Frozen Pizza

December 6, 2008 6:21 PM

Here's how frozen pizza is made.
posted by sveskemus (79 comments total)

I get motion sickness every time I watch the opening sequence for How it's Made.
posted by tj9991 at 6:29 PM on December 6, 2008

Now I'm hungry for crappy food. Thanks, sveskemus.
posted by infinitewindow at 6:31 PM on December 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

i don't want to know this, do i?
posted by msconduct at 6:34 PM on December 6, 2008

Don't worry, they don't show where the sausage comes from.
posted by echo target at 6:35 PM on December 6, 2008

When I grow up, I want to be a meat applicator!
posted by team lowkey at 6:38 PM on December 6, 2008 [6 favorites]

Having worked in a factory, and improvised a few processes myself, I'm fascinated by the one-of-a-kind creative engineering that goes into automated manufacturing. (Bespoke mechanical engineering?)

Did that second video say that the last step is "metal detecting?" Good thing, I guess.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:43 PM on December 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

I was impressed by the way the machines had mechanisms for recapturing and reusing the stuff that missed the pizzas.

Then I thought about how the laws of averages must apply to the pizza dough and tomato sauce. How long has some of that dough been circulating, d'you think?
posted by Scattercat at 6:44 PM on December 6, 2008 [3 favorites]

What the

My kids love this show. ACCORDING TO MY FRIEND, all previous seasons are available via torrent. Whatever that is.
posted by DU at 6:44 PM on December 6, 2008

I guess I just don't understand having lived for so long in Vancouver, where it's cheaper to eat good, fresh $1.50/slice pizza than pre-packaged shite at home.
posted by mannequito at 6:48 PM on December 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

hypnotic dough.
posted by Monsters at 6:54 PM on December 6, 2008

You know, I expected to see a video that depicted some horrible, disgusting process for making frozen pizzas, but that was pleasantly painless. That said, I am not a fan of frozen pizzas at all, but when I was in college I sung a completely different tune.
posted by aloneinvietnam at 6:55 PM on December 6, 2008

I wish we had British Guy narrating How It's Made in the U.S.

My favorite How It's Made episode: Sanitary Napkins. (About 3:20 in. Yeah, I know, immature, OMG woman stuff by which I am intimidated, etc. But it did surprise me.) I imagine the narrator getting the script, and saying "OK guys, very funny, great joke, now where's the real script? What? This is the real script? Oooooooohhhhhkay."

My favorite single line from an episode (which my daughter and I continue to use) was something like "It weighs ten pounds, about the same as an average house cat." I don't even remember what the item was, but it cracked me up! Why "house cat"? So my kid and I tried to one-up each other with alternate choices of weight comparison items. (About the same as a 5 pigeons; about the same as an average man's left arm; about the same as a human brain; about the same as a gallon of snot...)

Thanks for the link. I can never get enough of How It's Made. This one managed to make frozen pizza look less appetizing than it already is. (Heating up Stouffer's french bread pizza now.)
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 6:58 PM on December 6, 2008 [6 favorites]

I really like it when he says "reservoir."

sveskemus, your post made me search YouTube for Bagel Bites, so now I'm craving junk pizza AND I have a crappy commercial jingle stuck in my head. You should be ashamed!
posted by cucumberfresh at 7:04 PM on December 6, 2008

I thought there was something rather disconcerting about the pepperoni sticks waving around inside that slicer-dispenser thing.
posted by xbonesgt at 7:08 PM on December 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

This actually helped explain why I'm not such a huge fan of frozen pizza. They take a step to ensure there are no air pockets, WHICH IS WHAT MAKES FRESH PIZZA AWESOME!
posted by piratebowling at 7:09 PM on December 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Fuzzy Skinner: "I wish we had British Guy narrating How It's Made in the U.S. "

It used to be narrated by a British/Canadian/Non-American guy. I stopped watching it when an American accented narrator took over, it was just so less interesting.
posted by Science! at 7:14 PM on December 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

I really do love this, though I only know the US version of the show. When I see it listed in TV guide (.com), I think, "God, what boring shit. That's gotta be the bottom rung of capitalistic, consumerist, voyeuristic low-rent TV. Just like Unwrapped". But when I accidentally let an episode start... man is it fascinating. Maybe it's only because my dad was in tool & dye, but those machines... each performing an exact function, according to exact specifications, turning simple ingredients into final products... I can't turn away. It's brilliant. It's human ingenuity at it's finest.
posted by team lowkey at 7:14 PM on December 6, 2008 [4 favorites]

Can't help but boggle at the amount of electricity that goes into making these, to run all that machinery. Then I suppose you've got to keep it frozen while you truck it all over the place, etc. Huh. Makes the effort I go to to make a homemade pizza seem not so bad now.
posted by harriet vane at 7:14 PM on December 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

I guess I just don't understand having lived for so long in Vancouver, where it's cheaper to eat good, fresh $1.50/slice pizza than pre-packaged shite at home.

