Arts & Entertainment
Advertising Age
AMC’s hit series
Mad Men, now in
its second season,
recalls the halcyon
days of smoking,
sex and Madison
Avenue
BY HEATHER JOHNSON
ILLUSTRATION BY SEAN MCCABE
For those of us born on the heels of
the baby boom, it’s hard not to feel a
little bit cheated. Adulthood, with its
glamorous trappings and forbidden destinations, held so much promise when
we were kids, but by the time we grew
up the world had turned into a family-friendly playground with little more
than mortgages and fatigue to set our
adult years apart. Whatever happened
to all the drinking and smoking and
illicit goings-on?
One place where summer and smoke
can still readily be found is on AMC’s terrific series Mad Men, which explores the
alluring world of the New York advertising industry during the pivotal early
1960s. With its second season premiering July 27, Mad Men is poised to become
an even bigger hit than it was during its
freshman season, which wowed the critics, put AMC on the map and picked up
Golden Globes for the series and for lead
actor Jon Hamm.
Created by The Sopranos writer Matthew Weiner, Mad Men deals with a part
of the ’60s usually neglected by film and
television in favor of the hippie, trippy
turmoil of that decade’s later years.
“Every time I would research something in this period, I would just come
back to that year of 1960 as a magic year
for New York City,” Weiner says.
Freedom Rocks
Magic may not be a strong enough word
to describe the year when both valium
and the pill were introduced in the
United States and when the historic
Kennedy-Nixon presidential election
