Discover the most popular TV show the year you were born

2009: Mad Men

Mad Men is definitely a series that everyone knows. The AMC show was about the goings on of a fictional advertising agency in New York City back in the 1960s. It focused on the business of the agencies, as well as the personal lives of the people who worked in the office and their families, like Don Draper. Being set in the 1960s, you can expect lots of booze, smoking, and adultery.

Over the course of its seven seasons, Mad Men was critically lauded for everything from its writing to the acting, and even the visual style and direction of the episodes. Due to its favorable reception, the show won its fair share of awards. Those awards include 16 Emmy Awards and five Golden Globes, becoming the first basic cable series to win the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series — which it won for each of the first four seasons. Not too shabby.

The show’s third season is widely considered one of the best of the series. After airing in 2009, the season was once again praised by the critics, and took home the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, a Golden Globe Award for Best Drama Series, and was acknowledged by the American Film Institute… for the third year in a row.