Living in a location where you can buy "cheap"¹ pizza made it difficult to understand a video showing how they make frozen?

¹If you are interested in cheap, good and fresh, you shouldn't be buying pizza. You should be buying yeast, flour, tomatos and cheese.
posted by DU at 7:15 PM on December 6, 2008 [5 favorites]

xbonesgt, they reminded me of those long foam rods that I used to play with in places like Chuck E. Cheese and Discovery Zone... only, umm, they weren't made of pepperoni, nor were they being sucked into a meat grinder at one end.
posted by sabira at 7:15 PM on December 6, 2008

xbonesgt: agreed.

This was surprisingly interesting. I'm always amazed to see this kind of mass-production machinery, and realize that it actually...y'know...works. It sounds like it does fuck up a pizza once in a while, but the vast majority of the time, it doesn't. It's amazing enough when you're dealing with something like CDs or toaster ovens, where all the parts are uniform, neatly machined, and made of relatively solid material. But when you're dealing with food ingredients—which are sticky, of inconsistent texture, and generally messy—it's a damn miracle.
posted by greenie2600 at 7:16 PM on December 6, 2008

It's human ingenuity at it's finest.

I think the most fascinating thing about How It's Made is which items are handmade and which aren't. It's really crazy which steps can't/haven't been automated. One episode showed a human tester for party balloons. I mean, come on. (This is also a good object lesson for kids: Study hard in school or your job will be "guy who turns the jeans inside out and puts them back on the assembly line".)
posted by DU at 7:18 PM on December 6, 2008

I can't remember if it was this show or Modern Marvels that featured a completely automated potato chip factory. Not a single human being was involved other than the guy who drove the potato truck that poured raw potatoes into one side of the factory, and the guy who picked up completely wrapped and palleted cases of potato chips at the other end. Robots even packed the chips into boxes and pallets on the loading dock. I was astounded.
posted by popechunk at 7:20 PM on December 6, 2008

I thought there was something rather disconcerting about the pepperoni sticks waving around inside that slicer-dispenser thing.

Oh yeah, agreed. Those videos were pretty interesting. The last place I would have expected to be transported to via Mefi is Naas ....
posted by jamesonandwater at 7:36 PM on December 6, 2008

I stopped watching it when an American accented narrator took over, it was just so less interesting.

I really miss the original narrator, but jesus this british guy's accent was annoying and distracting to me.
Bring back the Canadian!
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 7:40 PM on December 6, 2008

How honey is made (nightmare version).
posted by benzenedream at 7:47 PM on December 6, 2008 [25 favorites]

I thought the coolest thing about the two different pizza videos was that the BBC video was obviously a much newer plant. Much less waste throughout the entire process.

Great stuff, but then I work in machinery automation...
posted by Confess, Fletch at 7:52 PM on December 6, 2008

I do too, Confess, Fletch. I work in maintenance, and thankfully I don't work in packaging.
posted by Eekacat at 7:58 PM on December 6, 2008

CitrusFreak12: "I stopped watching it when an American accented narrator took over, it was just so less interesting.

I really miss the original narrator, but jesus this british guy's accent was annoying and distracting to me.
Bring back the Canadian!"

Yes. I think the Canadian accent is just slightly exotic enough to be interesting, and yet just ever so close to 'our' accent that it's not distracting or off-putting. Good job Canada!
posted by Science! at 8:03 PM on December 6, 2008

OMG, I am never eating pizza again! This was worse than Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle!"

Ok, I kept waiting for the parody to kick in.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:07 PM on December 6, 2008

The "Canadian guy" is Olympic gold medalist Mark Tewksbury.

