PBS kids series Martha Speaks will kick off its fourth season with some Hollywood star power.

Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and his real-life girlfriend, Jennifer Westfeldt, guest-star alongside their German Shepherd mix, Cora, in a two-part episode premiering Feb. 20 on PBS Kids! (check local listings).

Martha Speaks is based on the best-selling books by Susan Meddaugh and follows the adventures of Martha, a lovable dog whose appetite for alphabet soup gives her the ability to speak. For two episodes, she gets to romp in animation with Hamm, Westfeldt and their dog.

“Cora is incredibly special to us — and a total original,” says Hamm in the announcement. Westfeldt adds, “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to share her with kids all over the country.”

In the episodes, Westfeldt voices Kit Luntanne, who is upset that she has had to leave her pooch, Cora, at home while she travels with her acting troupe. Martha tries to help by visiting Kit at the theater to give her dog support.

Backstage, Martha meets Ham Johnson (Jon Hamm), an actor who wants to become a businessman. He admires Kit and wants to impress her. Together, Martha and Jon hatch a plan to reunite Kit with Cora.

USA Today

I added 12 photos of Jon out in West Hollywood yesterday.

Todd Glass is coming to the ComedyFest Vancouver Thursday Feb 16 2012. He must must be doing well if Jon Hamm is his butler.

Thank you Joy for the tip!

Jon Hamm Greets a Fan on the “Mad Men” set yesterday.

Personal responsibility has never been a strength of many of the Mad Men characters, but when Season 5 begins on March 25, series creator Matthew Weiner promises that each of them will have to deal with a changing world on their own — a task that might be more difficult than any of them had imagined.

“And the other thing is — and it really just kept coming up and it’s actually in the show — I’ve never talked about this before, where the line is in the show in episode three and it’s ‘When is everything going to get back to normal?’”

After being off the air since October 2010 — and missing the awards season in the process — fans will at least have a sense of normalcy when it finally returns. But since the undercurrent — or B storyline — to every season of Mad Men has been the changing world outside the walls of the agency, there might be more emphasis on how societal and political changes affect the lives of the characters in dramatic new ways.

Of course, Weiner, famous for protecting even minor plot points, wouldn’t reveal what year Season 5 is set in, but he didn’t see that as overly important.

“The year doesn’t really mean anything,” Weiner said. “It doesn’t. I’m not doing a history lesson. The thing that I’m excited about is I wanted to give people a big helping. I wanted a two-hour premiere. It’s a Mad Men movie — I don’t think anyone’s going to think it’s two episodes spliced together. There is a story that starts in the middle of it [but otherwise] it’s one story. The beginning and the ending are related to each other.”

Weiner, who was at AMC’s Mad Men cocktail reception on Saturday night (along with the cast) held court for the first time in ages. Later in the evening I was able to pull him aside with another critic and talk in-depth about the show and the pressure surrounding it as it enters its fifth season.
Weiner on a central theme this season: “We talked about ‘life isn’t fair’ before on the show, but the realization of, like, you really have to deal with your own problems by yourself and other people are not interested — that self-interest can be a surprise, especially if you’re trying to be good.”

Is that the new normal? “Yeah. And I feel like that’s the way it is right now. That’s what I feel we’re undergoing — such tremendous change. Technological, cultural, social, our perception of ourselves as a country, our perception of each other. The country really feels like a melting pot, like it’s culturally diverse as ever and representative. And at the same time I personally — I don’t know what period I’m looking to — but I don’t feel like my feet are on the ground. And what you realize is, this is the way it is.”

“What I mean is that we have a show that’s about people’s personal lives and about people’s jobs. And obviously the office is a big part of it and we take it very seriously — these are ambitious people. But there is a certain point where you have to start thinking for yourself and a lot of behavior that you would judge as very negative or destructive or whatever, that is the only way to achieve what you want. If you sit and wait there for someone to give you everything in life there is a very good chance you won’t get it. And that can be an earth-shattering thing about understanding the world. And you take someone like Don, who we know is trying to be a better person. That’s part of what [the audience] likes about him. They see that there is virtue in this man from the pilot. The fact that he’s talking to that busboy — he’s an African-American man in his 50s — and immediately he cuts through everything to see that, well, this is a human being’s opinion. You see someone there who’s got a virtue in their trust of other people and is a bit of a chameleon and curious and open and all of these things we’ve talked about. But Don’s maneuver at the end of last season was really, really selfish and he may have saved the business, but that’s what I’m talking about. It’s like, how long does it take to learn that lesson? And that’s a big part of the season.”

Read the full article: The Hollywood Reporter

Here’s the first poster for “Friends With Kids”!

Also, 2 videos of Jon at the Golden Globes after-party last night:

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Jon Hamm learned an important lesson after letting slip on the “Doug Loves Movies” podcast that Mad Men will return March 25: Best let creator and executive producer Matt Weiner do the talking. And so at the show’s cocktail party for the Television Association’s press tour this weekend, Hamm only agreed to talk season five after Weiner himself offered up this nugget: A theme of the season is “Every man for himself.” When we relayed this to Hamm, he said, “Good to know. Yeah, I guess I can get onboard with that as a theme for the show. Why don’t I get these awesome quotes? The funny thing about Matt is that he’s a very good keeper of secrets, until he opens his mouth.”

Weiner wouldn’t elaborate on what’s next for Hamm’s Don Draper, but he did comment on the backlash to Don Draper’s season-four proposal to his comely young secretary, Megan: “The immediate reaction was a big shock to the audience and then everyone was like, ‘Oh, right.’ Megan was saying to him, ‘I don’t care who you are, you can be anyone you want to be.’ She’s 25 years old and he gets to go back to being married to a person who sees him as he wants to be.”

Hamm also spoke to Vulture about directing the season’s second episode. “Part of the fun or the wonder of it for me was pulling back the curtain and seeing a different part of television production I hadn’t been privy to. To see the insane amount of work done by the 250 people who work on the crew and were setting up shots and sets that haven’t been built yet — and then in two days, the magical elves have come in and there’s a room, and it’s wallpapered and decorated and beautiful and it’s astounding. To see the inner workings of that was impressive and exciting and enervating.”

Just like watching the episode will be for the rest of us: By the time it airs, we’ll have waited 532 days for it.

NY Mag

Jon and Elisabeth Moss attended the Golden Globes After Party last night. I added photos to the gallery.

Jon attended the “Mad Men” Coktail Reception at the TCA Winter Press Tour yesterday. I added photos to the gallery.

It’s now offical, “Mad Men” returns on March 25 with a two-hours premiere! Jon Hamm directed episode 2:

AMC says the Mad Men debut, written by creator Matthew Weiner and directed by Jennifer Getzinger, will kick off that Sunday at 9:00 p.m. The next week’s episode, returning to its regular 10:00 p.m. timeslot, marks the directorial debut of Hamm.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter