Darrin Stephens
Television Ad Agencies
January 27, 2010
by David Krell
david@davidkrell.com
If you had to choose an advertising agency, which one would you choose?
Would it be McMahon & Tate? You might bump into Darrin Stephens, a good-natured, smart, creative ad executive with a wife named Samantha who is a little mysterious. You might even say she is bewitching.
Would it be Livingston, Gentry & Mishkin? You might see artist Kip Wilson and word man Henry Desmond. They report to Ruth Dunbar, a red-headed, confident, experienced ad woman.
Kip, Henry, Ruth and Amy, a secretary, start their own commercial production company -- Sixty Seconds Street.
Henry and Kip are friends since childhood. They’re bosom buddies.
Would you choose Jack MacLaren’s agency? He is a success in advertising who started his own agency. He looks a lot like Tom Selleck. You might hear the words ‘the closer’ around his office.
Would you choose The Michael & Elliott Company? Two thirtysomethings named Michael and Elliott started this ad agency in mid-1980’s Philadelphia. By the late 1980’s, the agency went under. Michael and Elliott joined DAA, an advertising powerhouse.
Would you choose Rothman, Greene & Moore? Creative Director Mason McGuire and his irresponsible yet productive copywriter colleague Conner will treat you right. Their slogan might as well be called Trust Me.
Would you choose Sterling Cooper, the prototypical 1960’s ad agency with a charming, mysterious, and instinctive Creative Director -- Don Draper.
Who would you choose to do the photographs for print ads? Would it be Felix Unger, portraits a specialty?
Who would you choose to write a jingle? Would it be Charlie Harper, a womanizing, alcohol loving, Malibu beach house owning songwriter who also houses his brother, a chiropractor, and his brother’s son. Together, they comprise two and a half men.
Whichever agency, photographer, or jingle writer you select to promote your product or service, you have plenty of choices in the annals of television history.
david@davidkrell.com
If you had to choose an advertising agency, which one would you choose?
Would it be McMahon & Tate? You might bump into Darrin Stephens, a good-natured, smart, creative ad executive with a wife named Samantha who is a little mysterious. You might even say she is bewitching.
Would it be Livingston, Gentry & Mishkin? You might see artist Kip Wilson and word man Henry Desmond. They report to Ruth Dunbar, a red-headed, confident, experienced ad woman.
Kip, Henry, Ruth and Amy, a secretary, start their own commercial production company -- Sixty Seconds Street.
Henry and Kip are friends since childhood. They’re bosom buddies.
Would you choose Jack MacLaren’s agency? He is a success in advertising who started his own agency. He looks a lot like Tom Selleck. You might hear the words ‘the closer’ around his office.
Would you choose The Michael & Elliott Company? Two thirtysomethings named Michael and Elliott started this ad agency in mid-1980’s Philadelphia. By the late 1980’s, the agency went under. Michael and Elliott joined DAA, an advertising powerhouse.
Would you choose Rothman, Greene & Moore? Creative Director Mason McGuire and his irresponsible yet productive copywriter colleague Conner will treat you right. Their slogan might as well be called Trust Me.
Would you choose Sterling Cooper, the prototypical 1960’s ad agency with a charming, mysterious, and instinctive Creative Director -- Don Draper.
Who would you choose to do the photographs for print ads? Would it be Felix Unger, portraits a specialty?
Who would you choose to write a jingle? Would it be Charlie Harper, a womanizing, alcohol loving, Malibu beach house owning songwriter who also houses his brother, a chiropractor, and his brother’s son. Together, they comprise two and a half men.
Whichever agency, photographer, or jingle writer you select to promote your product or service, you have plenty of choices in the annals of television history.
thirtysomething
April 09, 2009
by David Krell
david@davidkrell.com
ABC turned decidedly yuppie when it debuted thirtysomething in 1987.
Sure, we saw young, upwardly mobile professionals before we had a media-friendly phrase for them.
Dr. Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show.
Rob Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show.
And Darrin Stephens on Bewitched are just some examples of this class-conscious, status-seeking, and career-climbing group.
In fact, the previous owner of the Tuesday 10:00 pm time slot on the Alphabet Network was a show called Jack and Mike about a yuppie couple, played by Tom Mason and Shelley Hack.
But thirtysomething was unique.
thirtysomething did not merely acknowledge yuppiedom, it embraced it.
thirtysomething did not merely speak to the people it represented, it reflected them.
thirtysomething did not merely show problems with neatly wrapped solutions, it showed the character’s journeys in dealing with these problems.
More often than not, thirtysomething dealt with failure.
A failed business. The Michael and Elliot Company folded soon after it began.
A failed marriage. Elliot and Nancy broke up, though the winds of change had been in the air for quite some time.
A failed quest for romance. Melissa constantly sought a man who could appreciate her unique fashion sense, wry humor, and simple passion.
But thirtysomething also showed triumphs and the prices associated with them.
Michael and Elliott got high-level jobs at DAA, an advertising agency headed by advertising legend Miles Drentell.
They had to deal with Miles’s ego that was roughly the size of Saturn.
Elliott and Nancy reconciled, but not before some painful realizations about marriage, love, and the hard work needed to sustain them.
And Melissa seemed to find the start of something big when she went to Hollywood to photograph a television star for a magazine article.
She lost all preconceptions, insecurities, and worries about herself when she was 3000 miles away from home. She realized she could be liked for simply being herself.
It paid off when the article’s writer said, I don’t know you, but I’d like to.
