How It's Made

''How It's Made'' (''Comment c'est fait'' in French) was a Canadian documentary television series which focuses on how everyday items are being made. It premiered on January 6, 2001 on the Discovery Channel/USA Network in Canada and the Science Channel in the United States. The program is produced in Quebec by Productions MAJ, Inc. and Productions MAJ 2. The final episode of the series aired on March 24, 2019.

Format

The show was a documentary showing how common, everyday items (such as clothing and accessories, food, industrial products, musical instruments, electronics, and sporting goods) are manufactured. It also featureed the restoration processes of old items in some episodes, as well as other industrial processes, such as sorting mail, processing wastewater, packaging fruit, and recycling metal. Many of the products are made in factories, but the crew would also visit small workshops and traditional artisans, such as Native American turquoise jewelry makers.

''How It's Made'' does not include explanatory texts to simplify dubbing in different languages. The show does not feature an onscreen host (after season 1 in the Canadian version, which was dubbed for American audiences) or interviews with employees. Instead, an off-screen narrator explains the process, often with puns and analogies.

Each episode features three or four products divided by segments, with each product getting a demonstration of approximately five minutes. Some episodes will dedicate two 5-minute segments towards more complex manufacturing processes. The scripts are almost identical across regional English versions of the show. The U.S. scripts mainly differ in their use of United States customary units instead of metric units used in the Canadian version, in addition to some dialectical differences (i.e. "expiration date" instead of "expiry date"). Tony Hirst's UK dub sometimes uses different puns and closing statements. At one point in the U.S. run, a subtitled unit conversion was shown on-screen over the original narration.

The "Historical Capsule" segment, included 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 (such as hydrogen fuel cell cars), and it was only used in seasons 1 and 2.

In April 2007, all episodes that ran 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 replaced Brooks T. Moore as the narrator.

However, from season 11, which premiered in September 2008, the show reinstated Moore as the narrator and uses the title sequence and background music to match with the Canadian version, after popular request from fans.

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, a spinoff entitled ''How It's Made: Dream Cars'', which focused exclusively on high-performance and exotic cars, premiered. This series was later shown on the Velocity (now Motor Trend) channel. Unlike the main series, which rarely mentioned products by brand name due to Canadian product placement laws, this series went into the history of specific automotive companies and their brand identities.

Hosts

The show used different narrators for different regions of the Anglosphere.

In the English Canadian version, Mark Tewksbury (season 1, 2001), 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., Brooks Moore and Zac Fine (seasons 9–10, 2007–2008) narrated the program.

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

Episodes

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". 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". ''The Wall Street Journal'' deemed it "TV's quietest hit".

Accolades

In popular culture

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

Notes

References

External links

* {{Facebook, HowItsMade

2001 Canadian television series debuts
2000s Canadian documentary television series
2010s Canadian documentary television series
Discovery Channel (Canadian TV channel) original programming
Science Channel original programming
Documentary television series about industry
Canadian English-language television shows