 60′s beatniks!
My dress is polyester... so that counts as a costume right?
We stepped over the rope and instead of joining the line, defected to a pair of seats. There was over an hour left until the screening started and the wait was agonizing. Once you get into a VIP area you’re usually good to go, but we didn’t want to risk someone asking us where our wrist bands were and get kicked out so we tried to keep a low profile.
“Who wants a Mad Men giiiiift baaaaaag?!” yelled-asked the event staff.
I flung my naked wrist to grab the attention of one of the people handing out the gift bags. Shockingly, he asked where my wrist band was. I didn’t know how to respond to that so I stared at him, stupidly, until he realized that’s not a question you ask someone already sitting in the VIP section. He handed me my gift bag and walked away. Damian refused to make eye contact with me after that exchange.
“You just had to have the gift bag didn’t you?”
The rest of the night continued without incident. Turns out, the crazy lady with the doll was a participant in the costume contest. She came as Betty Draper (even though she was wearing a black dress and didn’t brush her hair)Rachel Menken and the doll was Sally. A nice surprise was that January Jones and Elisabeth Moss showed up to present the episode. They both looked amazing, although J. Jones is really skinny. I loved both their dresses.
It was also Elisabeth’s birthday the night before, so a cake out was brought out and we sang Happy Birthday to her. I love Elisabeth Moss. She seems so nice and genuine. I want to be friends with her and all the ladies on Mad Men.
Happy Birthday Lizzie!
After the screening, they handed everyone in the VIP section Mad Men Barbie Dolls. I loooooove classic barbie dolls and was thrilled with my Joan barbie.
Me and Joanie
Barbie Joan on my desk makes me happy.
To top off the night, we went to the unofficial “after-party” at the W hotel and had martini’s and listened to music from 1964. Then we went on a drunken rampage and trashed Don’s old office.
It was a pretty swell night.
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I would like to comment because that crazy woman was dressed up like Season 1 character, Rachel Menken which made her carrying a Sally Draper doll around even crazier.
Was she? I guess I heard Sally Draper and assumed she was Betty. That’s even weirder!!!!
I’m annoyed I missed that gem.
What was in the gift bag?
It was a terrible let down. A bag of 60′s taffy candy, a subway map, a battery powered fan, a 60′s style desk clock (the best thing in there), and a New York magazine I had already read. It was sooooo not worth almost getting caught.