The thirties are a person’s settling down years. Marriage stabilizes the personality, children expand the responsibility, and career compounds the pressure.
Parents passing away. New babies. Search for religious identity.
In its four-year run, thirtysomething tackled the everyday issues of life and showed us there are no easy answers.
Michael’s constant struggle with his Jewish identity posed a terrific problem in the first season episode, I’ll Be Home For Christmas.
When his non-Jewish wife wants Christmas decorations and a tree, Michael is immediately uneasy. After fighting with his cousin Melissa about a business matter and venting to Elliot, Michael buys a tree, his form of an olive branch and trying to make peace during the holiday season.
The tearjerking payoff comes when Michael opens the door and sees Hope holding their baby and lighting a menorah. When he asks where she got it, Melissa enters the room. The expressions on their faces say it all. Michael and Melissa make up, and Michael and Hope find a middle ground on the holidays.
On a business trip in the episode Sifting the Ashes, Elliot explores his Catholic roots when he went to Baltimore, his hometown. While there, he encounters a priest with whom his mother is friendly. The day after a tense conversation about Catholicism with his mother and the priest, Elliot goes to the school where the priest worked. He admits, I want God in my life. It’s religion that keeps getting in the way.
Hope’s friend Ellyn had an affair with a married man.
Michael’s long-time friend Gary died in an accident.
And Nancy battled cancer, thankfully with success.
thirtysomething never preached about the consequences of actions.
It never drew a bright line to separate good from bad.
And it never talked down to us.
It simply showed us as we are. Imperfect people in a truly demanding world.
thirtysomething aired from 1987 to 1991.
Sure the styles of clothes may have changed.
The pop culture and historical references may be off-target for today’s audiences.
And the CD player has been replaced by the Ipod.
But the issues are timeless for thirtysomethings of any decade.
And that’s what classic television is all about.
david@davidkrell.com
ABC turned decidedly yuppie when it debuted thirtysomething in 1987.
Sure, we saw young, upwardly mobile professionals before we had a media-friendly phrase for them.
Dr. Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show.
Rob Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show.
And Darrin Stephens on Bewitched are just some examples of this class-conscious, status-seeking, and career-climbing group.
In fact, the previous owner of the Tuesday 10:00 pm time slot on the Alphabet Network was a show called Jack and Mike about a yuppie couple, played by Tom Mason and Shelley Hack.
But thirtysomething was unique.
thirtysomething did not merely acknowledge yuppiedom, it embraced it.
thirtysomething did not merely speak to the people it represented, it reflected them.
thirtysomething did not merely show problems with neatly wrapped solutions, it showed the character’s journeys in dealing with these problems.
More often than not, thirtysomething dealt with failure.
A failed business. The Michael and Elliot Company folded soon after it began.
A failed marriage. Elliot and Nancy broke up, though the winds of change had been in the air for quite some time.
A failed quest for romance. Melissa constantly sought a man who could appreciate her unique fashion sense, wry humor, and simple passion.
But thirtysomething also showed triumphs and the prices associated with them.
Michael and Elliott got high-level jobs at DAA, an advertising agency headed by advertising legend Miles Drentell.
They had to deal with Miles’s ego that was roughly the size of Saturn.
Elliott and Nancy reconciled, but not before some painful realizations about marriage, love, and the hard work needed to sustain them.
And Melissa seemed to find the start of something big when she went to Hollywood to photograph a television star for a magazine article.
She lost all preconceptions, insecurities, and worries about herself when she was 3000 miles away from home. She realized she could be liked for simply being herself.
It paid off when the article’s writer said, I don’t know you, but I’d like to.
The thirties are a person’s settling down years. Marriage stabilizes the personality, children expand the responsibility, and career compounds the pressure.
Parents passing away. New babies. Search for religious identity.
In its four-year run, thirtysomething tackled the everyday issues of life and showed us there are no easy answers.
Michael’s constant struggle with his Jewish identity posed a terrific problem in the first season episode, I’ll Be Home For Christmas.
When his non-Jewish wife wants Christmas decorations and a tree, Michael is immediately uneasy. After fighting with his cousin Melissa about a business matter and venting to Elliot, Michael buys a tree, his form of an olive branch and trying to make peace during the holiday season.
The tearjerking payoff comes when Michael opens the door and sees Hope holding their baby and lighting a menorah. When he asks where she got it, Melissa enters the room. The expressions on their faces say it all. Michael and Melissa make up, and Michael and Hope find a middle ground on the holidays.
On a business trip in the episode Sifting the Ashes, Elliot explores his Catholic roots when he went to Baltimore, his hometown. While there, he encounters a priest with whom his mother is friendly. The day after a tense conversation about Catholicism with his mother and the priest, Elliot goes to the school where the priest worked. He admits, I want God in my life. It’s religion that keeps getting in the way.
Hope’s friend Ellyn had an affair with a married man.
Michael’s long-time friend Gary died in an accident.
And Nancy battled cancer, thankfully with success.
thirtysomething never preached about the consequences of actions.
It never drew a bright line to separate good from bad.
And it never talked down to us.
It simply showed us as we are. Imperfect people in a truly demanding world.
thirtysomething aired from 1987 to 1991.
Sure the styles of clothes may have changed.
The pop culture and historical references may be off-target for today’s audiences.
And the CD player has been replaced by the Ipod.
But the issues are timeless for thirtysomethings of any decade.
And that’s what classic television is all about.