From another post on Fark regarding the love of 'Europeans' for recently-cancelled ABC show 'Pan Am.'

I can see where the Europeans in question are coming from: it was a time where Americans were enjoying innovation and the general attitude was optimism. But that optimism rode a wave of egoism that got us '70s apathy, '80s greed, '90s speculation, and the '00s fear and delusion. In the course of fifty to sixty years we went from a lucky nation that was taking advantage of an unique economic situation to a nation of pathetic retardation and delusion that can't get anywhere close to examining its own bias.

It's a good aesthetic, but the reality beyond that is a harsh reality that the optimism portrayed leaves no room for. And the kick back to that reality is soul-shattering.  And that says a lot about America in the '50s and '60s:  we were content to enjoy our good fortune but we also had to create separate layers of reality to cover over the harsh reality:  you can see it today in '50s sitcoms where everything is just a bit too perfect, a bit too unreal that is being pushed (by either the creators or the audience...money's on the latter) to either justify the good fortune of not being in a war, or to attempt to subjugate reality in the ultimate perversion of the American Dream itself to actually co-opt reality and form our own.