In this video, Mister Rogers interrupts his crayon drawing session to show a video of crayons being made at the Crayola factory. He especially likes the yella crains.
“D’ja ever wonder how crayons were made?” he begins. “I often thought about people making crayons. I’d like to show you some people making crayons. Just come along. I have a film of it here.”
The video highlights the various stages of crayon production, from melting and mixing the wax, to pouring, solidifying, labeling, and finally packaging for distribution.
- Preparation of the Wax: “There’s the railroad tank car, which carries the hot wax. And from the tank, it’s poured into a kind of big kettle.”
- Adding Hardener and Pigment: “This is a kind of powder that makes the wax hard. And after that, people put in the pigment, which is like colored flour.” The pigment’s color determines the crayon color, for instance, “This pigment is yellow, so it’s helping to make yellow crayons.”
- Mixing and Pouring into Molds: The mixture of hot wax, hardener, and pigment is mixed together and drained into a pouring bucket. “This is a mold for lots of crayons. Each little hole will be filled with the colored wax.”
- Solidifying and Removing Excess: After pouring, “The people wait for about five minutes for the yellow wax to get hard, and then they scrape off the top, which they’ll melt and use again.”
- Collecting Crayons: “Now watch the crayons come into those crayon collectors. There they are.”
- Labeling: “This is a machine that puts labels on the crayons. It’s like a ferris wheel.”
- Sorting and Packaging: “Then people take the crayons to a collating machine where sixteen different colors of crayons are put together…each one of those little boxes has 16 different color crayons in it.” Finally, “Many little boxes are put together in one big box. Then they’re all put into the big shipping box. And then people take those boxes to the stores where other people come to buy them.”
