Mad Men’s recent 4K restoration has brought new fans to HBO Max — as well as technical headaches.
Shocked and bewildered fans of the groundbreaking television series that ran from 2007 to 2015 on AMC have noticed a number of errors since it began streaming on HBO Max, including several episodes out of order and one particularly glaring post-production glitch.
As viewers noted, two members of the crew are seen working on a fake vomit machine during a scene in which Roger Sterling, played by John Slattery, is seen disintegrating from his drunken lunch during an inappropriate meeting in Sterling Cooper’s Madison Avenue office.
There are no post-production edits added in any way to the new 4K transfer of Mad Men on HBO, which means you get things like this where you can see a crew member running the puke machine after Roger has had too many oysters. pic.twitter.com/HNgPRNOsla
– Johnny (@bigrackspart7) 2 December 2025
“How is such a mistake possible lmao,” one person wrote on Reddit. Another on X wrote, “Had to watch the original scene to make sure I wasn’t tripping and yes, he shouldn’t be there.” 4K remasters usually require redoing some post-production work that appears to have been missed.
The error occurs late in the seventh episode of the first season, Red in the Face — although you might not know it on the newly rebranded HBO Max, where it airs under the sixth episode label. The Guardian found three mislabeled episodes in the first season, which play out of order – viewers watching straight through would see the fourth episode, then the seventh, then the fifth, and then the sixth.
This isn’t the first time HBO has dealt with post-production issues memorialized on social media. In 2019, fans watching the fourth episode of the final season of Game of Thrones noticed a very un-Westeros coffee cup in front of Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen during the Winterfell feast.
The company quietly removed the cup from the episode, which was later identified as a product from a local chain in Belfast. Yet, this anachronistic silliness turned into a viral moment, with HBO joining in on the joke on its social media handles.
Mad Men, starring Jon Hamm as cunning advertising executive Don Draper and Elisabeth Moss as his protégé Peggy, won 16 Emmys during its eight-year run, including four consecutive wins for outstanding drama. Creator Matthew Weiner originally developed That ’60s Show for HBO, where he worked with David Chase on The Sopranos. Despite Chase’s support, HBO passed on the series, which moved to AMC and cemented the company’s reputation for prestige drama.
All seven seasons of the acclaimed series, which also stars Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, Rich Sommer, Aaron Staton, Kiernan Shipka, and others, still stream on AMC+ — though not in 4K. The restored version, errors and all, came to HBO through a licensing deal with Lionsgate TV.
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