The Way Things Work was a short-lived television series based on the best-selling book of the same name by David Macaulay.
When a mammoth stampede ruins the village, the islanders try to build decent roads, using large boulders. Topics covered: inclined planes, wedges.
To win a 'heaviest mammoth' competition, the islanders build makeshift scales of logs and rocks to weigh them. Topics covered: levers.
The mammoths need their monthly washing, but the islanders cannot persuade them to bathe, until the Inventor suggests the use of winches and wheels. Topics covered: wheels and axles.
Saddened by the failure of the previous year's event, Olive endeavours to ensure that Mammoth Island's annual funfair is filled with exciting attractions. Topics covered: belts and gears.
In a slight parody of the Chaucer story of the same name, the islanders and a visiting knight attempt to rescue Brenda from the top of an observation tower. Topics covered: screws.
The islanders' supply of mammoth milk is running out, and they attempt to raise the mammoths from the ground for milking. Topics covered: pulleys.
Attempting to take his mammoth herd across to Pasture Island for grazing, Pilbeam breaks the bridge and becomes stranded. The islanders build different rafts and boats, some of which fail, to rescue him. Topics covered: floating, upthrust.
Frank and Pilbeam employ oversized magnets to extract scrap metal from a sunken steamer. Matters become complicated when Troy accidentally creates an electromagnet and Frank's mammoth becomes stuck in quicksand. Topics covered: magnetism.
When Mammoth Island's new theme park, Mammoth Land, opens to the public, Troy and Olive are disappointed by the slowness of the rides. With help from the Inventor, they use steam engines to increase the velocity the Ferris wheel; but the wheel slips its moorings and runs rampant throughout the island. Topics covered: bevel gears, steam power, condensation.
The Mammoth Ferry's maiden voyage is interrupted by a tsunami, scattering its cargo. Olive and the Inventor devise a submarine to retrieve the items. Topics covered: submersibles, sinking, water pressure, density.
Brenda opens a pizza parlor promising 'free mammoth delivery'; but due to the docile nature of the mammoths her profits are nil. The Inventor helps build a jet engine to deliver the pizzas on time. Note: this episode contained the first appearance of Mammoth Island's rival, Dodo Island. Topics covered: jet engines, combustion, flight.
When Brenda's bakery burns down, the highly inefficient fire brigade floods the island, and the Inventor helps the islanders build a proper water pump. Topics covered: pumping, water pressure, air molecules.
Frank and Pilbeam try to help Brenda run an awning factory while the owner is away on vacation; but stumble on the principles of flight when an awning, tied to a mammoth's back, catches the wind. The Inventor teaches them how to turn this to their advantage. Topics covered: air pressure, flight, aeroplanes, wind.
Whilst working for the Inventor, Troy experiences several phenomenons due to the way light behaves, including a rainbow. Meanwhile, the Inventor has to contend with the loss of his piggy bank, leaving him penniless with several broken glass trophies to pay for. Topics covered: light, refraction, reflection, rainbows, mirrors, light rays.
In order to curb boredom, the islanders cross a previously unexplored mountain ridge, with a mammoth for transport. When the mammoth is stuck dangling over the edge of a cliff, the Inventor uses a hot-air balloon. Topics covered: ballooning, hot air, blimps, expansion, rising, gravity.
When his water pipes freeze, the Inventor accidentally destroys Brenda's house, the local sauna, and his own house. Subsequently, Olive shows him the various ways in which mammoths are used to generate heat around the island, culminating in the construction of an enormous vacuum flask. Topics covered: heating water, conduction, radiation, convection currents, vacuum flasks.
The islanders guide their mammoth herd through a large canyon in search of fresh pasture, but lose them in various pits, ravines, and crevices after a stampede. The islanders become confused by the echoes of the mammoths' calls, and require the Inventor to construct a device to bring them all back. Topics covered: echoes, sound waves, hearing, ear anatomy.
Due to Pilbeam's inability to complete portraits of the winners of the annual Mammoth Island golf tournament, the Inventor suggests the use of cameras and lenses to speed the process. Meanwhile, Troy suffers sunburn. Topics covered: images, photography, binoculars, lenses, picture development, magnification.
During a hot summer, the islanders and mammoths compete for use of a river. Subsequently, the Inventor attempts to install an air-conditioning unit in Frank's kitchen, with disastrous results. Topics covered: air conditioning, air cooling, cooling.
In an attempt to beat Dodo Island, the islanders construct carts to deliver their cargo more efficiently to prospective buyers. All goes well until Olive and Troy, with a cargo of paper, reach a steep hill which they race down uncontrollably. The Inventor helps them add brakes. Meanwhile, Brenda and Pilbeam struggle to get a lovesick mammoth to take a bath. Topics covered: heat, friction, brakes, lubrication.
After Troy accidentally discovers the elastic properties of the Mammoth Island coconut trees, the islanders utilize them to gather coconuts effectively, by flinging them across the island, in order to gather 200 kilos to meet a 2-hour deadline set by a fruit salesman. Topics covered: springs, elasticity, Hooke's Law, mass, weighing.
To commemorate the opening of a new bridge, a musical concert is held, featuring mammoths as instruments, which ends in disaster when the Inventor cries out in pain, causing a stampede which wrecks the stage. The islanders ostracize him from the village until he can find a way to prepare a replacement concert in time for the bridge's opening. Against the orders of Frank, Olive assists him, and the pair set about building giant woodwind instruments. Topics covered: music, woodwind, brass, air flow, sound waves, instruments, vibration.
Brenda goes to market, leaving Troy and Pilbeam in charge of her house. After Troy accidentally washes Brenda's prized wedding ring down the sink, Pilbeam enlists the help of Olive, Frank and the Inventor to dig up the road and find it in the water pipes before Brenda returns. Topics covered: pressure, water pressure, plungers, water flow, suction.
When Troy and his mammoth both spear the same lemon with zinc and copper lances during the annual Mammoth Island lemon harvest, they receive an electric shock. Following this, Brenda and Pilbeam attempt to soothe the mammoth by grooming it with plastic combs; this creates static electricity, attracting litter from across the village. Subsequently, the Inventor explains the basic principles of electricity to the islanders who use the acidic qualities of lemons to help them power their machinery to increase the yield of the harvest. Topics covered: electricity, current, positive and negative charge, static electricity, acid, batteries, circuits.
Brenda inherits the Mammoth Inn, a decrepit mammoth-powered hotel, from her deceased Aunt Maude. When Frank and Olive arrive to collect their inheritance, Brenda enlists their help and the Inventor to repair the inn and modernize it with devices such as metal detectors, security cameras and smoke alarms. However, when a wealthy businessman expresses interest in buying the inn, but only if mammoths are present and the inn is not modernized, Pilbeam struggles to hide the machines. Topics covered: smoke alarms, metal detectors, lasers, escalators, sensors, counterweights, infra-red.
In the final episode of the series, the Inventor attempts to introduce a telephone network to Mammoth Island after the islanders begin using the dangerous method of flinging coded boulders to Dodo Island in order to communicate. Complications arise when the mammoths begin using the telephone poles as scratching posts, necessitating the use of mobile phones. Topics covered: telephones, exchanges, satellites, signals, mobile phones, fiber-optic systems.
