How it's made Animation240p H 264 AAC

The show is a documentary showing how common, everyday items (including foodstuffs like bubblegum, industrial products such as engines, musical instruments such as guitars, and sporting goods such as snowboards) are manufactured. It is filmed to simplify overdubbing in different languages. For example, the show avoids showing a narrator or host onscreen, does not often have employees of featured companies speak on camera, and keeps human interaction with the manufacturing process to a bare minimum. An off-screen narrator explains each process, often with humorous puns. Each half hour show usually has three or four main segments, with each product getting a demonstration of about five minutes, with exceptions for more complex products. Usually every show has at least one product with an historic background note preceding it, showing how and where the product originated, and what people used before it. The historic note is shown through various cartoon animations being drawn on-screen by a computer program.

In April 2007, all episodes run in the United States (on the Discovery Channel and Science) had the individual season openings replaced with a new opening used for every episode. Similar to most other Discovery Channel shows, the credits now run during the last segment, with only a blue screen and the request for feedback (and the website) at the end.

In September 2007, the ninth season began airing on Science, along with new openings, graphics, and soundtracks. Zac Fine replaced Moore as the narrator. However, the eleventh season, which started airing in September 2008, reinstated Moore as the narrator and reverted to a previous title sequence and soundtrack.

In June 2008, the Science channel began airing How It's Made: Remix, consisting of previous segments arranged into theme episodes ("Food", "Sporting Goods", etc.). In 2013, the Science channel began airing How It's Made: Dream Cars, focusing exclusively on high performance and exotic cars.