Press Tour: Critics honor "Mad Men"

Critical darling "Mad Men" (right) took home three awards from the Television Critics Association on Saturday night - the first time the critics have honored a program on AMC. "Mad Men" won for Program of the Year, Outstanding New Program and Outstanding Achievement in Drama by the TCA.

NBC's "30 Rock" won for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy, and the show's Tina Fey won for Individual Achievement in Comedy. Lorne Michaels, who has nurtured the careers of Fey and many more on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," won for Career Achievement.

HBO also won three awards. Its "John Adams" was named Oustanding Movie or Miniseries, and its star, Paul Giamatti, won for Individual Achievement in Drama. HBO's "The Wire," once again snubbed in the Emmy nominations, was giving a TCA Heritage Award for a show with a lasting cultural or social impact.

PBS took home two awards, for Outstanding Achievement in News & Information ("The
War: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick") and Outstanding Achievement in
Children's Programming ("WordGirl").

The TCA Awards are voted by more than 200 print and online television critics in the group, and presented during the summer press tour. The event tonight was hosted by the Smothers Brothers and, ironically enough, is not televised.

The ceremony was a hoot, one of the best ever. The Smothers Brothers were hilarious, even doing one of their little ditties about the sad fate of newspaper critics; Tom Hanks and Paul Giamatti showed up to accept for "John Adams," as did Tina Fey for "30 Rock"; and former newspaperman David Simon, creator of the superserious "The Wire," was funnier than all of them.

Still, the best moments were the sincere ones when people like the brilliant Matthew Weiner thanked us for supporting challenging shows like his "Mad Men."

Weiner's speech was actually kind of touching: "To try to be funny with the Smothers Brothers, Tina Fey and Tom Hanks up here, it's just ridiculous, so I'm not going to try. I just want to (give) the sincere, like, sappy verison of the speech, because it's more in my wheelhouse. The last year has been a dream. Not just a dream that's a realization of a wish, but a dream filled with experiences and sensations that in everyday life are impossible. .. Your contribution to the success of 'Mad Men' is unquantifiable. Your words, your genuine appreciation, that you saw it and liked it and analyzed it and took it seriously ... I have to thank you and we all do. I realize I'm violating the wisdom of a writer I admire, James L. Brooks, from his film 'Broadcast News,' when William Hurt the handsome anchorman asks Albert Brooks, 'What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?' and Albert Brooks says, 'Keep it to yourself.' Thank you."