(useless fact, but hey, there it is..)
posted by davey_darling at 8:20 PM on December 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

I will say, one of the keys in reducing frozen pizza suckitude is the right over. I have this huge duel element monstrosity of indeterminate age, with that analog tick-tick-tick timer, that does truly amazing things with a frozen pizza.
posted by Samizdata at 8:25 PM on December 6, 2008

The pepperoni machine is OM NOM NOMalicious.
posted by eritain at 8:32 PM on December 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Fuzzy Skinner: My favorite How It's Made episode: Sanitary Napkins. (About 3:20 in.

ftfy
posted by xmattxfx at 8:41 PM on December 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Funny...I put a DiGiorno pepperoni pizza in the oven, sat down to browse a little bit before the thing is ready to eat...and this is on MeFi. Not just synchronicity, but How It's Made is just plain cool. My 12 year old daughter Tivos How It's Made.

Yeah, it's always astonishing to see how manufacturing process designers solve these tricky problems with cool - and reliable - solutions.

As far as the narrator's accent goes, sometimes I find it distracting - I think about what the producers were thinking when they selected a certain voice. Imagine a guy with a thick Russian accent in halting, broken English doing it.
posted by Xoebe at 8:44 PM on December 6, 2008

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but, I've listened to that youtube video like a dozen times in a row. The narrator's voice is really really soothing. I don't really know why. Also, I'm a little drunk, but, I don't think that's relevant.
posted by yeoz at 9:08 PM on December 6, 2008

I ate an entire $3 frozen pizza one night and I'm never eating frozen pizza again. The cheap ones are digusting and even assuming the more expensive ones are better, for that price I could just order one from a local place. That probably applies to other kinds of frozen food as well. Also I have become a Food Fascist and am pretty much opposed to anything that doesn't take a little bit of work to cook.
posted by palidor at 9:10 PM on December 6, 2008

Is this something I'd need a ravenous craving for shitty pizza to understand?
posted by Rock Steady at 9:18 PM on December 6, 2008

How honey is made (nightmare version).
posted by benzenedream at 3:47 AM on December 7

Not to derail too much, but that's a phenomenal music video.
posted by topynate at 9:21 PM on December 6, 2008

There is no escape! Mr. HotToddy is addicted to How It's Made (I like it too, just not with the same level of devotion) and not half an hour ago we were watching the American version showing how frozen pizza is made. The food episodes really creep me out--it's so weird to see these things being made from beginning to end with absolutely no human intervention. After the big drum enrobed the crusts in tomato sauce I said "Next we'll see a generous application of Soilant Green" and damn if the camera didn't cut to the "sausage" granules being sprinkled on. Blech.

The other big hit in our house is "Destroyed in Seconds." Now that's a show.
posted by HotToddy at 9:29 PM on December 6, 2008

Why is it that whenever it's political season, candidates get bonus point for ranting about "American Jobs" getting shipped overseas, but nobody ever runs on a "take our jobs back from the machines" platform?

Damned robot lobbyists.
posted by billyfleetwood at 10:06 PM on December 6, 2008 [5 favorites]

Why is it that whenever it's political season, candidates get bonus point for ranting about "American Jobs" getting shipped overseas, but nobody ever runs on a "take our jobs back from the machines" platform?

Damned robot lobbyists.

Because Americans make robots?
posted by JDHarper at 10:27 PM on December 6, 2008

Then I thought about how the laws of averages must apply to the pizza dough and tomato sauce. How long has some of that dough been circulating, d'you think?

Assuming a 1 inch spacing between each pizza, the amount of dough not used in one iteration is:
(N*N - (pi *((N-1)/2)**2)) / (N*N). Where N - 1 = the diameter of a pizza.

So any given a 12 inch pizza:
N = 13.0
(N*N - (pi *((N-1)/2)**2)) / (N*N)
0.33080473372781061

33% percent of that pizza is recycled stuff (dough, sauce, cheese) (at least one iteration old)
33/2 = 16.5% is at least two iterations old
16.5/2 is at least three iterations old...

Of course, I don't know how long any one iterations has been around, since the video doesn't say so
posted by mulligan at 10:31 PM on December 6, 2008 [6 favorites]

my boyfriend's dream is to make the background music for this show. its totally addictive. i really liked the one about hot dogs.
posted by fillsthepews at 10:39 PM on December 6, 2008

I guess I just don't understand having lived for so long in Vancouver, where it's cheaper to eat good, fresh $1.50/slice pizza than pre-packaged shite at home.

