Matt Weiner says Mad Men would have had a lot more 'nakedness and violence' on HBO

Matt Weiner says Mad Men would have had a lot more &#039;nakedness and violence&#039; on HBO

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube)

last updated 8 January 2015

AMC's Mad Men is one of the most acclaimed shows in television — but what if series creator Matt Weiner had been able to tell a truly uncensored story? In a recent Ask Me Anything on Reddit, Weiner was asked how different Mad Men would be if it had aired on HBO — where he had originally pitched the series — instead of AMC, where he was required to conform to the standards of basic cable.

"HBO has an insatiable appetite for nakedness and violence so there would have been a lot more of that," wrote Weiner. "That may sound like a missed opportunity for some people but I have enjoyed the restrictions of basic cable. I think it has made the show strangely more sexy by implication and it was never going to be violent. The hero takes a nap in the first 15 minutes of the pilot."

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Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.

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