http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/05/18/mad_men_finale_and_coke_an_interview_with_the_real_life_ad_man_who_created.html

Bill Backer, the McCann ad man behind the iconic Coca-Cola ad (http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/05/18/mad_men_finale_ending_don_wrote_that_coca_cola_ad_not_peggy_and_here_s_how.html), missed the series finale as he stopped watching after Season 2 (http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/18/media/mad-men-coca-cola-ad/index.html) because he says Mad Men (http://www.tvinsider.com/article/1841/real-life-coca-cola-ad-creator-has-no-problem-with-mad-mens-don-draper-co-opting-his-vision/) had evolved into "more of a soap opera" than a show about advertising. So what did he think of Don Draper (http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-original-resonant-existentially-brilliant-mad-men-finale) co-opting his achievement? "I think it's fine. No problem with that," he says, adding: "I'm certainly not Don Draper. In my day, Don Draper really would've been more of a contact man than a creative guy….I definitely did not look like Don Draper or dress like Don Draper."

I agree with him. The show was great in the early years, then it just seemed to become about a bunch of whiners who slept around, were always drunk and chain smoked. The last 2 seasons were rather uneventful. The beginning of the end was when Don and Betty split. It went downhill after that.

http://t.co/GOPHZMfFRj

Mad Men's Season 5 premiere celebrated Don Draper's 40th birthday in June 1966 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/mad-men-returns-in-living-color/2012/03/18/gIQAO2rmTS_story.html), while having Don point out that Dick Whitman had already been 40 for "half a year." It turns out that former McCann Erickson creative director Bill Backer, the man responsible for Coca-Cola's iconic ad, also celebrated his 40th birthday in June 1966. A New York Times profile of Backer notes that he will turn 89 in June — and so will Don Draper, if he's still alive.