How It's Made

External video
External video
	How It's Made – Topic's channel on YouTube
	How It’s Made's channel on YouTube
	How Its Made's channel on YouTube
	How It's Made HD: Food and Drink Collections playlist on YouTube

How It's Made
How It's Made
Created by	Gabriel Hoss
Presented by	Canada Mark Tewksbury (Season 1); Lynn Herzeg (Season 2–4); June Wallack (Season 5); Lynne Adams (Season 6–present); ; United States Brooks Moore; Zac Fine (Season 9–10 only); ; United Kingdom Tony Hirst; ;
Country of origin	Canada
Original language	English
No. of seasons	32
No. of episodes	416 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time	5 minutes per segment, 30 minutes (including commercials) per episode
Production companies	Productions MAJ, Inc.
Release
Original network	Z (Quebec); Discovery Channel Canada; Science Channel;
Picture format	480p (Season 1–7); 1080p (Season 8–present);
Original release	January 6, 2001 –; present
External links
	Website

How It's Made (Comment c'est fait in Quebec) is a Canadian documentary television series that premiered on January 6, 2001, on the Discovery Channel in Canada and the Science Channel in the United States. The program is produced in the Canadian province of Quebec by Productions MAJ, Inc. and Productions MAJ 2.

Format[]

The show is a documentary showing how common, everyday items (such as clothing and accessories, food, industrial products, musical instruments, and sporting goods) are manufactured. It also features the restoration processes of old items in some episodes.

How It's Made does not include explanatory texts to simplify dubbing in different languages. The show also avoids having an onscreen host (after Season 1 in the Canadian version) and an interview with employees explaining the process. Instead, an off-screen narrator explains the process, often with humorous puns.

Each episode features three or four products divided by segments, with each product getting a demonstration of approximately five minutes; exceptions are allowed in the allotted time for more complex ones. The scripts are almost identical across regional versions of the show; however, the main difference in the U.S. version is that the units of measurement are given in the United States customary units instead of metric units. At one point in the U.S. run, a subtitled conversion was shown on-screen over the original narration.

The "Historical Capsule" segment, which is available until Season 5, introduces historical background information for the last featured product in each episode, showing how and where the product originated, and what people used before it. It presents a series of single-line drawings which got colored for a brief amount of time after completed.

The "Techno flash" segment briefly introduces some novelty from industry or science development. It is only available in Season 1 and 2.

In April 2007, all episodes run in the United States (on the Discovery Channel and Science) had the individual season openings replaced with a new opening used for every episode. Similar to most other Discovery Channel shows, the credits now run during the last segment, with the show's website for request or feedback at the end.

Season 9, first aired in September 2007, features new opening graphic and segment's background music, both of which are different from the Canadian version. Zac Fine replaces Brooks T. Moore as the narrator. However, from Season 11, which premiered in September 2008, the show reinstates Moore as the narrator and uses the title sequence and background music to match with the Canadian version.

In June 2008, the Science Channel added How It's Made: Remix, which consists of previous segments arranged into theme installments like "Food", "Sporting Goods", and such. In 2013, it added How It's Made: Dream Cars, which focused exclusively on high-performance and exotic cars.^[1] These were later shown on the Velocity (now MotorTrend) channel.

Hosts[]

The show has different narrators for different regions.

In the Canadian version, it features Mark Tewksbury (Season 1, 2001) as the host of the show. Lynn Herzeg (Seasons 2–4, 2002–2005), June Wallack (Season 5, 2005) and Lynne Adams (Season 6 onwards, 2006–present) are the narrators.

In the U.S. version, Brooks Moore and Zac Fine (Season 9–10, 2007–2008) are the narrators.

In the United Kingdom, the rest of Europe, and in some cases in Southeast Asia, the series is narrated by Tony Hirst.

Episodes[]

Theme and music[]

The original graphical theme featured flat, colorful shapes, along with a number of different objects flicking in a big hexagon. In the opening sequence, during a "drop" in the musical theme, the flashing image hexagon is interlaced with letters spelling "HOW I MAD", which was seemingly a joke, paraphrasing the show name "HOW IT'S MADE".

