'Mad Men': The Uncensored, Epic, Never-Told Story Behind AMC's Critical Darling -

 

"Don Draper lived on hard drives for half a decade before anybody paid him any notice. In 1999, Matthew Weiner, then an unfulfilled writer on CBS' Ted Danson sitcom Becker, spent his every off-hour doing research on the 1960s: what people wore, how they decorated their offices, what they ate and drank (and smoked, and drank some more). Then, over six days in the spring of 2001, he sketched out his vision for a show about the staff of a boutique advertising agency — Sterling Cooper — and its stylishly debauched head pitchman. Nobody bought the script, but it landed Weiner a 45-minute call from David Chase, who hired him as a writer on HBO's The Sopranos."

"Every possible reason on paper why this should not work was cited: It's super slow, it's [about] advertising, everybody smokes, everybody's unlikable and it's period. We couldn't sell it."

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'Mad Men': The Uncensored, Epic, Never-Told Story Behind AMC's Critical Darling - Hollywood Reporter