Get your suit pressed and stock up on the good scotch: The sixth season premiere of AMC's Mad Men is just days away. Don Draper may be mired in a seemingly permanent existential crisis, but over the past five seasons, fans have still managed to find the humor in Mad Men. Here, watch 12 of the best Mad Men parodies on the web, and come back to TheWeek.com on Sunday for the first of our weekly Mad Men recaps.
1. Sesame Street does Mad Men
Is Mad Men too risqué for your adolescent children? Split the difference with this Sesame Street sketch, which follows a Muppet Don Draper as he and his team cycle through an "emotional rollercoaster" of ads, changing them from Mad Men to Sad Men to Happy Men.
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2. 'Don Draper's Guide to Picking Up Women'
Mad Men star Jon Hamm isn't above poking a little fun at the series that made him a star. In this Saturday Night Live clip, Hamm explains how anyone can be just as seductive as Don Draper:
3. The Simpsons does Mad Men
Much like The Simpsons' brief jaunt to Westeros, this animated take on Mad Men's distinctive opening credits sequence follows Homer Simpson as he tumbles past images of Springfield's most notable residents. See for yourself how carefully the animators re-created the original with this side-by-side comparison:
4. Don Draper's college orientation
Don Draper may fit in at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, but his trademark evasiveness is a more awkward fit when he's transplanted to a college dorm for orientation. "You want to know who Don Draper is? What makes you think I know who Don Draper is?" complains the ad man to a befuddled R.A.
5. Breaking Mad
There are plenty of clever parodies of the Mad Men title sequence, but this one — which applies the format to Breaking Bad, the other best show on AMC — is particularly well-executed and apt.
6. 'Two A-Holes in an Ad Agency in the 1960s'
For Saturday Night Live's second visit to Sterling Cooper, Hamm recruited co-stars Elisabeth Moss (Peggy) and John Slattery (Roger) as the agency struggles to come up with an ad campaign that can satisfy the two nutcases who invented the strapped Hula Hoop.
7. Roommates with Don Draper
Don Draper may be a great TV character, but he might not be the best roommate — as seen in this video, which follows him through five seasons of girlfriend-stealing, hallucinating, and overall crippling depression.
8. Obama meets Mad Men
In the midst of election season, The Chris Matthews Show released this reworked version of Mad Men's title sequence, which sees the Commander in Chief falling past his Republican challengers and the top challenges facing the country.
9. Outtakes from the Mad Men opening credits
How long did it take the silhouetted man in the actual opening credits sequence to get that fall just right? College Humor imagines the difficult "filming" process, and the results aren't pretty.
10. Mad Libs Men
Appropriately enough for a series about advertising, just a single word change can turn Mad Men into an entirely different show, as evidenced by this parody in which the characters devolve into the absurdist non-sequiturs of the popular word game Mad Libs. (Sample dialogue: "Squishy work today, gentlemen — I'll see you in a gazillion bajillion years.")
11. Jean-Claude Van Damme's 'Zou Bisou Bisou'
Don Draper was none too pleased by Megan's public seduction to the strains of "Zou Bisou Bisou" in last year's season premiere, but he'd still probably prefer it to this coy, teasing routine by Mr. Belgium himself, Jean-Claude Van Damme.
12. Mad Men in 60 seconds
Don't have time to catch up on Mad Men before Sunday's season premiere? Never fear — this video reduces the show's five seasons of broody, boozy glory to a tight 60 seconds.
