Stephen Bowie’s Classic Histroy TV Blog about casting what ifs if Mad Men was actually produced in the 1960s is a big hit. Here are my new choices if done by 20th Century-Fox ca. 1963-65:

                                                                                              Gardner McKay as Don

                                                                                                 Carol Lynley as Betty

                                                                                              Stuart Whitman as Roger

                                                                                                 Juliet Prowse as Peggy

Barbara Eden as Joan

                                                                                                Richard Beymer as Pete

                                                                                                Millie Perkins as Trudy

                                                                                              Roddy McDowall as Lane

                                                                                                    Jane Wald as Jane

                                                                                                Dana Wynter as Mona

                                                                                             Wende Wagner as Megan

Click here to access Stephen Bowie’s The Classic TV History Blog where he turns recasting Mad Men into a sort of Fantasy Football game. Who would you cast in the roles if Mad Men was actually aired during the mid-Sixties? Below are my choices for 4 mad men and all the mod women (from my staple of starlets):

                                                                                                  Tom Tryon as Don

                                                                                                 Diane McBain as Betty

                                                                                              Tony Franciosa as Roger

                                                                                            Beverly Washburn as Peggy

                                                                                                      Sal Mineo as Pete

                                                                                                Francine York as Joan

                                                                                                Peter Lawford as Lane

                                                                                                   Marianna Hill as Jane

                                                                                                  Janet Margolin as Trudy

                                                                                                   Sue Casey as Mona

                                                                                                Yvonne Craig as Megan

AMC’s Mad Men is one of my favorite TV shows (no surprise there). But now it is really cooking for me as it is summer of 1966. The premiere episode Sunday was really good but what stood out for me were the ladies decked out in such wonderful mod clothes and hair styles. And I don’t mean the lead ones who play Peggy and Joan. They were both outclassed by Don’s new go-go bride Megan, who looking like Yvonne Craig in a slinky long-sleeved black minidress, seductively sang in French to her birthday boy husband at his surprise party in their fabulous NYC apartment complete with terrace; and Roger’s gorgeous wife Jane who looked like she stepped right out of the Valley of the Dolls complete with bitchy barbs thrown with a drink in one hand and her husband in the other.

I can’t wait for more and hope we see lots of Megan and Jane this season!

Warner Bros. just released the trailer to Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows due for release this summer. As the trailer began I was intrigued and then quickly became horrified. Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins looks like a cartoon character trapped in an unfunny farce. However, rewatching it some more I realized that was what Burton was going for. He has turned Dark Shadows into a ’70s Saturday morning cartoon with its fish-out-of-water vampire mingling with the humans in a sea of colorful day-glo. It’s like the Brady Bunch meets the Addams Family animated-style. Or when Sabrina the Teenage witch arrived in Riverdale and spooked Archie, Reggie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Moose, Big Ethel, Midge, and the rest of the gang.

I truly wished Burton would have gone the dark, spooky atmospheric route with Dark Shadows and not have gone for the laughs. However, I do love Johnny Depp in anything and will give it a try. From the trailer though disappointing is Eva Green as Angelique who just doesn’t register evil like Lara Parker did; Michelle Pfeiffer who doesn’t seem to play Elizabeth Collins Stoddard as the grande dame the way Joan Bennett did; and Chloe Moretz as a way too immature Carolyn Stoddard played by the more sophisticated Nancy Barrett in the soap. I did however like Helena Bonham Carter as a droll Dr. Julia Hoffman.

Here’s just hoping that Dark Shadows is better than Burton’s awful Planet of the Apes reboot.

httpv://youtu.be/isjg9O7ifwM