How Condoms Are Made

August 20, 2011 12:38 PM

How A Condom Is Made (SLYT)

Courtesy of Billy Boy Condoms.

posted by griphus (46 comments total)

(If anyone knows of an actually working TubeDubber-like site to overdub the How Crayons Are Made music onto this, I beg you, link it.)
posted by griphus at 12:41 PM on August 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

In related condom news: Judge cleared of misconduct over condom-filled acorns.
posted by ericb at 12:42 PM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Reminds me of the show How It's Made, which has to be the cheapest show to produce imaginable, and yet which I will happily watch for hours on end.

I had no idea this was how condoms are made. I assume balloons are similar?
posted by jacquilynne at 1:04 PM on August 20, 2011 [4 favorites]

Boy, Billy, those Billy Boy condoms are bully!
posted by Benny Andajetz at 1:08 PM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Their mascot is subtle.
posted by device55 at 1:08 PM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

You mean like this?
(turn the right-side volume down 1/3 the way, left up full)

Aromatic flavour indeed.
posted by hanoixan at 1:08 PM on August 20, 2011 [5 favorites]

You're the best.
posted by griphus at 1:15 PM on August 20, 2011

I like how all the factory equipment is shaped like wieners.
posted by phunniemee at 1:20 PM on August 20, 2011

"What do you do for a living?"

"Oh, I'm a condom-tester."

"Are you trying to pick me up?"
posted by exlotuseater at 1:23 PM on August 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

"What do you do for a living?"

"Oh, I'm a condom-tester."

I guess you wouldn't mind having to bring your work home with you, amirite?
posted by phunniemee at 1:25 PM on August 20, 2011

I like how the Billy Boy condom truck can drive around the German countryside with a giant cock and balls illustration for all to see, but for the American audience this post has to be marked NSFW. Even though it is an educational video of a manufacturing process and no genitalia or sexual situations takes place.
posted by birdherder at 1:28 PM on August 20, 2011 [23 favorites]

I wonder how they decided that 18 litres was the standard to which a condom could be blown up to. Since it's an ISO standard, it had to have been done in a committee meeting, and we all know how those go:
"I think it should be 20 litres"
"No, that's ridiculous! 10 is sufficient"
"10? I'll show you 10 right here. I think it should be 22"
"Guys, guys, no need to fight. How about 18?"
"Done!"
posted by Runes at 1:42 PM on August 20, 2011 [7 favorites]

ericb - Those condom-filled acorns are a hand-crafted gag known as "No Baby Nuts"... the bearer hands them to the joke-victim with the following story:

"There's this acorn tree down the way that produces these unusual nuts and the farmer noticed that he had less and less squirrels stealing them as time went by... when he checked them out, this is what he found inside..."

At this point the joke-teller smashes the nut on a table with his palm, and lo and behold there's a condom inside! Hilarity!


This is what's known as "Pennsylvania Humor".
posted by Ron Thanagar at 1:45 PM on August 20, 2011

This is how condoms are made in Germany. In the US they just snip the fingers off rubber gloves.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:49 PM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

I timed that to one condom produced per second (that would be for a single manufacturing line). Given that, how the hell do they get anything done in Germany, or are most of them being used for water balloons??
posted by tomswift at 2:05 PM on August 20, 2011

How is babby not formed? How is babby not formed?
posted by yeloson at 2:06 PM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is this something I'd have to get laid to understand?
posted by cmoj at 2:22 PM on August 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

In the US they just snip the fingers off rubber gloves.

Back in the day, sure, but today, we let child slaves in China snip the fingers off our rubber gloves.

Seriously.
posted by Western Infidels at 2:23 PM on August 20, 2011

Back in the day, sure, but today, we let child slaves in China snip the fingers off our rubber gloves.

