HBO Max Forgot to Remove a ‘Vomit Hose’ Crew Member In MAD MEN 4K

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I was so excited when Warner Bros. Discovery announced Mad Men was finally coming to HBO Max, and even better, in 4K! It seemed like a perfect move – everyone loves that show, and 4K would make it look amazing. But unfortunately, the first day of streaming wasn’t quite what I hoped for. The 4K restoration had some serious issues – honestly, it looked like someone accidentally included a crew member with a… well, let’s just say a cleaning tool in some scenes. It definitely didn’t deliver on the promise!

HBO Max recently released a remastered 4K version of Mad Max, but there’s a noticeable error. During the famous oyster vomit scene with Roger Sterling, viewers can now clearly see crew members and the equipment used to create the effect on the right side of the screen.

— Paul Haine (@paulhaine.bsky.social) 2025-12-02T11:28:47.018Z

Fans quickly discovered that the 4K version of Mad Men on HBO Max wasn’t as good as expected. Paul Haine shared a screenshot on Bluesky that highlighted a noticeable error – a modern object appearing in the background of a scene. The mistake occurs in the seventh episode, where Don Draper gets back at Roger Sterling by causing him to get sick from eating too many oysters, ultimately leading to Roger vomiting in the office.

The vomit scene plus visible crew in all its 4k glory:

— Paul Haine (@paulhaine.bsky.social) 2025-12-02T11:33:58.779Z

The scene originally didn’t include a crew member cleaning up the fake vomit with a hose. However, during the 4K restoration process, they accidentally left him – and the hose – visible in the final version.

Yeah! Turns out that scene involved CGI originally. Who woulda guessed!?!

Like others have pointed out, the 4K version significantly washed out the colors. The new version looks like a show from the 1960s, which is very different from the original’s look on AMC.

To make matters worse, when HBO Max added Mad Men, some episodes were labeled incorrectly – including this one! While the episode titles have been fixed now, there’s still a bizarre, low-quality visual glitch – a sort of ‘vomit hose’ effect – that hasn’t been removed. It’s still there, and it’s even more noticeable in 4K. Yes, you can watch a 4K version with this strange visual problem.

It’s frustrating and honestly a little ridiculous. (Especially if you remember the bad remaster of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) It makes you wonder if Warner Bros. Discovery used artificial intelligence to create the 4K version, or if they just rushed the process. Either way, the results aren’t good. Good post-production is crucial – a lot of what makes a show look fantastic happens after filming, thanks to the hard work of skilled professionals.

This 4K restoration is awful, but it does show us who not to use for future projects – and who might be good at fixing it.

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2025-12-04 02:03