WOW! A city where one can go to a place and buy pizza?? Tell me more about this Vancouver!!
posted by !Jim at 10:44 PM on December 6, 2008 [18 favorites]

I used to be able to buy slices of pizza for $1.50, but they raised the price to $1.99 in the midst of the global economic crisis.
posted by delmoi at 11:06 PM on December 6, 2008

Actually $1.50 Canadian, if it's genuinely good pizza and not something made on frozen preservative-laden pre-made shells, would be a pretty damn good price per slice. In many of the parts of North America I've been to you would have trouble getting crappy pizza for that price.

It sounds a bit like an urban legend to me, though, because when I've been to Vancouver everything has been expensive. And also, everywhere I have been the frozen pre-packaged pizza in the supermarket has pretty much the same range of pricing that take-out pizza joints have, so mannequito's impression that Vancouver is exceptional in this regard throws more doubt on the veracity of his claim...
posted by XMLicious at 11:15 PM on December 6, 2008

Damned robot lobbyists.

They're even making pancakes....
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 11:24 PM on December 6, 2008

What happens to the rejected misshapen pizzas, I wonder? Do they go to dollar stores? Homeless shelters? Or, as I suspect, do they get thrown out?
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:15 AM on December 7, 2008

Mulligan, I don't think the 2-generation amount is 33%/2, but (33%)^2 = 11%, and the 3-generation amount is (33%)^3 or 3.6%, etc.
posted by hattifattener at 12:39 AM on December 7, 2008 [1 favorite]

Aaargh! Not enough cheese! Finally, I can see the neglect in the factory as it happens! Pizza CEOs, listen up: when I unwrap my hermetically sealed pizza, I don't want to see any pizza sauce on the crust. I want it there, of course, but I shouldn't see any sauce because it should be completely smothered in cheese! Get the picture, pizza folk? I know you want to save a few bucks, but that makes the difference between a respectable frozen pizza and a buyer's remorse frozen pizza.

Not that I eat much frozen pizza anyway these days, but seeing those cheese-free patches sets off my OCD alarms or something....
posted by zardoz at 12:55 AM on December 7, 2008 [3 favorites]

I've gotta be the only person out there that actually liked Brooks Moore (the US-voice) for How it's Made. I was so sad when I started hearing other voices...

Is it weird that my wife and myself fell in love with this show while randomly catching it during our honeymoon in the British Virgin Islands? Cause I think it's damn weird, and yet it's significant.

I could SO use a Totino's $1 pizza right about now.
posted by agress at 2:02 AM on December 7, 2008

One of those things I had never thought of, but fun to watch.

Two things: I think amusement parks that have one of those water slide things should add on of those tuh-mah-toe reservoirs to the end, right before you splash into the pool.

And two: I want a cheese applicator.
posted by blueberry at 2:14 AM on December 7, 2008

So my kid and I tried to one-up each other with alternate choices of weight comparison items...

Fuzzy Skinner: this is the measuring cup you absolutely must have. My son gets a kick out of it every time we use it.
posted by Ella Fynoe at 3:12 AM on December 7, 2008 [2 favorites]

FYI - Ellio's Pizza is made in beautiful Lodi, New Jersey - down the street from the DMV!
posted by exhilaration at 3:22 AM on December 7, 2008

All I could think of were tumors when they showed the dough-making portion at the beginning.

Disgusting. But fascinating.

Can't sleep - pizza machinery will eat me and then re-use my unacceptable parts.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 3:38 AM on December 7, 2008

The problem of cost of consumption interests me. I make pizza at home using a cold rise, double proofing method for the dough. It's labor intensive (even with a nifty stand mixer) and the cost of sauce ingredients, cheese, and pepperoni (our typical toppings) are still fairly expensive. It's one of those things that if we really didn't enjoy making our own pizza, it would be much more cost-effective to go buy a frozen pizza or pick one up, which we also occasionally do. I can buy a frozen pizza a little more cheaply than what I can make a decent one at home and in a fraction of the time, but it's not as good by any comparison. Both are about 1/3 of the cost of a decent restaurant style pizza from one of the local pizza shacks (not crummy Papa Johns, Dominos, Pizza Hut, etc.).
posted by mrmojoflying at 4:17 AM on December 7, 2008

damn if the camera didn't cut to the "sausage" granules being sprinkled on. Blech.

you mean: "meat items cascading down..."
posted by geos at 5:41 AM on December 7, 2008

The BBC link shows the making of my absolutely favourite frozen pizza - Goodfellas Deeply Delicious Pepperoni. I recognized this about half way through from the way the sauce was dollopped on.

