What is this program? manufacturing explanations
When and where? Fridays, 6 & 9 p.m., on Science Channel
Who should watch this program? curious consumers, Industrial Revolutionists
So how is it? If you ever looked a can of creamed corn and wondered how they got those kernels in there, or looked at the label and wondered how they wrapped that can with a shiny image of the Jolly Green Giant, or even wondered how they made the toilet paper you'll eventually use to wipe that corn from your ass, Science Channel has all the answers. Unlike Food Network's Unwrapped, which similarly exposes production methods of everyday products, How It's Made goes beyond Twinkies and Spaghetti-O's to get to the real nuts and bolts of life. Speaking of nuts and bolts, those simple connectors that hold just about everything in the world together start out as steel wire rod, then get subjected to a furnace, a bath of sulfuric acid, a coating of phosphate, and hot/cold-forging before becoming the tiny wonders we all know and love. Windshield wipers? Baseball gloves? Violins? Their origins are all here, and trust me you haven't lived until you've seen a lava flow of Dijon mustard cascade into a vat. Toilet paper turns out to be mostly recycled newspapers and such, drenched into a wet pulp resembling cottage cheese, bleached with chemicals, spread on a screen and put through a dryer, emerging at 4000th of an inch thick before getting doubly spooled around cardboard tubes. Voila, two-ply! Once you've seen how convoluted these processes are, it's frankly mind-boggling you can get screws at the hardware store for pennies. Consider that the next time you covet a Prada purse. I think I know what I'm getting my wife for Valentine's Day.
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