How It's Actually Made is a web series parody of How It's Made created by Huggbees.
The show follows a very similar format to the original show, showing the process through which everyday items are made during production, ranging from Foosball tables and skateboards to candies and so on.
The difference is that the original show is all about the legitimate process of how things are made, whereas Actually is... Less than accurate.
Rather than providing factual information about how things are made, the series is completely incorrect, riddled with unprofessional side comments thrown in, and it's all delivered in the exact same informative narration that the main series is known for. Hilarity Ensues.
Huggbees' playlist for the series can be found here
. Compare with the "Wow! It's Made" series by DaThings.
It all starts with these Tropes...
- 420, Blaze It:
- In Bicycles, the narrator is really excited to mention that the paint on the bicycle frames are baked at 420 degrees, pointing out "That's the weed number!"
- In Bread, the narrator explains that the multi-grain breads are baked at 420 degrees for about "weed joke" minutes.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: A quick one in Soap Bars:Steel plates shape, stamp, and sort the soap cylinders, shipping their supple slippery soft bodies to be sensationally sent skyward. See?
- April Fools' Day: Huggbees usually celebrates this day with an episode of How It's Actually Made:
- 2019 gives us Fishing Lines, where there are no jokes for the entirety of the video until the end, where apparently you were pranked because "fishing lines aren't safe to eat".
- 2020 has Office Chairs, where the process is completed in one step (By attaching the arm to the chair) and the next 3 minutes are a black screen with some music.
- 2021 has Pelota Balls, which simply explains the history of the ball for three minutes without ever actually starting the process.
- Artistic License – Biology:
- In Honey, the narrator explains that honey bees collect nectar from flowers and store them in their testicles.
- In Aquarium Fish, the narrator explains that goldfish are typically silver or gray, but turn gold if they are sick. Also, goldfish can apparently metamorphosize into koi if they drink enough rum.
- Artistic License – Engineering: A lot of the humor comes with how little the narrator seems to understand the processes of the machinery and equipment used in the various manufacturing processes.
- Artistic License – History: Certain details and fun facts that are given about the histories of certain items are, simply put, complete bullshit. Of course, Rule of Funny applies.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- The narrator sometimes leads the audience on to a certain punchline, only to swerve into a different punchline. For example, he may sometimes talk about white fluids and how they're used to make things, only to reveal he's talking about something like liquid plastic... Only to then refer to it as "hardened industrial jizz".
- The whole series can qualify, really. Plenty of comments on the series' uploads are about how the viewer thought they were watching a legitimate episode of How It's Made before the narrator suddenly went into a tirade about penises or something along those lines.
- Even considering the above point, the Fishing Line and Office Chair episodes are this by virtue of being April Fools' Day jokes.
- Bilingual Bonus:
- In certain episodes, the narrator will say something in a language other than English, ranging from "Your fat mother" in Spanish to "I am a douchebag" in Italian.
- Played for Laughs in the Tequila episode, where the narrator reveals the whole script was in Spanish and he's been improvising the entire time.
- Bizarre Beverage Use: Paper explains that rum is used in the process of making paper, to create paper pulp and to ensure the paper is too inebriated to say anything incriminating.
- Blatant Lies: A lot of the more outrageous things the narrator claims fall straight into this category.
- Bloody Horror: The bacon meats in Bacon are put into a drench cabinet and showered in red liquid, described as "what remains of the employees who rallied for better working conditions".
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: A frequent occurrence is the narrator listing things included in a mixture or the list of steps in a process. While some of it sounds legitimate, there are always some things that are completely incorrect.
- Call-Back:
- The Solid Tires episode explains that the rubber being used to make the tires is melded into the Beast from the Chocolate episode. The Beast makes another return in Inner Tubes, where it is fought back by protesters. The Ride-On Cars episode also makes mention of an Anti-Beast.
- The bacon in Bacon is described to have a signature red taste as it is flavored with red food coloring. In the Sardines episode, the sardines are also flavored with red, which, as the narrator points out, gives the sardines a signature bacon taste.
- The coffee beans in Coffee Pods and Coffee are sorted and filtered through a cage of starving refugees, exactly like how cocoa beans are filtered in Chocolate. The narrator in Coffee lampshades it and says that anyone in the audience who notices the similarity is a giant nerd.
- Cluster F-Bomb: In the Mozzarella Cheese episode, the narrator begins his usual intro discussion of the object before, with no segue, saying "penis" several times in a row.
- Comically Missing the Point: Happens frequently.
- China has this happen for the whole episode, where the narrator confuses "china", the word for porcelain, and "China", the country. Instead of explaining how porcelain is made, the narrator goes on an Artistic License – History tirade about how China was founded and how Chinese society functions.
- In Horses, the narrator describes the evolution and history of real horses over a video showcasing how horse statues are made.
- Companion Cube: Multiple episodes treat different ingredients or parts as if they're alive, usually because torturing them in some way is necessary for making a given thing.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Chocolate makes mention of the awakening of an amorphous entity simply called "The Beast", which the factory employees beat into submission with paddles. This apparently contributes to the process of making chocolate, but also stops The Beast from ushering in a thousand years of darkness.