This graphical theme was changed in Season 8. It was replaced with a 3D render environment of a factory that features high-pressure tanks with valves and pressure meters, welding heads, and piston presses. This CGI factory is enclosed with futuristic-looking black square panels, with blue light coming through the spaces between the panels. During the opening sequence, the camera proceeds a forklift loaded with coils of metallic wire. The wire unwinds itself into a machine, which folds it into a spring. The spring then falls between jaws of a pair of pliers, which open a valve of a highly pressurized tank. With a breeze of white steam from the valve, the camera follows a tube leading up to a welding pistol, which fires up and welds a press head onto a piston arm. Finally, we see a big hall with belts carrying metal plates, and the piston presses ramming them. The piston closest to the camera, which we just saw getting welded, fires up and embosses the inscription "How It's Made" onto a metal plate underneath. Since Season 29, the quality of this opening theme is improved.

Season 1–8 in the U.S. version have different opening graphics from the Canadian one. It features lighter-load machinery in a blueprint environment. Machinery sounds are heard during the opening, together with the blueprint inscriptions "TRIM", which gets trimmed by a cog, "COMPRESS" getting compressed by a press, "LIFT" getting lifted by a corkscrew, and "HEAT APPLIED", that gets burned by multiple plasma-cutter heads. Season 9 and 10 have new opening graphics, which features some products from the previous seasons, such as snack cake and artificial limb. Since Season 11, it features the same opening graphical theme as that of Season 8 and onward in the Canadian version.

The theme music was created by Dazmo Musique, a Montreal-based studio. It was composed by one of the studio's composers, Rudy Toussaint. Toussaint's SoundCloud profile states that this theme is the most famous piece he ever created.^[2] In Season 1, the opening theme music is different, but since Season 2, it closely matches the closing theme. Toussaint also produced several short tracks for different purposes of the show, for example, to separate different segments.

Critical reception[]

Common Sense Media gave the TV show a rating of 4/5 stars, writing "Curious kids and adults will learn from the show, and some segments can really broaden your perspective".^[3] On the show's success despite its formulaic nature, Rita Mullin, the general manager of the Science Channel, said "I think what is one of the great appeals of the show as a viewer myself is how little has changed over the years".^[4] The Wall Street Journal deemed it "TV's quietest hit".^[5]

Accolades[]

Year	Award	Category	Recipient(s)	Result	Ref.
2014	Young Artist Award	Social Relations of Knowledge Institute Award	How It's Made	Awarded	^[6]

Parodies[]

The show's style is spoofed in a Rick and Morty episode, "Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate", showing how a "Plumbus" is being made.^[7]

Notes[]

^ 1080p for Season 8 is exclusive to iTunes Canada.

References[]

^ "How It's Made: Dream Cars". Science. Archived from the original on July 14, 2017.
^ "rudy-toussaint". SoundCloud. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
^ "How It's Made: TV Review". Common Sense Media. October 2, 2009.
^ Eveleth, Rose (November 13, 2014). "How How It's Made Is Made". The Atlantic.
^ Jurgensen, John (December 18, 2014). "How It's Made: TV's Quietest Hit". The Wall Street Journal.
^ "35th Annual Young Artist Awards". Young Artist Awards. Archived from the original on April 16, 2014. Retrieved April 14, 2014.
^ Blevins, Joe (June 6, 2016). "Rick And Morty shows how a plumbus is made, in almost too-graphic detail". The A.V. Club. Retrieved December 28, 2021.

External links[]

"How It's Made – Watch Full Episode Online". Science Channel.
"How It's Made". Discovery Science.
"How It's Made | Facebook". Facebook.

[a-1] 1080p for Season 8 is exclusive to iTunes Canada.

[2] "How It's Made: Dream Cars". Science. Archived from the original on July 14, 2017.

[3] "rudy-toussaint". SoundCloud. Retrieved August 5, 2020.

[4] "How It's Made: TV Review". Common Sense Media. October 2, 2009.

[5] Eveleth, Rose (November 13, 2014). "How How It's Made Is Made". The Atlantic.

[6] Jurgensen, John (December 18, 2014). "How It's Made: TV's Quietest Hit". The Wall Street Journal.

[YAA35-7] "35th Annual Young Artist Awards". Young Artist Awards. Archived from the original on April 16, 2014. Retrieved April 14, 2014.

[8] Blevins, Joe (June 6, 2016). "Rick And Morty shows how a plumbus is made, in almost too-graphic detail". The A.V. Club. Retrieved December 28, 2021.

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