Plot Synopsis

THE MEGA-BRANDS THAT BUILT AMERICA, the latest installment of the THAT BUILT franchise, is a one-hour documentary series that delves into the surprising origin stories behind some of the world's biggest brands and highlights the trailblazing founders whose brilliance, tenacity, and fearlessness cemented cutting-edge products in the hearts and minds of consumers. The series takes on the greatest leaders in American consumer history from the top-name brands in retail, sports, healthcare, electronics, and more. It explores industry-leading innovators including Sam Walton, Sol Price, A.G. Spalding, Harley Procter, James Gamble, Jacob Schick, and King C. Gillette. These pioneers invented, built, expanded, and led successful businesses in markets they helped create while being pitted against their biggest rivals. Weaving together expert interviews, archival footage, and original recreations, the series recounts the groundbreaking innovations that revolutionized the most colossal and profitable consumer empires and their profound influence on our nation.

The series opener, "Battle of the Superstores," begins with the astounding $30 trillion-a-year industry dominated by two retail masterminds. Sol Price, a former attorney, forever transforms the retail landscape with FedMart, the first-ever for-profit discount retail store exclusively catering to federal employees. Price introduces the superstore concept by adding a gas station, pharmacy, and food to reshape the consumer shopping experience. Then, Sam Walton goes from a small business owner to one of the top businessmen of the 20th century. Walton builds the world's largest retail empire and puts himself into direct rivalry with Price. What happens next is a race to innovate the market, as friends become foes and rivals join forces, in a battle to revolutionize American shopping and be the last empire standing.

Additional episodes include:

"The World Delivered" (Sunday, July 30, 2023): 100 years ago, shipping packages was slow, and shipping overnight was impossible, until two Seattle brothers risk everything to reinvent shipping packages for all. And a tenacious Yale graduate creates a world-famous express delivery service that transforms shipping into the essential global industry we rely on today.

"A Whole New Ballgame" (Sunday, August 6, 2023): The evolution of America's most beloved sports of Baseball, Basketball and Football are made possible by the innovations of sporting goods pioneers named Spalding, Wilson, and the Rawlings brothers

"Dirty Work" (Sunday, August 13, 2023): In the late 1800s Americans rarely bathed, lived in filthy conditions and deadly diseases were commonplace. But James Gamble and Harley Procter invent a revolutionary new soap that revolutionizes America and opens up a market to entrepreneurs including King Gillette and Jacob Schick whose bitter rivalry will birth the shaving industry as we know it, spawning a new billion-dollar industry and changing Americans daily lives forever.