Dirty Jobs

Dirty Jobs

Category: Reality Television

Star: Mike Rowe (also narrator for Mythbusters and Most Dangerous Catch?---to be verified)

Opening Theme: "We Care A Lot" by Faith No More

Number of Episodes: 78

Original Run: November 7, 2003 to present

Dirty Jobs is a Discovery Channel show. In the show Mike Rowe takes on jobs that are seen as "dirty" because they are difficult, strange, and/or messy. He works with the professionals of each job to show who does what job and how. The show premiered with three pilot episodes in November 2003. It returned as a series on July 26, 2005. The episodes shown on the European Discovery Channel sometimes include scenes that were not included in the U.S. version

An Australian version of the show commenced airing on the Nine Network from October 7, 2007.

Mike Rowe is a smart quick-witted television personality. The way he interacts with the people in the blue-collar jobs he is exploring makes the show the success it is.

The show is filmed so that Rowe is seen as a fully-involved assistant during a typical work day. He does the actual work and faces the actual risks of job. The usually cameraman is Doug Glover, who often gets just as dirty as Rowe does. Rowe is always muttering, on camera, about how Dave Barsky (field producer for the show) is putting him in another dangerous situation to get "the shot".

Mike Rowe makes jokes about the jobs but he never makes fun of the workers themselves. The show is about showing what people will do to earn money.

The show always begin with Mike Rowe's quote as follows: "My name is Mike Rowe, and this is my job: I explore the country looking for people who aren't afraid to get dirty—hard-working men and women who earn an honest living doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us. Now... get ready, to get dirty."Dirty Jobs is a spin-off of from a segment host Mike Rowe did on a local San Francisco program called Somebody's Gotta Do It. He did a very graphic piece on cow artificial insemination, Rowe got all kinds of letters. Rowe then sent the tape to the Discovery Channel and they made it a show (Dirty Jobs).

Dirty Jobs is now produced by Craig Piligian (executive producer) of Pilgrim Film & Television. The Discovery Channel executive producer is Gena McCarthy. Craig Piligian is also the producer of American Chopper and American Hot Rod. Mike has stated in recently aired promos (done along side a large sow) that he originally wanted to honor his father, and grandfather, by bringing fame to the less-than-glorious careers.

In July 2006, the show aired two special episodes, one at the beginning and one at the end, of Discovery Channel's Shark Week. Mike Rowe hosted these. Rowe was shown doing a number of jobs related to the animals. He took on the job of a shark repellent tester and a shark suit tester. Both of those jobs involved Rowe jumping into a shark feeding frenzy. The show titles were "Dirty Jobs That Bite" (the opening show) and "Dirty Jobs That Bite Harder" (closing show).

In late August of 2006, the show made its 100th episode. To celebrate it a two-hour episode showing Mike's day with the U.S. Army's 187th Ordnance Battalion at Fort Jackson. There were bloopers and an "about me" segment of Mike's crew. Mike Rowe and Dave Barsky played a guitar/banjo duet and performed a song about the 100 dirty jobs. The show aired a 2-hour 150th job special in early December 2007.



The special showed footage of Rowe's 150th job (working on a yak and bison farm in Montana) and footage of a party held at a San Francisco junkyard where people featured in past Dirty Jobs segments were united with Rowe.

Each episode ends with a segment where Rowe tells the viewers that the show's continued existence depends on viewer submissions of suggestions for additional dirty jobs, and instructs them to go to the show's website for details on how to submit ideas. Rowe has often noted that the show would be lost without the viewer contributions. The Discovery Channel has been flooded with idea submissions. In July 2007 Rowe was a guest on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. He told Ferguson "I haven't had an original idea since then."




There was stuff that was "too gross" to make it on air. One such situation was a segment filmed by Dirty Jobs in 2003. It involved roadkill taxidermy. According to roadkill taxidermy artist Stephen Paternite the segment was cut by the Discovery Channel as "too gross." The segment involved Mike Rowe and Paternite gathering skin dead raccoons, which Paternite will eventually turn into art pieces. The segment is available on Paternite's website and on You Tube under the name "Too Gross for Discovery." Other segments that were not aired include the "body farmer" and crime scene investigators. Even aired segments can be heavily edited, such as the "skull cleaner" segment. Parts of it were seen as too graphic for television.