Jamie Hyneman & Hydraulic Press Channel Test Some Steel

September 20, 2023 9:11 PM

Finnish manufacturer, Stalatube, brought Jamie Hyneman out of his Reality TV retirement to collaborate with The Hydraulic Press Channel to test the strength of their stainless steel hollow sections. If you watch one viral ad for an industrial product this year, this may be the one.
posted by interogative mood (20 comments total)

That's some wickedly dry humor for an ad.

Also shows why Jamie and Adam were such a good pairing on Mythbusters.
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:44 PM on September 20, 2023 [6 favorites]

Some people have heard rather a lot about steel getting weaker when heated. Maybe you need to be past 40.

I wasn't expecting steel beams to fold into such neatly piled ribbon.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 12:11 AM on September 21, 2023 [9 favorites]

This was really funny. I can't remember the last time I watched a 10 minute ad.

I guess when you have a product that precisely delivers on what it promises, you can have some fun with it.
posted by benoliver999 at 1:31 AM on September 21, 2023 [1 favorite]

I love how awkward Pekka was. Not a lot of people would allow themselves to be presented as awkward in their own advertisement.

I've become kind of a connoisseur over the years, and the best ones are a little understated, straightforward, informative and the opposite of gregarious. This one's pretty nice. The now-ancient Will It Blend series is also.

On the opposite end of the scale are videos that make morning zoo radio hosts seem shy and reserved by comparison.
posted by JHarris at 1:43 AM on September 21, 2023

Jamie and Pekka are written in the very same font. I think it's important to know that Pekka, while absolutely being a common name, is the equivalent of like Juan the Mexican or Paddy the Irishman. Also, him saying he's a funny guy is nordic-english for a "fun" guy.
posted by Iteki at 2:09 AM on September 21, 2023 [4 favorites]

The only country where Jamie Hyneman is considered an extrovert.
posted by atrazine at 3:06 AM on September 21, 2023 [20 favorites]

I’d love to have one of those folded-up tubes. It’s pretty neat art.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:16 AM on September 21, 2023

I'd watch a six episode travel series with that crew.
posted by cmfletcher at 5:34 AM on September 21, 2023 [4 favorites]

It's also amusing from a standpoint that they knew EXACTLY what the outcome was going to be. This kind of high strength, high spec steel is extremely consistent.

Commodity mild steel tubing on the other hand, can be a complete crapshoot, depending on what the blend of pot metal was being used that day, how consistent the wall thickness is, and a number of other factors. Still fine for many uses, but really not even in the same ballpark as the kind of steel product that a place like Stalatube produces.
posted by rockindata at 6:04 AM on September 21, 2023 [3 favorites]

A few jobs ago I was at a company that had a remote office in Tampere. I always loved that accent.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:55 AM on September 21, 2023

I love how awkward Pekka was. Not a lot of people would allow themselves to be presented as awkward in their own advertisement.


He's playing a character, though ... ?
posted by mrnutty at 12:00 PM on September 21, 2023

It’s just weird to see steel tubes fold up into the same kind of sine-generated curve as the ribbon candy (TW: Christmas music. Go to 1:20 to see the shapes) I used to get in my stocking every year.
posted by jamjam at 1:32 PM on September 21, 2023

He's playing a character, though ... ?

Yeah, but he's playing an awkward character represented as himself? Unless there's actually no one named Pekka, it's a complete fiction and just the name of the company.
posted by JHarris at 2:58 PM on September 21, 2023

JHarris, Stalatube is the name of the company. It seems entirely possible that they decided to lean into their Finnish-ness and use a stereotypically Finnish name for their (English-language, so probably not aimed solely at people in Finland) ad.
posted by sagc at 3:01 PM on September 21, 2023

...oh! For some reason I assumed he was the company founder, and Stalatube was a brand of theirs. Funny.
posted by JHarris at 3:11 PM on September 21, 2023

I’d love to have one of those folded-up tubes. It’s pretty neat art.

When he said “don’t throw that away” and paused, I instantly thought “you can sell it!”
posted by slogger at 3:34 PM on September 21, 2023 [1 favorite]

The dialog reminded me of the dialog from the show "Patriot."
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:05 PM on September 21, 2023 [3 favorites]

Oblig. meme (original caption was "Oh god Adam, help me!")
posted by zaixfeep at 9:32 PM on September 21, 2023

Patriot! Omg. I need to watch that show again.
posted by mpark at 10:43 PM on September 21, 2023 [2 favorites]

I assumed Pekka was played by an actor. They weren't worried about the effects of heat on the parts of the hydraulic press?
posted by bluefly at 5:30 AM on September 22, 2023