I tend to watch a lot of off-peak television while I work. My current favorite show: “How It’s Made” on the Discovery Channel (looks like it originally aired/concurrently airs on the Science Channel, which I don’t get on my cable).
It’s great–all sorts of manufacturing processes, from speakers to asphalt to mallomars. No rhyme or reason. I sort of feel like I’m watching Sesame Street or some other kids show–all of a sudden, for no particular reason, hey! Let’s learn how they make Congas! Neat, huh? Now let’s learn about electroplating!
It gives you a real appreciation for all of those engineers out there. What maniacs dreamed up those complex Rube Goldberg machines for making such often-trivial things?
Taped it and watched it with my 9-year-old - fun. Saw the one featuring the Segway, birch canoes and electric guitars.
I wish they went into more detail - for the canoes, tell us more about the wood; I have to assume there is a mystique about picking the right wood. As a guitarist, I can tell you they barely scratched the surface! I would prefer 1 thing, not 3 in the time allotted.
But I applaud their efforts and look forward to seeing more ep’s!
They really need to hire a narrator with some style and inflection in his voice. I love the show, but it reminds me of the filmstrips in elementary school with the crappy taped narration.
The writing isn’t the best, either. There are sentences that make it hard to understand what’s going on. Sure, I can see it, but it doesn’t matter unless I can understand it.
I often end up a little disappointed, actually. As has been noted, the narrator is sleep-inducing. When I do manage to stay conscious, often it seems like some huge step in the process is missing or glossed over. “Next, the widget is run through the widget machine, where it’s widgeted.” Well, obviously it gets widgeted, but how does it get widgeted? By god, show us the widgeting!
This is a Canadian production. Mark Tewksbury, the narrator, was an Olympic gold medal winning swimmer. How this makes him a narrator (first season), I do not know.
I watch that show too and enjoy it. For those in PA the local public TV station, PCN, has a much better similiar show called (creatively) PCN Tours which does factory tours of factories and historical stuff in the state of PA. The episodes are 1/2 - 1 hour long on only show one location giving much better detail and information.
I really enjoy this show as well. I have been watching it for several seasons and the narrator tends to change each season. Currently it is a women. Also this show is now available in HD.
There’s also a Food Network version, about food, called “Unwrapped” (hosted by Mark Summers of Double Dare) and “Made In America” on Travel Channel (hosted by John Ratzenberger, aka Cliff Clavin).
I knew there was something odd about that show. I was watching one where they made newspapers, and the narrator says (roughly), “that’s about a mile of paper” and a graphic came on the screen that said, “that’s about a mile of paper.”
I got the sneaking suspicion that it was EITHER translated from French and the translator did the metric conversions, or they had a variation of the copy where the narrator said, “that’s about 1.6 kilometers of paper.”
Now if someone wanted to do a show offering me tips on how to make [url=http://static.flickr.com/51/126991332_6db1e899f7.jpghim that’d be worth watching.
In my house, we LOVE to see how things are made. We are junkies of Modern Marvels, Hands On History, Made in America (when we remember it), Dirty Jobs, etc.
We had great hopes for this show before it first aired; excited even. We were expecting a more in-depth look at how one thing was produced per episode. What we got was a light, fluffy and very juvenile overview of what the episode featured. I have to say that I’ve never been so disappointed in an educational program. And they add goofy music & voice. I found it kind of insulting to my intelligence. Christ, not everything has to be dumbed down. We haven’t bothered watching more than two episodes.
I suspect that it’s a French-language production. In fact, the only reason I know it’s a Canadian production is that I happened to pick up what I thought was a Canadian accent from the narrator, then looked at the credits and saw a ton of French names. Checked it out, et voila, c’est Canadien.
Funny you should say that, because Mark is openly gay. He is from Calgary - my husband used to sit beside him in some University classes. He says it was hysterical how all the girlies fell all over Mark, but my husband would have had a better chance with him than they did.
I like the show, too. I don’t mind that it doesn’t go into deep depth on everything; just an overview of how the heck they make stuff is good enough to answer my questions. The narration could use some work, though. Yesterday it was, “He cuts some material now. He places the material on the mold now. He puts the mold in the oven now.” etc. for pretty much the whole show.
I agree with the people here, sometimes that gloss over stuff that’s important, and then spend time on non-important stuff. For example, with regards to newspapers, they spend all this time on how articles are developed and obtained, and basically what every person’s job in a newspaper office is. But then they barely cover the manufacturing part of the newspaper, which is much more interesting (and was even the subject of a recent General Question on the board).
But I love learning the engineering behind things, so I still find it fascinating.