Saying "fresh pizza is always superior to frozen pizza" is rubbish. American-style pizza is also nothing like Italian pizza. And that Goodfellas pizza is amazing. I am drooling right now (good thing I have one in the freezer!).
posted by ClarissaWAM at 6:26 AM on December 7, 2008

I can buy a frozen pizza a little more cheaply than what I can make a decent one at home and in a fraction of the time, but it's not as good by any comparison. Both are about 1/3 of the cost of a decent restaurant style pizza from one of the local pizza shacks (not crummy Papa Johns, Dominos, Pizza Hut, etc.).
posted by mrmojoflying

Yep. We like Pizza. I make it, we buy it fresh, and we buy it frozen. Frozen pizza is one of the cheapest things we eat. Last night, for example, we looked at the clock and saw it was 11:00 and decided we should eat dinner, but I didn't feel like making the scheduled fajitas. Fortunately we had just filled up the freezer with Palermo frozen pizza at the Harris Teeter "Buy 2 get 3 free" sale (making the cost per pizza less than $3.00 per pizza.) Naturally we don't ever eat frozen pizza as is-- we jazz it up. Some drizzled garlic infused olive oil, some black olives, some green bell pepper, some sliced mushrooms and a lot of cheese (Mozzarella, Parmesan, & Provolone.) Then we bake it on a pizza stone. Is it as good as Pizzeria or home-made? No, but it is a fraction of the price and-- more important-- a fraction of the effort.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:17 AM on December 7, 2008

For those who have given up on frozen pizza. Here is how good frozen pizza is made.

Still not the same as eating it on location, but far better than that machine fed junk.
posted by meinvt at 7:54 AM on December 7, 2008

The packaging segment of the frozen pizza link should be titled "How Garbage is Made".
posted by sneebler at 8:20 AM on December 7, 2008

Or, as I suspect, do they get thrown out?

If Frozen Pizza factories are anything like the various multinational food factories my mum used to work at, they'll get sold to factory staff as misshapen rejects for not very much money.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 8:22 AM on December 7, 2008

Convenience is not wrong. By coincidence, we happened to be baking a homemade pizza last night: wine and honey dough, spicy San Marzano sauce, fresh mozzarella, and sweet sausage, with shaved P-R and arugula scattered on top once it emerged. I bake on the back of a parchment-lined baking sheet, and it's good, man oh man - blistered crust, not too much cheese, and the two most mutually complementary ingredients ever, sausage and barely-wilted arugula...everyone should try the two on a pizza together. We had a little salad with the rest of the arugula, drank a hoppy homebrew, and watched old episodes of Deadwood - that's a good Saturday.

It doesn't take that much effort to put homemade pizza on the table - we nearly always have possible topping ingredients and staples (canned tomatoes, flour, white wine) in the pantry. It takes only a couple minutes to put together a dough, even by hand. But it takes time and planning to account for the rise, and we rarely have that luxury on busy days. When even cooking something quick seems totally unappealing, it's about ten thousand times easier to pop a frozen pizza in the oven.

And I really like frozen pizza. It's a different thing than homemade pizza, but then N.Y. and Chicago pizzas are different too; it's a mistake to judge one by the standards of the other. I LOVE those pre-made pizza bagels and pizza roll things, too. Yeah, I feel bad about it, but it has more to do with buying into the whole food-industrial complex than with any worry that I've betrayed some gastronaut code. As a lover of things processed and frozen, I was totally impressed by this video - incredibly precise, completely specialized machinery; high-efficiency processes; blistering hot and sub-freezing cold temperatures - all this for the lowly frozen pizza! From now on, I'll feel like I am eating the space shuttle.
posted by peachfuzz at 9:04 AM on December 7, 2008 [4 favorites]

