History Series / DirtyJobs

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* BadassBaritone: Mike Rowe has a deep, warm voice and puts himself in some pretty risky situations to boot.

* ADateWithRosiePalms: Given that Mike is the master of the DoubleEntendre, he'll make a reference to such any chance he can get.
-->'''Anne''': ''(Referring to Mike's stirring of shortening)'' He's got good wrist movement.
-->'''Mike''': Yeah well, a lot of practice.

** Mike had a field day with date palm pollination job. Perhaps tree reproduction and a fruit called a date was just too easy, though he didn't seize on the [[ADateWithRosiePalms palm part]].

* EvenTheGuysWantHim: See below. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R7LjhiUlA4 For example...]]

* EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks: Every year since the show's conception, Mike has done a shark-related episode for Shark week. The scariest thing he's ever done on show is probably testing a shark-proof chain mail dive suit. First hand.

* NiceHat: Mike is rarely ever seen without a cap on his head.

** Doug's obsession with artistic lighting and acrophobia -- he was "No, Just...No" with sitting on a bosun's chair with a 40 lb. camera on the Honolulu hi-rise but later redeemed himself on top of a 50-ft. antenna.

* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: More like Everything's '''Worse''' With Monkeys.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oCXxUg0SJA Meet Paddy.]] He hates the entire Dirty Jobs crew with a passion.
** One later job had Mike and crew inside a cage of lemurs that didn't seem to pleased about strangers. While they weren't as aggressive Mike quickly got Paddy flashbacks.
** Then played straight in the 150th Extravaganza, where for no particular reason, they had a live monkey hanging around, which Mike only had one scene with at the end of the episode.

The original ''Dirty Jobs'' series will return along with Rowe on January 2, 2022.

* ReTool: Averted. The show has stuck fastidiously to its original premise, despite Mike's increasingly fervent pleas for new show ideas, and despite having to find some jobs that barely qualify, every now and again they come roaring back with a "Today I'm knee-deep in pig sh* t!" ep.

2020 sought the return of the Dirty Jobs series with another continuation in Dirty Jobs Rowe'd Trip, which is set to premiere on July 7th.

* SideBet: Mike sees the result of one such bet when he sees that one of the concrete workers is wearing a pink thong that's visible above his waistband. When he asks about it Mike finds out that it's because the guy made a bet about a football team and lost. Another guy was wearing nail polish for the same reason.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar:
** Aside from, y'know, all the ''actual'' feces (human and non) Mike has dealt with over the years, there's the the visited a mannequin factory, copped a feel with some undressed torsos (with a pervy far-away look on his face) and asked the guy who makes the vinyl hand replicas if he had "hundreds of hand jobs" every day. All of this aired with no bleeping or blurring.
--->(while pulling a vinyl hand out of its mold): "Ah, I didn't pull out in time."
** The time he was working at a bone black factory and was hammering on the side of a container while making it sound like a BDSM session. The look on the face of his host was priceless.
** During a rerun show, Mike had this gem, while holding two large, orange inflatable balls. "Like walnuts. Not many people know this, but walnuts are full of hair. And when they fall from the tree, they fall in the dirt. And no one wants their walnuts hairy and dirty. At least, not in this country." And then, after the short about the walnuts: "There you go, beer, nuts and tight spaces all in one show."
** "Alright, lets go do a rim job!" How in the hell did that make it through? (Well, it was a segment on Tires ...)

As of 2014 Mike began a new show called "Somebody's Gotta Do It" on CNN, with a similar premise.

* PursuingTheDreamJob: The whole premise of ''Dirty Jobs'' is made to defy this trope. It focuses on all kinds of skilled tradesmen who followed a similar pattern: who looked to see where everyone around them was going, and went the opposite way. Who followed opportunity, not passion, and prospered as a result.