The Footnotes of 'Mad Men': Episode 302, with Ada Louise Huxtable, Patio Diet Pepsi and Yetta Wallenda

To think, rough and tough New Yorkers were once scared of a little 'urban renewal project'! Here in California—where, according to Don Draper in last night's episode, "everything is new and the people are filled with hope"—we demolished an entire ravine populated with salt-of-earth immigrants to build our fancy stadium. And our stadium is still in the same place! Anyway. True to form, the show's casual historic references highlighted the episode's (Love Among the Ruins) theme: diminution and renewal. Starting with the destruction of Penn station and ending with—well, no spoilers here!—the episode's references encapsulated a waning generation's anxiety about the future.

⚀ When the scheming Vice President of Madison Sq. Garden chastised Communist/bear Paul Kinsey for being just like the no-goodnik "Ada Louise Huxtable," he was referring to the much-awarded architecture critic who is still elegantly trashing developers over at the Wall Street Journal. In 1963, when the war for Penn Station was lost, Huxtable wrote a rich and wry farewell for the Times: "Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn't afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."

Well, Huxtable went on to win a Pulitzer in 1970 and Linkin Park eventually sold out the Garden. So, you see, everyone wins in the future.

⚁ Speaking of the future, nobody really thought diet sodas were going to be a big thing—except Royal Crown Cola! From 1961 to 1963, Royal Crown was selling 50 million cases of the sugar-free soft drink a year. To compete, Pepsi created Patio Diet Cola. One Pepsi official said that the soda giant wanted "new consumers—those people who because of weight or health problems never have consumed soft drinks."

But Pepsi was fearful to lend their brand name to a new and risky venture like diet soda. Patio crashed and took on the title Diet Pepsi in 1964. I guess the name Pepsi sounds more refreshing than an outdoor floor.

⚂ And on the subject of floors, Roger Sterling threw out a reference over a tense round of drinks about making a "Yetta Wallenda-sized misstep." Wallenda was a famed circus performer and tightrope walker who plunged to her death in 1963. Wallenda was part of The Great Wallenda family troupe of circus performers. 
The Wallendas often had close scrapes with death during their years of aerial acrobatics. Two Wallendas died in 1962 when a human pyramid of seven collapsed. The night of her death in Omaha, Walleneda was billed as one-of-a-kind performer who was "skirting on the borderline of eternity."

Don't that ring true.

Natasha Vargas-Cooper has been writing The Footnotes of Mad Men since the mid-late-60s.