- Dissonant Serenity: Played for laughs. The narrator frequently makes some horrifying or absurd descriptions of the processes to make things, like how certain objects are sentient and well aware of how they're being pulverized. All of this is said as upbeat music plays and the narrator is as calm as ever. Usually.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: A surprising amount of steps towards making everyday items involve white fluids, which the narrator almost always capitalizes on for comedic effect.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Seen in Tequila, where apparently a 1970s time traveler winds down with a drink after being tasked with inspecting the product.The stress of his job, combined with the fact that he missed seeing his son grow up, takes a very heavy toll.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Beast, an entity that apparently shows up in many manufacturing processes, is an amorphous black mass that needs to be beaten into submission, lest it ushers in a thousand years of darkness. Ride-On Cars instead mentions an Anti-Beast, an amorphous white mass that should be fed before she can usher in a thousand years of light.
- Failed a Spot Check: The narrator asserts that the wax head of Bruce Willis has finished moulding while the visual shows a completed bust of Albert Einstein.Narrator: [over a shot of Bruce Willis' wax figure] Who the hell is that bald guy?
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Played for laughs. On one of the episodes, the narrator stops his description of the process he was detailing to mention how people will put on the original to fall asleep to, but YouTube's autoplay function will cause his series to potentially play after a while, so he decides to play a joke on them by loudly shouting "WAKE UP" and then acting like nothing happened.
- Funny Background Event: Sometimes, random things happening in the background of certain scenes will be pointed out and narrated to humorous effect. For example, in Rubber Bands, a male employee with long blonde hair shuffling things in the back is described as "Kyle in the background look[ing] for his lost surfboard".
- Gag Dub: The series is a fake dub of footage of how things are made, with comical inaccuracies and profanity all delivered in the same monotone voice.
- Halfway Plot Switch: A variant. At first, the Solid Tires episode starts off normally (about as normal as a How It's Actually Made episode can be, anyway), showcasing the process of solid tire manufacturing. Then, the scene switches to an assembly line of cheesecakes, which the narrator still narrates as solid tires. The video switches two more times to productions of boat paddles and globes before ending.
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood: The sponsor (Raid Shadow Legends) in Sugar has him describing the Hydra boss battle as arguing with your stepdad as “No matter how good your mental defenses are, they can be siphoned away and used against you while you’re continually smacked around by an opponent whose strength grows with his rage”.
- Mockumentary: The series is a parody of How It's Made, an actual documentary series that documents... Well, how things are made. The difference here is that Actually is not even remotely accurate.
- Mood Whiplash: One moment, the narrator is talking about how dough rises when making bread. The next sentence, he's talking about his divorce proceedings. It's all over the place.
- No-Paper Future: Invoked in the Paper episode, which showcases a document declaring paper to be obsolete in the digital age.
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: The narrator states that "a single bottle of soda can contain 146% of your recommended daily sugar intake". To highlight the point, he brings up a picture of a bottle of soda which, sure enough, has 146% of the recommended sugar intake listed on the ingredients.
- Oh, Crap!: The narrator will occasionally lose their cool when an employee handles something for longer than intended and call for help.
- Overly Long Gag: The series does this at times. Even lampshaded by the narrator at times.
- Precision F-Strike: The narrator doesn't cuss that often, which makes it all the funnier when they do.
- Product Placement: The same as the original, which is often a topic of discussion by the narrator. In Soda Drinks he explains why the product is Kiri soda instead of Coke or Pepsi, explaining that Kiri was the only soda company with the balls to show you how it's made. In Yogurt the narrator believes the product is actually a name brand for once.. Only for it to be a generic product anyways.
- Purple Prose: In Magnets, the narrator rewrites the lyrics to Insane Clown Posse's "Miracles" to be this:As great philosophers Cantankerous Jah and Hairy 2 Endo eloquently put it, "I am not sure which of all the elements, be they fire, water, sky or earth, may be more mysterious than the magnet. I wish not to speak to those of institution about this miracle of life, for they speak in false prophecies, which only serve to bolster my rage."
- Rhymes on a Dime: Happens for a bit in Gold, when the narrator explains what happens to the rocks from the mine in the mill:Back at the mill, the rock stock rocks and knocks around the clock 'til it looks like chalk, chock full of flocks of blocks. Chemicals lock into the dock, pulping the rock into schlock.
- Running Gag:
- Filling and/or rinsing machines, and the sheer gusto the narrator usually has when describing their functions. Anytime one appears, he also has to clarify every time which one is which. To a lesser extent, the capping machine and the narrator's complete lack of aforementioned gusto.
- Occasional mentions of a man named Peter who fondles various products during their creation.
- Adding notes about workers handling food products with their bare unwashed hands are often placed in videos, sometimes with an added comment about enhancing their flavor.
- Any white powder that shows up will be either referred to as cocaine or a euphemism for it.
