Are You a True Mad Men Fan?

Mad Men: An American Period Drama Television Series

• Mad Men is an American period drama television series that aired on the cable network AMC from July 19, 2007, to May 17, 2015.

• The show is set from March 1960 to November 1970 and follows the lives of people in the advertising industry in New York City.

• The series's main character is the charismatic advertising executive Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm), who is initially the talented creative director at Sterling Cooper.

• Mad Men received widespread critical acclaim for its writing, acting, directing, visual style, and historical authenticity, winning many awards, including 16 Emmys and five Golden Globes.

• The show is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time and as part of the early 21st century Golden Age of Television.

• The show was created by Matthew Weiner and produced by Lionsgate Television.

• The pilot episode was shot at Silvercup Studios in New York City and various locations around the city; subsequent episodes were filmed at Los Angeles Center Studios.

• The show's opening title sequence pays homage to graphic designer Saul Bass's skyscraper-filled opening titles for Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest and falling man movie poster for Vertigo.

• The show's original score was composed by David Carbonara, and the opening credits feature the instrumental "A Beautiful Mine" by RJD2.

• The writers, including Weiner, amassed volumes of research on the period in which Mad Men takes place so as to make most aspects of the series—including detailed set design, costume design, and props—historically accurate.

• The show's budget for each episode was between US$2–2.5 million, and the pilot episode's budget was over $3 million.

• The show's main protagonist, Don Draper, is a hard-drinking, chain-smoking executive with a shadowy past who has achieved success in advertising. His real name is Richard "Dick" Whitman, and during the Korean War, he assumed the identity of his CO, Lieutenant Don Draper, who was killed in front of him.Main Characters of Mad Men

• Don Draper is the protagonist of Mad Men and is the creative director at Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency.

• Peggy Olson is a secretary turned copywriter and becomes a major character throughout the series.

• Pete Campbell is a young, ambitious account executive from an old New York family with connections and a privileged background.

• Betty Draper is Don Draper's wife and mother of their three children: Sally, Bobby, and Eugene Scott.

• Joan Holloway is the office manager and head of the secretarial pool at Sterling Cooper.

• Roger Sterling is one of the two senior partners of Sterling Cooper and a former mentor to Don Draper.

• Kenneth "Ken" Cosgrove is a young account executive originally from Vermont and an aspiring author.

• Harold "Harry" Crane is a bespectacled media buyer and head of Sterling Cooper's television department.

• Paul Kinsey is a creative copywriter and Princeton University alumnus, the bearded, pipe-smoking Paul prides himself on his politically liberal views.

• Salvatore "Sal" Romano is the Italian-American former art director at Sterling Cooper and a closeted homosexual.Main Characters of Mad Men

• Sal never appears again in the series after explaining to Kitty he will be working late that night.

• Bertram "Bert" Cooper is the somewhat eccentric senior partner at Sterling Cooper who is fascinated by Japanese culture and Ayn Rand's writings.

• Sally Draper is the eldest child of Don and Betty Draper with a strained relationship with her mother and a strong bond with her grandfather, Gene Hofstadt.

• Rachel Katz is the Jewish head of a department store who comes to Sterling Cooper in search of an advertising agency to revamp her business's image and has an affair with Don Draper.

• Lane Pryce is the English financial officer installed by Sterling Cooper's new British parent company who later becomes a founding partner in the new agency that Don Draper, Bert Cooper, and Roger Sterling want to form and hangs himself in his office.

• Megan Draper is Don's wife and a junior copywriter at SCDP who leaves the firm to pursue her dream of acting and later divorces Don during Season 7.

• Stan Rizzo is the art director at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce who develops a strong working relationship with Peggy Olson and later tells her of his love for her at the conclusion of the series.

• Henry Francis is a political adviser with close connections to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and the Republican Party who becomes infatuated with Betty Draper and later marries her.

• Ted Chaough is a self-proclaimed rival of Don Draper in the advertising world who merges his smaller firm with SCDP during Season 6.

• Michael Ginsberg is a part-time copywriter hired by Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce who becomes an essential part of the creative team and surpasses Peggy Olson as the firm's most productive writer.Summary of Mad Men TV Series

• Mad Men depicts American society in the 1960s, including smoking, drinking, sexism, feminism, adultery, homophobia, antisemitism, and racism.

• Identity and memory are explored candidly through Don Draper's identity fraud during the Korean War.

• Gender and sexuality are themes that are explored in the show, with male characters often getting away with drinking and adultery while female characters are punished.

• Alcoholism is a major theme in the show, with characters often engaging in heavy drinking and bad behavior.

• The show is praised for its treatment of race and Madison Avenue as historically accurate, although some critics contend that it distorts history by not showing black admen.

• Cigarette smoking is featured throughout the series, despite talk of smoking being harmful to health and physical appearance.

• Mad Men received widespread critical acclaim throughout its run, and is generally included on critics' lists of the greatest television shows of all time.

• The show's visual style is praised, but some critics found the pacing of the storylines to be lethargic.

• The premiere of the show had a high viewership, with the numbers for the second season premiere more than doubling the first season premiere.

• The cumulative audience for the second season finale was 2.9 million viewers.