SALEM — A new TV show “Making Fun!” is about to drop on Netflix on March 4, starring a local knife maker and his extremely talented builder friends.
John “Graz” Graziano, 41, who owns WhichCraft Heights workshop with his wife in the historic downtown of Salem, might soon become a household name. The local craftsman is part of the five-person cast for a new family-oriented Netflix show “Making Fun!”.
“It’s kind of like ‘Shark Tank’ meets ‘Monster Garage’ meets ‘Junkyard Wars,’” said Graziano.
On the show, children pitch their grandiose ideas to the building crew via Zoom calls. The team selects the idea they want to bring to life, builds the object and then tests it. The objects usually shoot, blow up or drop something on the crew and it gets pretty messy and ridiculous, Graziano said.
“If I was a kid and saw this show, I think I’d absolutely love it. Because this is beyond just playing video games and just kind of getting outside, getting your hands dirty and learning stuff and building just wacky things that your brain thinks of. That would be just so much fun for a kid,” Graziano said.
The show was filmed in East Durham, N.Y., where one of the cast members, Jimmy DiResta, owns a workshop.
“It is like the Charlie Chocolate Factory of ultimate shops,” said Graziano.
DiResta’s followers call it the dream shop or the Maker Mecca. DiResta, who has 1.94 million subscribers on YouTube and has starred in TV shows on HGTV, DIY Network, NBC and other channels, is a well-known maker, designer and artist.
However, everyone on the show met organically years prior. A few years ago, Graziano said, the five friends (DiResta, Graziano, Paul Jackman, Derek “Derek from Malden” Forestier and Patrick “Pat Lap” Laperrière) built a giant Adirondack chair together, took a photo in it and uploaded it to Reddit.
A producer in Los Angeles saw it and got in contact with them about developing a show centered around the crew being silly and building fun things.
“She began shopping the idea around to cable channels and networks and lo and behold — Netflix loved it,” said Graziano.
They filmed eight episodes of what would become the TV show “Making Fun!” over the spring and early summer of 2021.
“Shooting was fairly grueling,” said Graziano. “We would shoot six days a week, 12 hours a day. And under fairly warm studio lights with about 30 people behind the camera.”
For Graziano, this gig was not completely new — he has been a video producer for 20 years. However, he has not usually worked in front of a camera.
Graziano was also interested from childhood in how things work.
“I would take apart an old broken radio, see how it worked or take apart a broken blender and be like ‘Wow, this was kind of fun,’” Graziano said.
Working in video production, he missed that tactile feeling of building something and then one day he read about making a knife and decided to try it. Mastering knife making evolved into woodworking as well.
“One of the coolest things (about) making something with your hands is both giving and receiving gifts because they are such a one-of-a-kind item,” said Graziano. “To us, it is better than a store-bought item. When you get something that’s handmade or give it out and see people be like ‘Wow, you made this, really?’”
