‘Mad Men’ Fans Notice Big Mistake With HBO Max’s 4K Version

If you thought the Game of Thrones coffeegate issue was a mess, hold onto your vintage fedora. Mad Men fans have noticed a massive problem with the addition of the celebrated AMC drama to the streaming library at HBO Max: The newly released 4K version of the show apparently features a lack of some post-production work, like the removal of the crew members in the background of at least one key scene.

On X (formerly Twitter), fans have been sharing their sightings of the jaw-dropping transmission error. In particular, they pointed to a moment from Season 1 Episode 7, “Red in the Face,” which featured Roger Sterling (John Slattery) getting sick after being plied with oysters and martinis and a long trip up the stairwell by a vengeful Don Draper (Jon Hamm). As documented by these fans — with video of the gaffe, even — a crew member can be seen off to the side operating a vomit machine to create the effect of Roger’s humiliating moment in front of clients.

“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 Rogers has too many oysters,” the fan wrote, with a screengrab of the moment in question.

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

Another fan, who shared a video of the mixed-up scene, wrote, “HBO, you will pay.”

HBO, you will pay pic.twitter.com/Iy2Fykeewz

— 𝐑𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐚 (@LoyalYashFan) December 2, 2025

Another fan on Reddit noticed that certain episode titles are possibly mixed up in the HBO Max offering of Mad Men.

“Are the Episodes out of order as well? I tried to find this and it was under episode 1.6 on HBO MAX app on my iPAD. Episode 1.5 “5G. Isn’t the episode that plays. It is skipped. Maybe it is somewhere else in season 1 by mistake,” the fan wrote. Another added of the errors, “Didn’t believe it so I went to look myself. And you can totally see him! episode order is all f**ed up though. It’s listed as ep 6 ‘babylon.'”

Mad Men was just added to HBO Max, for the first time in 4K, on Monday (December 1).

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Some fans speculated that the reason for the error could be the change in aspect ratio in the new release: “If this was a true 4K remaster, which would involve rescanning the 35MM negative, any post production work done at the time, like digitally removing these crew members, would have to be re-done… or perhaps in this case, missed,” one Redditor wrote. “Oddly speaks to the authenticity of the project (if not the attention to detail),” another responded.