Not Great, Bob

Submission 29,796

Part of a series on Mad Men. [View Related Entries]

About

"Not Great, Bob" is a memorable quote uttered by the character Pete Campbell on the American dramatic television series Mad Men. Online, people use the phrase and video and images of Campbell saying the line to express anger and frustration.

Origin

On June 23rd, 2013, the Mad Men episode "In Care Of" aired in the United States (clip below).^[1] In the episode, the character Bob Benson asks Pete Campbell (portrayed by James Wolk and Vincent Kartheiser, respectively), "How are you?" Campbell, who just learned that his mother disappeared from a cruise that Benson recommended, responds, "Not great, Bob!"

Spread

On June 25th, comedy writer Jake Fogelnest posted a Keep Calm and Carry On parody on Tumblr ^[2] that featured the phrase. The post received more than 220 notes in six years (shown below, left).

People also began quoting the line on Twitter. ^[4] For example, on June 25th, Twitter^[5] user @erinmallorylong tweeted, "NOT GREAT, BOB = my new reaction to everything" (shown below). Throughout the year, others follow suit (examples below, right)

Days later, on June 28th, YouTuber ^[3] Mitch Lake posted the clip on the site. The post received more than 409,000 views in six years.

Later that year, HuffPost^[6] included the line on a list of the "Best TV Lines Of 2013."

On April 14th, 2014, the Tumblr^[7] blog knitsquid uploaded a GIF. The post was later added to GIPHY. ^[10]

On May 23rd, 2015, Tumblr^[11] blog madmenwiththingsdrawnonthem posted a mock movie trailer for a film entitled "Not Great, Bob." The post received more than 2,700 notes in four years (shown below).

Two years later, on the May 20th, 2016 episode of Jeopardy! ^[8] "Not Great, Bob" was a category.

On June 26th, 2019, Vulture^[9] published a report on the phrase, detailing its writing and performance. In the article, one of the writers described the writing of the episode. They said:

[Creator Matt Weiner] said that line as a response [for Pete to say to Bob] and wasn’t pitching it as a joke, but because I was punchy and it was the middle of the night, I laughed. It had this thing of, Is no one else going to find this funny? If it’s not 2 o’clock in the morning and you’re not exhausted, is it not going to be funny?