A recent 4K restoration of Mad Men has brought new fans to HBO Max – as well as technical headaches.
Bemused and bewildered fans of the groundbreaking television series, which ran from 2007 until 2015 on AMC, have spotted numerous errors after the supposedly sleek restoration began streaming on HBO Max, including several episodes out of order and one particularly glaring post-production goof.
As viewers pointed out, two crew members are visible working a fake vomit machine during a scene in which Roger Sterling, played by Jon Slattery, appears to part ways with his boozy lunch during an inopportune meeting at the Madison Avenue office of Sterling Cooper.
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 pic.twitter.com/HNgPRNOsla
— johnny (@bigrackspart7) December 2, 2025
“How is a mistake like that even possible lmao,” one person wrote on Reddit. “Had to look up the original scene to make sure I wasn’t tripping and yep he is not supposed to be there,” wrote another on X. Fans speculated that the mistake owed to changes in aspect ratio, necessitating digital removal of the crew in the frame. A 4K remaster usually requires redoing some post-production work, which appears to have been missed.
The error occurs late in Red in the Face, the seventh episode of the first season – though you wouldn’t know it on the newly rebranded HBO Max, where it airs under the label of the sixth episode. 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, followed by the fifth and then sixth.
This is not the first time HBO has dealt with post-production issues memorialized on social media. In 2019, eagle-eyed fans watching the fourth episode of Game of Thrones’s final season spotted a very non-Westeros coffee cup in front of Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen during a Winterfell feast.
The company quietly removed the cup, later identified as a product of a local chain from Belfast, from the episode. Still, the anachronistic goof turned into a viral moment, with HBO joining in on the joke on its social media handles.
Mad Men, starring Jon Hamm as slick advertising executive Don Draper and Elisabeth Moss as his protege Peggy, won 16 Emmys during its eight-year run, including four consecutive wins for outstanding drama. Creator Matthew Weiner originally developed the 60s-set show for HBO, where he worked alongside David Chase on the Sopranos. Despite support from Chase, HBO passed on the series, which landed at AMC and anchored the company’s reputation for prestige drama.
All seven seasons of the acclaimed series, which also starred 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, landed at HBO via a licensing deal with Lionsgate TV.
