The Random Mad Men Cameos Are the Best Part of Unfrosted

Guess who shows up successful Jerry Seinfeld’s Pop-Tart movie to transportation an advertisement campaign. Photo: John P. Johnson/Netflix

The astir amusive portion of Unfrosted, the Netflix movie that allows first-time manager Jerry Seinfeld to research respective of his idiosyncratic passions (breakfast food, boomer nostalgia, references to the Zapruder film), is waiting to spot which of your favourite comedic actors volition amusement up next.

At slightest 50 percent of the astir talented comic radical successful Hollywood co-star successful this thing. Melissa McCarthy? She’s successful it. Hugh Grant? Why wouldn’t Hugh Grant hold to play a Tony the Tiger impersonator successful a movie astir the improvement of the Pop-Tart? Jim Gaffigan, Amy Schumer, James Marsden, Fred Armisen, Thomas Lennon, and Mikey Day, Kyle Mooney and The Other Two’s Drew Tarver playing Snap, Crackle, and Pop: All are afloat represented, and this is inactive lone a precise partial database of the cast.

But easy the champion cameos — and the champion country successful a movie that’s much of a sweetener clang than a sweetener precocious — travel successful the last half-hour of Unfrosted, erstwhile Jim Gaffigan’s Edsel Kellogg III announces that he’s summoned immoderate “Madison Avenue ad-men types” to transportation ideas astir however to marketplace the company’s caller toaster treat.

Cut to the adjacent scene, wherever Jon Hamm is lasting successful a Kellogg’s league country presenting his ideas portion his colleague, played by John Slattery, sits to his right. The names of these characters are ne'er decently identified, though astatine 1 constituent Hamm refers to Slattery arsenic Roger and McCarthy calls Hamm “Florsheim.” (IMDb lists them simply arsenic Ad Man #1 and Ad Man #2.) It doesn’t substance due to the fact that it’s instantly evident that Hamm and Slattery are fundamentally conscionable playing their characters from Mad Men, Don Draper and Roger Sterling. Immediately, this sets disconnected SCPD assemblage tingles, the carnal sensation 1 gets arsenic soon arsenic they retrieve however overmuch they miss each azygous flawed idiot who worked astatine Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce during Mad Men’s seven-season tally connected AMC.

In keeping with its fascination with the past, Unfrosted leans hard into Mad Men nostalgia. “Kellogg’s: It’s much than a name,” Hamm/Don begins, sounding precise overmuch similar helium did during the transportation for Kodak’s Carousel. “It’s the lukewarm clasp of home, of family.”

Hamm/Don past suggests that the still-unnamed fruit-filled pastries should beryllium called Jelle Jolie, a riff connected the Belle Jolie lipstick run that was cardinal to Mad Men’s archetypal season. He besides offers 2 imaginable off-shoots: Jelle Jolie Noir, featuring a hint of “chocolat,” and Jelle Jolie Sensual, “with nary packet for those who dare. Because his pleasance is besides hers’.” That is simply a precise Don-sounding slogan.

Slattery/Roger, meanwhile, spends the country doing what Roger Sterling ever did best: making sarcastic comments portion acting similar a full elitist. “I’ve been successful your municipality for six hours, you cognize what I see?” helium says to the squad astatine Kellogg’s for perfectly nary evident reason. “Dead trees and sad, lonely women.”

Disappointed successful the deficiency of imaginativeness connected the portion of Team Kellogg’s, the 2 advertisement men yet hole to leave, but not earlier a fewer much homages to Mad Men episodes. “Tell you what, I’ll beryllium retired connected a bluff overlooking Stinson Beach portion you’re inactive genuflecting earlier the deity of mediocrity,” Hamm/Don condescendingly tells the group, a notation to the last country successful the bid erstwhile Don is so retired from advertizing and meditating connected a bluff.

When Kellogg’s worker Bob Cabana (Seinfeld) wonders retired large wherefore these guys are truthful rude — “Why are they truthful mean? It’s conscionable advertising.” — Hamm/Don tells him, “You volition ne'er aquatics the English Channel and past drown successful champagne,” words borrowed from a large code Don delivers to the agency’s employees successful the play 5 occurrence “Christmas Waltz.”

Then, connected their mode out, Hamm/Don expresses involvement successful hiring McCarthy’s Donna “Stan” Stankowski, noting that helium volition “call her from a payphone,” yet different callback to the Mad Men finale successful which Don called Peggy from a payphone before, you know, retiring connected a bluff.

All of this is easy the astir delightful portion of Unfrosted. Okay, admittedly, the barroom determination is low, but still! For Mad Men fans keeping score, this is besides the 3rd clip successful 3 years that Hamm and Slattery person reunited successful a movie. Last year, Hamm starred successful the Slattery-directed Maggie Moore, though the 2 did not look connected camera together. In 2022, they co-starred and even deed up a barroom unneurotic again successful the criminally underrated Confess, Fletch. Look, if we can’t person Mad Men back, knowing that Slattery and Hamm volition amusement up side-by-side successful immoderate random task connected a yearly ground is astatine slightest a halfway-decent substitute. Because seeing them unneurotic is conscionable similar the acquisition Hamm/Don said consumers person with Kellogg’s: It’s the lukewarm clasp of home, of (heavy-drinking) family.