Nothing’s more wonderful on a Saturday (or Sunday) than kicking back, allowing your eyes to roll back in their sockets, and enjoying a few hours of mindless relaxation. But while you’re off work and not doing anything important, you might also feel like you should be doing something just a little bit important. And nothing is more important than passively learning about the important things in life, like how cake sprinkles are made and where the hell mirrors come from (you ever think of that?). And that’s where How It’s Made comes in.
One of Discovery Science’s most wonderful shows (especially when you stumble home just a wee bit buzzed after a night out with friends), How It’s Made makes you stop and remember that all the things you consume on a daily basis don’t just come out of thin air. And some things (like carved candles) aren’t just satisfying to look at when they’re finished, they’re fascinating to watch being made. Here are a few of the best clips from How It’s Made’s spectacular run. Watch them now and then impress people with all the things you learned at the water cooler on Monday. INCLUDING HOW WATER COOLERS ARE MADE! (Okay, you’ll have to Google that.)
Cake Sprinkles
Let’s start our journey off nice and easy with a visual feast that will delight without overwhelming. If you’ve ever been disappointed by the taste of sprinkles. “They taste like nothing!” I cried the first time I stuffed a handful in my mouth as a kid, before I knew they were meant to add flair and texture. But taste isn’t important here. What important is that there’s someone out there whose job it is to test that each giant vat of sprinkles has the right color distribution. How does that person not just spend their entire day swishing their hands through the sprinkles? How do they ignore the inevitable urge to jump in and just swim in a sea of sprinkles. I couldn’t, and that’s probably why I, like many of us, can only admire sprinkles from afar.
Mirrors
If only there was a way to describe how cool it is watching mirrors being made! You may have (depending on your level of narcissism) two to 10 of these in your home, but did you know that they were made by robots? Did you know that they just started as plain panels of glass? And did you know that there’s nothing that’ll make you go “aaaaugh” in pleasure than watching demineralized water and silver being applied to that panel?
Bubble Gum
Watch it stretch! Watch it melt! Watch it turn into a gooey mess that you can literally feel covering your entire body. (Just don’t do it for real; you’ll never get it off.)
Contact Lenses
After watching this video, you’ll never take those little things you place in your eyes every morning for granted ever again. Or, considering all the melting going on, you might never put them back in there. This video will either make you want to play it on a loop (the melting is especially cool), or force you to recoil in horror.
Globes
You’ll never use one of these again (thanks smartphones!), but at least now you know exactly what went into making one of the bad boys that every history teacher has chilling in the back of their classroom… just in case anyone needs to look up where Antigua is and is low on batteries.
Waffle Cones
There’s a reason you pay a premium for these. This video is a good explanation as to why. Watch them swirl, swirl, swirl and then see if there’s an ice cream place that delivers. There’s no reason for you to get up!
Blown Glass
Contrary to popular belief, glass blowing isn’t done by mouth; it’s done by shaping it with wet newspapers (to protect yourself) and then cutting ridges (this is the best part) with scissors you’d find at home. The first time I saw this video, I immediately wanted to make a career change, but then I realized that considering I once ended up in an emergency room because I burned myself making an omelet, it’d probably be best if I stayed as far away from hot liquids as possible. For you, on the other hand, this video might open up a whole new world of opportunities.
Chocolates
No Oompa-loompas here, but the lack of a cocoa-flavored river and a room full of bubbles won’t stop you from wanting to watch that chocolate being mixed forever. (And if this video hit you especially hard, it’s only one of many clips of chocolate being produced. You could spend all day on this.)
Carved Candles
This is it: arguably the best How It’s Made clip anyone has ever seen. Not only did this one get me through grad school–on the verge of a breakdown because you have to write a 20 page paper? Watch this video instead!–but it’s also often the first video YouTube suggests when you start searching for clips of the show. And with good reason. There’s nothing more calming or chill-inducing than watching the woman in the video turn a hunk of wax into an object of pure beauty. And by the time you’ve finished watching it, there’ll be nothing you’ll want to do more than carve soft wax with a knife. Trust me. (If that isn’t true, watch it again. And again. Just for good measure.)
