Almost two decades after it premiered, Mad Men is now available in 4K on HBO Max. However, viewers quickly noticed hilarious editing errors, like behind-the-scenes crew members accidentally left in the frame.
Editing errors in HBO Max’s Mad Men
The drama Mad Men premiered in 2007 on the AMC network, following New York ad agency executives Don Draper and his colleagues in the 1960s. It quickly became a classic television show, alongside the ranks of The Sopranos.
Fans of the show were ecstatic when HBO Max announced viewers could stream all 92 episodes in 4K in December, as reported by ScreenRant. However, many viewers quickly noticed that some post-production edits seem to be left out.
A screenshot posted to the subreddit r/MadMen shows a crew member operating a machine in the corner to make it appear like Roger, one of the show’s characters, vomits after eating oysters.
In response, X user @bigrackspart7 compared the 4K screenshot to the original to confirm:
Fans also noted HBO Max’s updated color grading, which gives many characters an unusually red complexion, leading them to appear red in the face. It’s a far cry from the show’s original palette.
What do fans think of the mistake?
Despite the clear mistake when changing the aspect ratio on HBO Max, some fans enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look into the episode.
“The new 4K transfer of Mad Men on HBO somehow does not have any of the post-production edits added in, which means you get stuff like this where you can see the crew member manning the puke machine after Roger has too many oysters lmao,” one X post writes.
A second writes, “Honestly funny how often this happens.”
“This is hilarious, and the extra hand on the crew member’s shoulder is killing me. Like someone else is giving him extra emotional support while he shoots fake vomit from a tube,” a Reddit commenter jokes.
Another user adds, “4K so clear they forgot to hide the entire production team.”
“The way there’s even a puke machine assistant,” jokes another.
But not everyone is amused.
Several viewers called on HBO Max to fix the errors and update mislabeled episodes. Others begged for the platform to re-edit the impacted episodes.
“Why does the 4k HBO Max release of Mad [Men] show a crew member holding the puke machine? This episode and others are also mistitled. Has anyone else caught onto these issues?” an X poster asks.
“How did they not like, at least assign an intern to watch this to spot issues before this was put on the site?” asked another X user.
The Daily Dot reached out to HBO Max for further comment.
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