It wouldn't surprise me if most of the actors on 'Mad Men' ended up in commercials at some point. It's a show about advertising, so you sort of associate them with ads and commercials.

At least two 'Mad Men' actors, Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss, are featured in commercials circulating right now. Hamm is the new voice for Mercedes-Benz, taking the baton from Richard Thomas (John-Boy on 'The Waltons'), who served as the car company's voice-over talent for the past four years.

In a Media Decoder story, Stephen Cannon, vice-president for marketing at Mercedes-Benz USA in Montvale, N.J., calls the new campaign "a nice re-fresh of our voice," adding that Hamm has "a terrific, very resonant voice with a lot of gravitas to it." He also notes that Hamm will help Mercedes-Benz "reach out to a younger, more vibrant audience."

With the season coming to a close, the networks are starting to look toward next season. In the case of 'Criminal Minds,' that includes exploring the possibility of a spin-off series. They ran an embedded pilot for it earlier this season, introducing the new cast, and they've already had tremendous success with both 'NCIS' and 'CSI' spin-offs. But whatever happened to the old-school way of creating spin-offs?

'Frasier' was a long-time cast member on 'Cheers' before he headed off to Seattle and sitcom super-stardom. 'The Jeffersons' spent time living next to the Bunkers ('All in the Family') before moving on up. Even as recently as 'Friends,' they spun series co-star 'Joey' off into his own series -- maybe that's when it all went so wrong.

Have you ever had one of those moments, in which you find out that someone you know had said or done something without telling you first? If so, welcome to AMC's world.

As we reported yesterday, Weiner told an audience at last weekend's NAB convention that 'Mad Men' would wrap its run up after season 6. AMC's response? Uh, not exactly.

Apparently, Weiner never told the network of his intentions, so, in an attempt to ease the surprise and anger of fans, AMC issued a response saying that no date had been set for the show to end. The statement went on to say that it trusts Weiner's vision for the show and its future direction.

Needless to say, this may drag on for a bit. In the meantime, fans can at least take comfort in some more positive news from the 'Mad Men' front: According to the Hollywood Reporter, the show's highly anticipated fourth season will officially kick off on Sun., Jul. 25 at 10PM ET.

'Treme' premiered this week, but I was traveling and couldn't watch it. My plan had been to use HBO Go, but apparently "high speed internet" in Nacogdoches, TX really is just a system of tubes in the ground. The only site I could reliably connect to was a wholesale belt-buckle emporium.

Not seeing the show isn't a worry; 2010 might not have flying cars, but damned if we don't have a plethora of options for watching a show we missed. I'll eventually find it online, on demand, or on one of the approximately 419 identical HBOs that all have different names for some reason.

The only real worry I have is that if I wait too long to watch 'Treme', it'll be 'Friday Night Lights', 'The Wire' or 'Arrested Development' all over again. I'm scared that the word-of-mouthers will find out I'm not watching and they'll start annoying the living hell out of me.

Since summer is the time for beaches, parades, cookouts, and fireworks, and I hate beaches, parades, cookouts, and fireworks, it's TV time! That's especially true since there are more original shows on summer now than there used to be. Here are the five shows I'm looking forward to the most. And none of them are reality shows.

1. 'Mad Men.' To use a popular phrase, duh. Of course this is number one on my list. It's still weird to me that the best drama on television is a summer show. I don't know why this is still surprising, since we're not living in 1980 anymore and summer in a real TV season now and not just a place for repeats, reality shows, and shows that need to be burned off.

Maybe it's best that this show airs in the summer. It has a little more breathing room than it would have if it debuted in October.

What do you look for in a DVD set? Are you the type of person who expects to see a lot of extras (commentaries, behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, bloopers, deleted scenes, documentaries, etc) because DVDs allow us to have all of those things and it would be a ripoff for the consumer if we didn't get them? Or are you the type of person who is just happy to have the actual episodes to watch over and over again whenever you want and you don't really care about the extras?

You're in the middle? What a politician.

I lean towards the former for newer shows and towards the latter for older shows. Though I would love to have commentaries and features for older shows, I realize that's not always possible. I ask this because the DVD set for the third season of AMC's 'Mad Men' has cast and crew commentaries for every single episode. Let's take a look at that feature and everything else in the set.

Yesterday, Brad told you about how the 'Mad Men' powers that be are figuring out how to improve their chances at the Emmys. It was strange to think that a show as successful as 'Mad Men' was angling for a way to get more awards, but there is a reasoning behind the strategy. You see, even though 'Mad Men' has consistently been honored for the show and the writing and direction, the actors -- Jon Hamm, January Jones, Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, Christina Hendricks, etc. -- have been shut out. That's irksome. Not one Emmy for acting. Plenty of nominations, but no wins.