- The god damn motherfucking choo choo trains, which give the narrator almost as much, if not more, excitement than filling and rinsing machines do.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: At the end of an Overly Long Gag, in which the narrator just repeats how an egg is moved onto more and more conveyor belts, he gives a frustrated "Y'know what, fuck this," and ends the episode.
- In the Mozzarella Cheese episode, the narrator reads the same Long List note twice and (presumably) notices the third in the script. He gets about halfway through the list before giving off an agitated "Y'know what, fuck this!"
- Shaped Like Itself: From the Chocolate episode.An employee then activates a grinding machine, wherein the constant heat and pressure create a chocolate soup mixture, referred to in the industry as "chocolate soup mixture".
- Shout-Out: All over the place.
- In Bacon, the bacon meats are prepared skin-side down so that the workers judge them only by the content of their character. Also, apparently the bacon factory workers really love playing Jenga.
- Bowling Ball had references to both NBA Jam and Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden of all things. Note that the episode on basketballs didn't.
- In Candles, the background music during the genocide and rebirth of men in The Matrix are the Eight Melodies.
- In Mozzarella Cheese, the narrator labels the "milk sweat-drainers" as "platforms from a Super Mario game".
- The narrator in Condoms showcases scientists working on harder, better, faster, and stronger condoms.
- The miners from Gold apparently use the rocks to recreate their favourite episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- In the end of Magnets, the narrator starts reciting (in very verbose detail) the famous lines about magnets spoken by "Cantankerous Jah" and "Hairy 2 Endo".
- In Revolvers, a man is seen engraving a revolver, with the narrator commenting that it provides no tactical advantage whatsoever. Later on in the video, the narrator says that most revolvers carry six shots, more than enough to kill anything that moves.
- Bicycles explains that bicycles are sometimes made of an alloy known as "Excadrill".
- Two to One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish:
- In Sardines, two fish are shown side by side, narrated as "Here is one fish, and two fish. Next week's batch will feature red fish and blue fish."
- A few ingredients that go into making erasers in Erasers are one powder, two powders, red powder, and blue powder.
- Also in Erasers, erasers are made by combining pink synthetic rubber and blue Hamon Stand.
- In Chocolate Mints, the narrator explains how the chocolate mints are sent through holes to be packaged, and that upon seeing the holes, many of the mints take off their clothes and scream "This is my hole, it was made for me!" before jumping in.
- In Roof Tiles, the titular roof tiles are made of spice melange harvested from the desert planet Arrakis.
- Suddenly Shouting: The narrator very, very rarely raises their voice, but when they do, it comes out of absolutely nowhere and is used for comedic effect.
- Take That!: It happens quite a bit.
- The process of making hot dogs in Hot Dogs involve adding copious amounts of corn syrup, because "all food products in America are legally required to be at least 10% sugar". The episode also takes a shot at vegans, who the narrator says will always complain about the hot dog making process no matter how humane or efficient it is.
- In the Tequila episode:
- The episode opens with "Tequila is to Mexico as corruption is to China."
- The agave plant used to brew tequila is harvested by hand even to this day, "because Mexico has yet to enter the industrial age".
- In the Sugar episode:For an example on how to overuse a sponge until it's ruined, turn your TV on to Nickelodeon.
- Take That, Audience!:
- The Skin Cream episode encourages the viewers to leave comments in the video, because after all, "YouTube comments are a valuable source of feedback, and are always a worthwhile read of insightful discussion".
- The narrator in Farmed Shrimp compares the audience to the titular shrimp:Shrimp are pathetic creatures, and despite the constant feedings, never gain muscle mass or strength, which is why they're named after what people call you when you go to the gym.
- In the Sugar episode:The crust has its pH level taken while someone who watches this video and thinks they're extremely clever makes a joke that this is a bag of cocaine. It's actually just powdered lime, and you're not as clever as you think you are.
- Tastes Like Purple: In Bacon, it is explained that factory-made bacon is brined in a solution dyed with red food coloring, to give the bacon its signature "red" taste.
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: From Beer:Historical records show that ancient peoples made beer with barley, water, hops, and yeast. We still use the same ingredients, but as you'll see, today's production is far more complex, bitch.
- Toilet Humor: There are plenty of shit jokes in the Soy Sauce episode, including a joke where after 12 years of fermentation, it looks like shit, "but it tastes delicious guys I swear, no really it's good I mean it trust me".
- Unconventional Food Usage: Many factory processes apparently involve foods being used in non-standard ways:
- Food ingredients and condiments are often used to flavor inedible objects, such as skateboards and rubber bands.
- In Bacon, the bacon carcasses are skinned by being sent through a cheese-rolling machine, where the meats are pelted by slices of Kraft singles.
- In Hot Dogs, the ground up meat trimmings used to make hot dogs are also sold as strings for high-quality mops.
- The Unintelligible: One of the four main ingredients in Soy Sauce is completely unintelligible, sounding like "Mbrhm".
- Your Mom: Some of the jokes take potshots at the viewer's mother.