Ah, that's OK. We just sell them right back when we're done. And so the cycle continues.
posted by phunniemee at 2:27 PM on August 20, 2011

for the American audience this post has to be marked NSFW

Water balloons are dangerous things in the workplace.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:27 PM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Ich bin ein peckerchecker!" I like how the QC inspectors at about 6:30 are wearing Billy Boy lab coats and hair nets with reservoir tips!
posted by Standeck at 2:31 PM on August 20, 2011

There's a big happy penis on their trucks.
posted by Horselover Phattie at 2:34 PM on August 20, 2011

Also, it didn't show the machine that rolls them up. Suspicious.
posted by Horselover Phattie at 2:37 PM on August 20, 2011

It's on the right.
posted by griphus at 2:43 PM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh, I missed that one, thanks!
posted by Horselover Phattie at 2:46 PM on August 20, 2011

...but for the American audience this post has to be marked NSFW.

By whom and where?
posted by griphus at 2:50 PM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

I love how they use electrical conduction to test every condom for holes. That's clever.
posted by sbutler at 3:01 PM on August 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

Obligatory joke!

How do you reuse a condom?

Turn it inside out and shake the fuck out of it.

I'm here all night, folks.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 3:05 PM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

It may be used, but it's still a condom™.
posted by mccarty.tim at 3:39 PM on August 20, 2011

The narrator had the primmest voice imaginable and every time she hit the word 'condom' she sort of hesitated a bit. You can especially hear it at the end, when she talks about 'lovemaking.' It could very well be discomfort with reading a script that doesn't quite sound like her native language, but it amuses me nonetheless.
posted by librarylis at 3:41 PM on August 20, 2011

"What do you do for a living?"

"Oh, I'm a condom-tester."

"Are you trying to pick me up?"

And then I was filled with water and gently electrocuted. Normally in Germany they charge you extra for that.
posted by Jilder at 3:53 PM on August 20, 2011 [4 favorites]

...but for the American audience this post has to be marked NSFW.

By whom and where?

I must have hallucinated the warning. I'm going outside now.
posted by birdherder at 3:59 PM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'd just like to say that I have never - not once - been able to successfully use a condom.

Well, I wouldn't actually like to say it, but it appears I just did. Oh God.

Anyway, I feel very lucky to be the age I am: an age whereby I did not need to use condoms when I was young. Because if I had been a young man these days I would probably have been doomed to remain a virgin.
posted by Decani at 4:01 PM on August 20, 2011

I wonder if they make camouflage condoms, so they won't see you coming.

Tip your waitstaff and hang around for Mister Fabulous' 2nd set. Be warned, the late show gets a little blue.
posted by dr_dank at 4:03 PM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

They were so gentle And precise with the manufacturing right up until they toss them in a washing machine and then have some mechanical meat tenderizer smoosh a big vat of them.
posted by wcfields at 4:18 PM on August 20, 2011

Why do they need people to pack the condoms into boxes when it appears like most of the rest of the process is automated? I would have thought that putting shit into boxes is a solved problem.
posted by Joe Chip at 4:19 PM on August 20, 2011

I used to sell equipment to a company that made condoms. Don't make eye contact with the women in QC, that's all I can tell you.
posted by randomkeystrike at 4:26 PM on August 20, 2011

the farmer noticed that he had less and less squirrels stealing them as time went by

fewer and fewer
posted by hippybear at 4:28 PM on August 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

Why did the condom fly across the room?

It got pissed off.

Try the waitress! Tip the veal! Try a Hindenburg!
posted by porn in the woods at 4:39 PM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Egads, I think I've surfed in wetsuits thinner than those pink condoms. Those things look like the nipples from Playtex nursing bottles.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 6:03 PM on August 20, 2011

I've never seen how a condom is made before, but I have seen how they're used.
posted by inturnaround at 6:25 PM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Insertion chamber.
posted by gjc at 7:55 PM on August 20, 2011

I can hardly wait for the follow up video "How A Condom Is Used".
posted by falameufilho at 10:48 PM on August 20, 2011

I'd just like to say that I have never - not once - been able to successfully use a condom.

Not alone, Decani.

Because if I had been a young man these days I would probably have been doomed to remain a virgin.

Presumably we'd have put a bit more effort in if we'd really had to?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:31 AM on August 21, 2011

What? No field testing video? I thought the Germans were thorough!
posted by caution live frogs at 7:55 AM on August 21, 2011

The narrator is a better woman than I. I would have giggled through the whole thing.
posted by deborah at 9:41 PM on August 21, 2011