The producers behind 'Mad Men' are trying to maximize their potential Emmy nominations and wins. They have decided to reposition last year's nominee Elisabeth Moss from best lead actress to best supporting actress.

The move kind of makes sense, particularly given the strong performance January Jones gave at the end of last season. The emotional drama between the soon-to-be-divorced couple of Don and Betty Draper is likely to take more of the show's spotlight rather than the affairs of Peggy Olson (and I mean "affairs" literally).

Admittedly, it's kind of sad that the producers have to do this sort of political maneuvering in order to improve their chances of winning an Emmy, particularly since Peggy Olson is such a cute character. While the show centers around Don Draper, 'Mad Men' has more of the feel of an ensemble show and it has some excellent acting talent. Perhaps the Emmys should create a new category for "Best Cast." 'Mad Men' would be sure to win that one.

The men from 'Mad Men' are very busy these days. You have Jon Hamm all over the place, with beard and without, not to mention he and John Slattery being immortalized by Mattel as action figures. Action figures sound more manly than dolls, but you get the picture. The other night Rich Sommer was on 'Ugly Betty' as loutish firefighter.

And now the news that Bryan Batt will be on 'Ugly Betty,' too. TVGuide.com confirms that Bryan -- who was so good on 'Mad Men' as Salvatore Romano -- will be playing a soap opera star who Amanda decides would be Mr. Right for Marc. She plays Yenta, the Matchmaker, and hopefully, the two guys will hit it off. Batt's set for the April 7 episode, and may be in the series finale as well.

If you can't wait for season four of 'Mad Men' when it debuts later this year, Mattel can help you play 'Mad Men' and create your own stories. According to the New York Times, the toy company is creating versions of Barbie and Ken based on four 'Mad Men' characters - Don Draper, his wife Betty, Roger Sterling and Joan Harris.

If you want to play out Draper's past, you can get a full-sized G.I. Joes and swap clothes. Or you can get a bunch of regular Barbies and have an office party and make them dance to the 'Mad Men' soundtrack.

Don't you just love it when life sort of imitates art?

Jon Hamm, who plays the chain smoking Don Draper on TV's 'Mad Men,' has been hired by Mercedes Benz as a pitchman for their car commercials, which will premiere during the Academy Awards.

This means, of course, that Mr. Hamm will replace actor Richard Thomas who has done the voiceover for Mercedes' car commercials for the last four years. Good night Jon-Boy.

The company's marketing VP Stephen Cannon called Hamm "a hot actor." That must have been one awkward audition.

On Saturday night, the Writers Guild of America revealed the big winners for 2010, honoring the best in TV, movies and other media, but for our purposes, let's just stick with television. And as such, we can say the they rounded up the usual suspects.

'Mad Men' was tops in Drama Series and '30 Rock' was tops in Comedy Series. There was something new honored, Best New Series was 'Modern Family,' but seeing how the category makes new a requirement, it's not that shocking that it won.

However, in the episodic categories, for individual shows, there were was variance. The pilot of 'Modern Family' won in a tie with '30 Rock' for the episode 'Apollo, Apollo.' And the two part episode of 'House' -- 'Broken, Part 1 and Part 2' -- overcame all the 'Mad Men' nominees to take the WGA prize.

Usually during a press tour all-star party, there's one or two unexpectedly popular stars who just seem to attract throngs and throngs of reporters for the entire night. A couple of years ago, it was George Takei right after he started on 'Heroes.' This year, the NBC star attracting the attention at their all-star party in Pasadena last month was Alison Brie.

Why? Well, besides being cute and chatty, having significant supporting roles in two critically-acclaimed shows probably helped. Brie not only plays the uptight and naïve Annie on the comedy 'Community,' but she also plays Trudy, the hard-driving wife of Pete Campbell (played by Vincent Kartheiser) on 'Mad Men.'

I managed to wait out the crowds and get a few solo minutes with Brie. We talked about how she shifts between the high comedy of 'Community' and the intense drama of 'Men,' and if her presence in 'Men's' finale means she'll be back for season four.

When shows go off the air in between seasons, the actors use this long break to do some profound beard growing. The actresses might do the same thing, but I've never seen a picture of them in the papers to prove it.

The entire male cast of 'Mad Men' did the same thing and cast member MIchael Gladis gave his review of all of his co-workers' "break beards".

[via Pop Candy]

So there's a major character leaving AMC's Mad Men, and this is probably one of those casting decisions that's going to make dedicated Mad Men fans very upset. They might even Twitter or text "OMG!" to their friends.

But I'll put the announcement after the jump for those of you who don't want to know. The person leaving Mad Men is...