dobie gillis

Recently, when I interviewed Matt Weiner, the creator of AMC's Mad Men, we talked about the movies, books and television shows that influenced the inception of the show. The 1960 Oscar-winning best picture The Apartment was one, so were the sitcoms Dobie Gillis and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Of all the television shows he mentioned, though, there was one that was the most influential. "You can't have the '60s without The Twilight Zone. It is a mind opening experience for a generation," said Matt. "It was not just science fiction, it dealt with social issues. It's filled with the texture of real life. Just the idea of having a show every week where you don't know who is going to be in it and what it's going to be about, to have this acceptance of the fact that we don't know everything about the world. That in itself was something."

Going through The Twilight Zone episode guide, there are quite a few shows in which you can see where Mad Men could find inspiration. Here's four that reminded me of Don and Betty and Pete and Sterling Cooper:

I couldn't quite place the name, but Byron played Patty Duke's mom on the mid-60s sitcom The Patty Duke Show ("They're couuuuuusins...identical cousins!"). She was also a semi-regular on The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis before that, and was once married to Michael Ansara, who was also once married to Barbara Eden.

Byron died on February 3 in Mobile, AL, after getting an infection from hip replacement surgery.