Icons That Built The World

A struggling New York actor, brushed aside because of his looks and speech impediment, bets on himself to write, and star in a movie. By challenging the ideas of what it means to be a leading man at the time, he gives himself a fighting chance.

In the 1970s, two maverick broadcasters take a different approach, challenging their bosses, the rules and polite society to help create a new genre: talk radio.

A young aspiring writer/director takes his cues from fringe genre films to create a new market for independent films.

Daytime talk shows in the 1980s is aimed at a stay-at-home female audience and has conversational topics and polite discussion; a young politician-turned-TV host rewrites the rules when an unexpected fight breaks out between his guests.

Fitting into the clean-cut roles that comedians occupied in the 1950s, two up-and-coming stand-ups make names for themselves; as society shifts and counter-culture movements take hold, both men realise they need to adapt their comedy.