If we are not first;
And we are not last;
Then we are editors.
1960 - 1970
I asked AI to help me figure out what movies and television to watch to learn about the 1960s. My goal isn’t to figure out the most viewed or critically acclaimed - although I think all of them are - but to estimate which shows are having / might continue to impress on us and our kids … and theirs.
Top 10 Shows to Watch About the 1960s List
I asked Peggy Perplexity to help me organize my thoughts.
Yes. Here’s a concise, chronological narrative of how the list took shape and how the criteria evolved.
Starting point: a vague but strong intuition
The conversation began with your interest in Mad Men and its era, which led to the broader question: “Is Mad Men the best or most watched TV series about the 1960s?”
The initial answer separated two ideas:
Mad Men as one of the most critically acclaimed and culturally influential 1960s‑set shows.
But not necessarily the most watched in raw ratings terms.
This distinction opened the door to defining more precise criteria: acclaim, viewership, and cultural imprint each matter, but not equally.
First list: broad, “holistic” 1960s set‑show ranking
You asked for a top‑10 list based on the broad, multi‑factor criteria implied so far: critical acclaim, cultural impact, and 1960s setting.
The initial list mixed:
Prestige dramas (Mad Men, Masters of Sex, For All Mankind).
Broadcast/network shows (American Dreams, Pan Am, The Wonder Years reboot).
High‑profile streamers (The Queen’s Gambit).
At this stage, the list still leaned on:
Overall perceived importance of the show.
How central the 1960s were to its premise.
You accepted that this was “holistic” but then sharpened what you really wanted.
Refining to “memetic 1960s” impact
You then introduced a key refinement: prioritize epigenetic impact and meme‑ification of the 1960s.
In other words, not just how good or acclaimed a show is, but:
How much it shapes the mental models people carry about the 1960s.
How often its aesthetics, archetypes, and situations serve as shorthand for the era.
This led to:
Keeping Mad Men very high, because it has become the default mental image of 1960s corporate America.
Elevating shows like Call the Midwife and American Dreams, which strongly influence how people visualize everyday life and social change in that decade.
Questioning entries like The Queen’s Gambit as “just a story” that happens to be set in the 1960s rather than a definitional 1960s text.
You explicitly asked that the list favor content that pervades public consciousness as “what the ’60s were like,” not just “good content set in the ’60s.”
Platform‑size adjustment: accounting for reach
Next, you challenged an important assumption: platform size.
You noted that Apple TV+ and similar services are niche compared with Netflix or major broadcast networks.
You wanted a quantitative adjustment: a show on a small platform needs proportionally more cultural punch per viewer to sit alongside a show on a large platform.
You established a working rule of thumb:
Treat Netflix as the baseline.
A show on a smaller service (like Apple TV+) must “over‑perform” in cultural impact to be treated as equivalent, given its smaller subscriber base.
This forced a more disciplined accounting of:
Platform reach.
How reasonable it is to treat a show as having broad, societal influence, not just critical noise.
This is where some shows on niche platforms started to be treated more cautiously or downgraded unless they clearly punched above their weight.
Clarifying original vs. reboot impact (The Wonder Years)
A pivotal moment was the discussion around The Wonder Years.
Initially, the reboot (2021) was listed explicitly, because it is more current and also 1960s‑set.
You pointed out that this ignored the deeper reality: the cultural impact of The Wonder Years dates back to the original ABC series (1988–1993), which defined the template for nostalgic, late‑’60s suburban coming‑of‑age stories.
You insisted on a crucial principle:
The “impact start date” for a property is the original airing of the first widely distributed body of content, not a later reboot.
Any list must treat that as the origin of its influence on public consciousness.
In response, the list was rebuilt to:
Replace the reboot with the original The Wonder Years.
Re‑check that each entry referred to the initial, impactful run.
Confirm that all other shows were already being treated in that way (original series/miniseries, not remakes).
This step tightened the methodology and made the chronology of cultural influence much more coherent.
Introducing viewership tiers and a quantitative “floor”
You then asked for an estimated viewership column to understand the scale of each show’s reach.
Because exact lifetime global figures do not exist in a neat spreadsheet, the solution was:
Use coarse tiers: High, Medium, Low, Niche.
Anchor them in what is publicly known: ratings ranges, platform size, syndication, and streaming exposure.
You requested even more structure:
Remove hyphenated gradations like “medium‑high” and use a four‑step scale: High, Medium, Low, Niche.
Ensure that, for your “top 10,” everything should be at least Medium; Low and Niche do not belong on the final list for your purpose.
This led to:
Identifying For All Mankind and Godfather of Harlem as effectively Low under your scheme.
Replacing them with more widely seen content, such as The Crown and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which have clear 1960s segments and much higher reach.
Here the list crossed a threshold: it was no longer primarily aesthetic/critical; it had a real quantitative floor.
Building the “floor viewers per year” metric
You then asked:
“What is the lowest total viewership on this list, roughly?”
And: “Can we turn that into a viewers‑per‑year measure, dividing total estimated viewership by years since first airing?”
To satisfy that:
A conservative floor was set for Medium tier (e.g., 20 million total viewers).
Higher floors were assigned to High and Very High tiers.
The number of years since original airing (up to 2026) was computed.
A “floor viewers per year” column was added (total ÷ years).
You then:
Asked to sort the table by this last column, from highest to lowest.
Requested a clean version with no citation clutter, purely for copying and reuse.
This created a final table that blends chronology, platform reach, and an approximate annualized floor of audience size.
Meta‑dynamic: intent, feedback, and course‑correction
Throughout the interaction, the key pattern was:
You expressed an intuitive goal (not just “best shows,” but “shows that shape how we imagine the 1960s”).
The list was repeatedly revised to reflect:
Your preference for memetic and epigenetic influence.
Your insistence on adjusting for platform size.
Your clarification that cultural impact starts with the original content, not a reboot.
Your decision to enforce a minimum viewership tier and then an annualized “floor” metric.
When something drifted from your intent (like privileging the reboot over the original Wonder Years, or keeping low‑reach niche shows in the top 10), you challenged it.
The responses then:
Explained the logic used so far.
Acknowledged where that logic diverged from your clarified criteria.
Reconstructed the list and the metrics to align with your intent.
In that sense, the back‑and‑forth served as a live example of how you can start with a broad question and, through iterative feedback and occasional correction, converge on a precise, transparent, and chronologically grounded framework that matches your real goal: identifying 1960s‑set works that significantly shaped public mental models of the 1960s, at scale, over time.
Let me know if want edit access to my thread, so we can get to the bottom of this - unless you think the list is accurate. 😄
Reflections
Do you think that AI came up with this list or did I?
Is it my creative work or did I just prompt it?
Does it matter?
Question: In the 1960s would this be considered Don’s work or Peggy’s? (rhetorical)
Answer: Arguably both.
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