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Modern Marvels

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Modern Marvels
Title card since 2007
Created by	Bruce Nash
Narrated by	Max Raphael (current) Harlan Saperstein Will Lyman Greg Stebner Bill Ratner Jack Perkins David Ackroyd
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	18
No. of episodes	660+ (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Don Cambou
Running time	44 minutes
Productioncompany(s)	Jupiter Entertainment
Broadcast
Original channel	History Channel, H2
Original run	January 1, 1995 – present
External links
Website

Modern Marvels is a television series that premiered on December 10, 1993 on the History Channel. The program focuses on how technologies affect and are used in today's society.

Since its debut in 1995, Modern Marvels has produced over 650 episodes covering various topics involving (to list a few) science, technology, electronics, mechanics, engineering,architecture, industry, mass production, manufacturing, and agriculture. Part of the appeal of Modern Marvels and the reason the show has been on the air for this long is the fact that it covers a wide range of subjects. Unlike most other science and technology shows,^{[citation needed]} Modern Marvels focuses a significant portion of the episode on the history of the subject.^[1]

The show began to premiere new episodes in January 2010, not having done so through all of 2009.^[2] In August 2010, History Channel began to air older episodes that had been edited to fit a 30-minute time slot, under the title Modern Marvels: Essentials.

In October 2011, Modern Marvels began airing first-run episodes on History 2 (formerly History International) in addition to its main run on History Channel.

Contents   [hide]  ·         1 Engineering Disasters (sub-series) ·         2 Introduction ·         3 Narration ·         4 Production ·         5 Episodes ·         6 See also ·         7 References ·         8 External links

[edit]Engineering Disasters (sub-series)

Occasionally, the show airs a special sub-series called Engineering Disasters. These periodic episodes describe the circumstances of situations in which technology doesn't work correctly, such as building collapses and airplane crashes, resulting in spectacular (and sometimes fatal) failures. Including an episode on New Orleans, there have been 22 originalEngineering Disasters episodes on Modern Marvels.

A former title screenshot of Modern Marvels.

[edit]Introduction

Distinct from other History Channel series, the introduction of Modern Marvels features visuals and sounds of a bolt being turned by a ratchetwrench, followed by a partially computer-generated sequence involving construction workers building and hanging the title.

[edit]Narration

There have been a few narrators in the history of the series. The most current and longest running is Max Raphael, who has also narrated other History Channel series, such as Command Decisions.

The History Channel has re-packaged some episodes that originally aired in other series and stand-alone specials into episodes of Modern Marvels, such as Ice Road Truckers, which originally aired in 2000 as part of the series Suicide Missions. These episodes are not narrated by Raphael.

[edit]Production

Bruce Nash is credited with creating the series. Don Cambou has acted as executive producer on over 350 episodes for Actuality Productions, the production company behind the series.