HBO Max’s 4K Upgrade of 'Mad Men' Is Full of Mistakes — And Fans Are Noticing

In the midst of trying to make watching TV more enjoyable for viewers, HBO Max decided to give its hit show Mad Men a shiny upgrade by formatting it in 4K. That’s likely because the show, which ran from January 2007 through May 2015, and starred Jon Hamm (who played Don Draper) and Elisabeth Moss (who played Peggy Olsen), was filmed years ago and would probably play even better with a little enhancement.

And while HBO definitely gets kudos for putting Mad Men in 4K so we don’t feel like we’re watching a dated show with blurry pixels, it appears they forgot to do something. And it’s a big something, one that left several post-production edits out. Let’s get into the HBO Mad Men errors fans can’t stop finding.

HBO Max released Mad Men in 4K, and somewhere in the process of transitioning the show from its original version to the upgraded one, someone must have forgotten to include several post-production edits, because viewers can literally see behind-the-scenes workers on set.

In one scene from Season 1, Episode 7 (“Red in the Face”), during the moment where Roger Sterling (John Slattery) throws up oysters, you can clearly see crew members behind him operating the vomit hose to make it look like he’s throwing up. One user on X (formerly Twitter) shared a screenshot, and another user had to go back to the original version to confirm the crew wasn’t visible before. And sure enough, they weren’t.

But that’s not the only mistake popping up in the 4K upgrade. Another X user pointed out that the errors continue into Season 2. In Episode 4, when Peggy gets out of the car with Father John Gill (Colin Hanks) and walks across the street, a row of booths appears behind her.

One of them is a newspaper stand, except in the 4K version, it’s advertising SIM cards in Spanish: “One stop tarjetas telefónicas.” Since the show is set in the 1960s, SIM card advertisements wouldn’t have existed, meaning the editors likely forgot to replace the real sign with the original Mad Men prop: P. O’Mara News, which sells magazines, cigarettes, candy, and greeting cards.

And in that same clip, fans spotted yet another slip-up. Next to the pizza booth is a closed stand that originally sold stationery, cigars, and Coca-Cola. But in the 4K version, there’s a sign for “Don Burro: The Best Tacos and Burritos in LA.” At first glance it’s easy to miss, but those paying attention immediately noticed as the show is not only set in the 1960s, but it takes place in New York City, not Los Angeles.

Some scenes of Mad Men were filmed in L.A., which explains why the sign was physically there on set, but it should have been edited out, just like it was in the original broadcast version.