Wow, so many pizza elitists around here. I've been trying to find a "good" pizza (whatever that is) for a while now, but I honestly haven't found anything that tastes as good as a well-made Round Table pizza. Not even in Berkeley, where we have Zachary's and Cheeseboard. Maybe there's something wrong with me.
posted by archagon at 9:48 AM on December 7, 2008

so that's what a well-tuned clean functioning pizza making machine works. Why does something tells me that these canisters that hold the pepperoni and cheese aren't cleaned out on a regular basis and by the time anyone finds out there's a problem 5 million pizzas are already in circulation.
posted by any major dude at 10:08 AM on December 7, 2008

billyfleetwood writes "Why is it that whenever it's political season, candidates get bonus point for ranting about 'American Jobs' getting shipped overseas, but nobody ever runs on a 'take our jobs back from the machines' platform? "

Cripes could you imagine spending eight hours a day sprinkling cheese onto pizza crusts assembly line style.
posted by Mitheral at 10:14 AM on December 7, 2008

"gastronaut" is my new favorite word, thanks peachfuzz.
posted by device55 at 10:21 AM on December 7, 2008

It's interesting to view this in light of the Victory City post, above. If only human needs could be engineered and processed this efficiently! It's too bad that people can't be chopped, pressed and formed as easily as pizza.

(References to Soylent Green and the Architect Sketch not withstanding.)
posted by SPrintF at 10:52 AM on December 7, 2008

Here's some Germans making bread. Dig the funky tunes.
posted by Happy Dave at 12:51 PM on December 7, 2008

Mitheral: Cripes could you imagine spending eight hours a day sprinkling cheese onto pizza crusts assembly line style.

Yes. Making pizza is my job. I used to make several hundred frozen pizzas a day. Now I don't do frozens any more, and I'm back at the flagship store making literally tons of pizza a day for families and drunk college kids...

piratebowling:This actually helped explain why I'm not such a huge fan of frozen pizza. They take a step to ensure there are no air pockets, WHICH IS WHAT MAKES FRESH PIZZA AWESOME!

That step isn't to completely remove air bubbles, but to prevent the crust from turning into one single giant bubble (more like a loaf of bread.) Without this step there would never be toppings on your pizza as they would slide off as the crust turned into a loaf of bread. Even with that "docking" step, air bubbles will still form occasionally.

Oh, and I wish I wasn't a pizza snob, but after eating pizza almost every day, several times a day, you find that the only pizza you can eat is fresh from the oven. People joke about eating cold pizza for breakfast and some small part of me recoils in terror.

God, I know too much about pizza...
posted by schyler523 at 4:11 PM on December 7, 2008 [1 favorite]

Sorry, I guess that drunk in front of college kids is a bit redundant...
posted by schyler523 at 4:12 PM on December 7, 2008

schyler523 writes "Yes. Making pizza is my job. I used to make several hundred frozen pizzas a day."

But did you just do cheese?
posted by Mitheral at 6:59 PM on December 7, 2008

"Mulligan, I don't think the 2-generation amount is 33%/2, but (33%)^2 = 11%, and the 3-generation amount is (33%)^3 or 3.6%, etc."

You are correct, silly me.
posted by mulligan at 7:59 PM on December 7, 2008

schyler523: "People joke about eating cold pizza for breakfast and some small part of me recoils in terror."

That's not a joke.
posted by sveskemus at 7:36 AM on December 8, 2008

I used to make several hundred frozen pizzas a day

Yeah, but could you sprinkle cheese on several hundred pizzas an hour? For eight hours? Without any bathroom breaks?
posted by straight at 11:03 AM on December 8, 2008

What is that great soundtrack to the first link? It reminds me so much of WEEN. It could be a Chocolate and Cheese outtake. I never get tired of watching automated factories make stuff.

Watching Grethers Pastilles being made is fun.
You have to navigate the site >production>short film about production. I don't know a direct link.
(Also, these amazing cough drops are the only suitable replacement for anyone who grew up addicted to Pine Bros. Cough drips. R.I.P.)
posted by JBennett at 2:51 PM on December 8, 2008

@peachfuzz: You must be the basis for Stuff White People Like! I've always wanted to see one up close...

Also, I love How It's Made.
One of my favorite games is to cue up a show with some friends without looking at the title (which usually says what is being Made), close your eyes when the intro segment comes on (NO CHEATING!), turn the TV on mute, and see who can guess what is being Made first. It's surprisingly challenging without the voiceover, and makes a great drinking game.
posted by jckll at 11:54 AM on December 10, 2008

Not really, though my dad recently WAS the basis for an entry on My Dad Is A Fob. Good try, though!
posted by peachfuzz at 12:56 PM on December 10, 2008