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Q: I read somewhere that "Mad Men" was the first original AMC series, but I know there was a show I used to watch several years ago called "Remember WENN," about an old-time radio station. Wasn't that, in fact, the network's first original series?

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Author: 
Adam Thomlison / TV Media

Right you are, and good on you for championing the cause of a surprisingly forgotten series that's being buried under the weight of the press that "Mad Men" has been receiving.

It's surprising that "Remember WENN" has been largely forgotten for a couple of reasons. For one, it ran for four seasons on the network -- a feat that a great number of better-known cable series have failed to achieve (Showtime's "Dead Like Me," and HBO's "Deadwood" being notable examples).

But it's also surprising because "Remember WENN" was, during its run from 1996 to 1998, raking in awards over the course of those four seasons.

It was nominated for five Emmys and took home two CableACE Awards back when they were still handing those out (when the Emmys started recognizing cable programming in the late '90s the CableACE awards became obsolete).

The period drama, about the goings-on at a radio station during that medium's 1930s-era heyday, set the precedent for the network's attention to detail that would serve "Mad Men" so well. It was nominated for a costume-design Emmy every year it was on the air, taking it home in 1997.

It was also nominated for best ensemble cast at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in 1997.

Not only is "Mad Men" not AMC's first original series, it's not even its second. That distinction goes to "The Lot," a short-lived dramedy series that satirized life at a late-'30s Hollywood studio. This one also took home a costume-design Emmy and was nominated for a few others.

It's possible that these two shows have been lost to history due to the massive rebranding the network has been undergoing. Though the AMC officially stands for American Movie Classics, the network has been increasingly ceding the classic-film territory to the Turner Classic Movies network, moving instead to more current fare and, led by massive hits "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad," its strongest push ever into original scripted TV.

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