February 28, 2008 11:30 pm
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By Melissa Dunson
mdunson@joplinglobe.com
WEBB CITY, Mo. — A group of French Canadians descended on Webb City this week to show the rest of the world “How It’s Made” at a Southwest Missouri company.
Francois Senecal, director of the Science Channel’s “How It’s Made” television show, was enjoying himself Thursday at the Cardinal Scale Manufacturing Co. plant. The four-man crew was in town Wednesday, Thursday and today to film three segments for the international program that details the work that goes into a variety of manufactured products.
“It’s very cool,” Senecal said. “We’ve filmed over 550 subjects for this show, and this will be a good one for us.”
It was an illness that brought the film crew to Webb City. Jonathan Sabo, Cardinal Scale advertising manager, said the show’s director of research was in a Canadian hospital with his wife, and everywhere he looked, he saw products made by Cardinal Scale.
“They made contact with us five months ago,” Sabo said. “Originally, they wanted to film us making a physician’s scale, but we explained to them we make a lot of other types of scales, too.”
The result is three segments focusing on Cardinal Scale as its employees make a physician’s scale, a tractor-trailer scale and a food scale.
“It’s pretty unique for them to film three different segments at one facility,” Sabo said.
Cardinal Scale also makes postal, floor, bench and railroad scales. The company has been in Webb City since 1950, and acquired both Fuller and Detecto scales in the 1980s.
The four-man film crew is spending 10 to 11 hours a day filming, and will edit each day down to one five-minute segment. Sabo said the first segment will air at the beginning of the show’s next season in September. The other episodes will run in the middle and toward the end of the season.
The film crew caused a buzz at the plant, Sabo said, because many employees are fans of the show.
Matt Stovern, plant manager, records the show every week. He said that when he heard his favorite program was coming, he did “cartwheels.”
“I’ve been watching the show for a couple of years,” Stovern said. “I like that they actually get down to the detail of the product, rather than promoting the product.”
Stovern got to spend more than half of his week with the film crew members, walking them through production procedures.
Sabo also is a fan of the show, and he said most employees watch it because of their engineering interests.
Senecal said he is still surprised by the response the show gets. He said it has started to take on a life of its own.
In 2000, “How It’s Made” started as a Discovery Channel production in Canada only, featuring Canadian manufacturing. Now the show has more than 1 million viewers each week, features companies all over the world and is translated into multiple languages.
This year, the crew will film at more than 150 locations.
“We don’t do this because of the hotels or the food,” Senecal said with a laugh. “But this is a very unique job because we get to go to companies and see something different every day.”
Senecal said he thinks the program’s success comes from its stripped-down, no-frills format. It originally was supposed to target men between 18 and 35 years old, but when he travels, he finds fans of every age.
“I like this program because there’s no show host, so nobody’s stealing the show,” he said.
Melissa Dunson is the business writer for The Joplin Globe.
Find it on TV
New episodes of “How It’s Made” air at 8 p.m. Fridays on the Science Channel. Reruns of the show are available throughout the week. Visit http://science.discovery.com and click on “TV schedules.” The Science Channel is a part of Discovery Communications and is available in 52 million homes worldwide.
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Photos
Globe/Roger Nomer
Maurice Roy films Howard Champlin this week as the latter assembles the base of a physician’s scale at Cardinal Scale Manufacturing Co. in Webb City. The company will be featured on the Science Channel’s “How It’s Made” program. Science Channel is a part of Discovery Communications.