Settle down in front of the YouTube, child, for Unkie Fwank wants to
show you something special. Just remember that if you ever call me Unkie
Fwank I'll smack the L.A. Looks right off ya.
Out of all the memorable songs of the classic years of PBS' "Sesame
Street," one of the most memorable to me is the short about how crayons
were made. It combined many of my favorite things of the time: coloring,
fun music, the color orange, and lots of Smiling Old People With
Glasses.
Let's walk through the nuances of this cherished video. As the music
starts off we see two girls coloring with a Generic Box of
Crayons...quite obviously they're Crayolas, but never mind. Suddenly the
girl who no doubt grew up to be a P.E. teacher holds up her orange
crayon and looks at it quizzically, as if to say, "Hey, how'd this get
from the crayon factory to my stubby fingers?"
Pray tell, little girl, did the producer tell you that's what you're
being filmed for? 'Cause that's just what we're about to see!
The music takes a more industrious tempo as we dissolve from the girl
to...wait for it...a crayon factory! A first glance looks more like the
Cheetos factory, but nevertheless we see a swirling vat of orange wax,
as a Smiling Old Person With Glasses adds powder to it.
He then siphons the mixture into an awesome little bucket with two
spouts, one for each side of a cool looking giant cheese grater.
My favorite part comes up next-literally. the wax pools underneath this
grater-like contraption until it hardens, and a good chunk of that is
scraped off the top--yay for conservation! Then what's left is pushed
upwards--thanks to a button press from Smiling Old Man With Glasses. Up
comes a batch of cool looking orange sticks. They're gathered up and put
in a bin.
From there, two Smiling Old Women With Glasses (and evidently,
a group
discount at the local free-flowing vest/shirt store) sort different
batches of crayons into a machine. This machine wraps the crayons up in
a nice label...quite obviously they're still Crayolas, but never
mind...and they're put in large wooden crates to be sent to another area
of the factory.
A Slightly Younger, Smiling Ethnic Woman with Glasses puts some of each
color crayon into its own chamber of a dispenser, which places each set
of fresh new crayons into its own box, closes and seals it, and sends it
off to be shipped to stores all around the world.
And into the hands of chubby blond girls who will spend the rest of
their lives probably scribbling love notes to Joey Lawrence.
The music used for this filmed piece is very memorable. So much so that
people have used the music for their own "how they make it" pieces, such
as pharmaceutical pills. Fans of the song have even recorded their own
versions. Anything that propagates the spreading of interesting tidbits
of pop culture to the masses is something Fwank approves quite highly
of. Carry on crayoning!
Watch the crayon factory video at our YouTube account, "cmonfwank"
or below!
