How Is 'How It's Made' Made?


Pitching the TV programme 'How It's Made' must have been easy.


I imagine the conversation went like this:

TELEVISION CHANNEL: What’s it called?
PRODUCTION COMPANY: ‘How It’s Made’.
CHANNEL: Brilliant. Lunch?

The premise isn’t complicated. Over thirty minutes, we learn HOW THINGS ARE MADE - except we don't, as they leave out a few key production stages. It’s the sort of thing they used to show in junior schools in the late Eighties; so much so that watching it on a telly that's not inside a shuttered trolley makes me uneasy. The script is so vague, I can only assume the writers were sent the footage with no explanation and had to work out what was going on for themselves. 

This isn’t my only reservation about this late-night FreeView favourite. The products discussed are so country-specific, it may as well be called ‘How It’s Made in Canada’. A typical episode will cover ice-hockey pucks, Mounties’ hats, maple syrup and Celine Dion. Also, why do they insist on starting each segment by pushing the item through an abandoned warehouse?

‘How It’s Made’ is not the only example of an easy TV pitch; Des Lynam’s ‘How Do They Do That?’ was probably similar. That show ran for five series from 1994 to 1997 but hasn’t been commissioned since. I therefore find its IMDB listing optimistic:


 If it’s not been on for eighteen years, I think that's it.

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