History Series / DirtyJobs

** "Alright, lets go do a rim job!" How in the hell did that make it through?

** Mike is also astounded when he finds out that the name of one llama is literally [[HookerWithAHeartOfGold Call Girl]]. When he has it explained to him that her avoiding a male's advances is a sign she might be pregnant he jokes that this would probably be true of any woman named Call Girl.

* ButtMonkey: Producer [[http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/dirty-jobs-barsky-the-brave.html Dave Barsky]] is a ''magnet'' for humiliating and hilarious accidents. Mike plays this up every chance he gets.

* ClassicallyTrainedExtra: Mike is an opera singer.

* DeadpanSnarker: Mike gets sardonic in direct proportion to the crappiness of whatever job he's doing at the moment. His hosts tend to do pretty well too. Even the crew, occasionally.
** Mike's tendency to snark is what got him fired from the graveyard shift at {{QVC}}. Three times.

* DoubleEntendre: Mike Rowe, of course. Discovery Networks even compiled a clip titled [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqzQxMtmjn8 "King of Double Entendre"]]

* [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys Everything's Worse With Monkeys]]: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oCXxUg0SJA Meet Paddy.]] He hates the entire Dirty Jobs crew with a passion.

* FollowTheLeader: "The Worst Job I Ever Loved" segments on the Los Angeles CBS news; ''{{Hoarders}}'' (the cleanup crew and filmmakers have to deal with ''psychologically disturbing'' levels of clutter that includes rotten food and dead animals); ''Dhani Tackles The Globe'' on Travel Channel and ''Sports Jobs With Junior Seau'' on Versus; the [[CulturalTranslation second US variation]] of ''Secret Millionaire'', ''Series/UndercoverBoss'' (the premier episode features the CEO of Waste Management).

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Aside from, y'know, all the ''actual'' feces (human and non) Mike has dealt with over the years, how about the time he 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? Did I mention 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."

* GroinAttack: "Oh! Got me right in a bad place!" Let's just say that Mike should probably be wearing a cup at this point considering how many times this has happened. One particularly hilarious bit was when he was at a camel farm and got to ride one, but unfortunately for him the saddle hit a very tender spot...

* ManlyTears: The after-effect of the fireworks ingredients. The firework-maker is used to tears seeping from (and possibly stinging) his eyes every night; Mike, less so.

* MeaningfulName: Popcorn the binturong/bearcat, named so because he smells exactly like popcorn (and poo because he dragged his tail through it).

* MrFanservice: A number of [[strike:female]] [[EvenTheGuysWantHim fans]] seem to find Mike Rowe sexually attractive.
** Look up ''any'' video on YouTube of Dirty Jobs or just Mike by himself, and there will be at least one comment on just how hot he is.

-->'''Mike''': "That's not my girlfriend. Friendly, though!"

* OlderThanTheyLook: The pin-setting machine mechanic. Barsky is simply astonished that a guy who looks a bit younger than Mike is actually fifty (Mike: Do you two need some alone time?).

* ProductPlacement: [[EverybodyOwnsAFord Ford trucks]], particularly noticeable in newer seasons (even if it's a 15-year-old sole Ford unit in an otherwise all-GM fleet). Mike Rowe is the current spokesman for Ford.

-->Mike: Grab a sushi. The thing I like about it the most is that it's so very fresh!
* TheRealHeroes: As noted in the opening narration, the jobs Mike learns about are almost entirely blue-collar, always physically demanding, and often very unpleasant, to say the least--but many of them also make the luxuries industrialized society takes for granted possible.

* RunningGag: "BARSKY!"

*** The "righty-tighty, lefty-loosey" thing gets subverted when he's at a monkey sanctuary in South Africa during a lull while shooting for Shark Week - it's "righty-loosey, lefty-tighty".

* SelfDeprecation: Mike is [[http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/dirty-jobs-mike-rowe-bloopers.html a master at this]] and allows for many of his mistakes to air, not to mention frequently snarking on himself throughout the normal action of any given show.
-->'''Guest:''' You're probably right-handed, aren't you.
-->'''Mike:''' It doesn't matter, I'm equally incompetent with either hand.

* ShoutOut: Mike tends to make these, including at least one ShoutOutToShakespeare.

* TrueCompanions: Mike and his camera crew come off as pretty close.
** At least until he locked them in [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom Doomsday Seed Vault]] and they froze to death. (not really)

* {{Understatement}}: Mike Rowe is a master of these.

* ActorAllusion: While working on a suspension bridge, Mike gets the job of directing traffic and he's all too happy to point out a Ford truck driving by. Guess who's the official spokesperson for Ford right now?

* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: Averted; we see just how small real sewers are.
** One poo-pumping station, which admittedly is not itself a sewer, was around 100 feet deep, however. They were in there to replace one of the pumps.

* FollowTheLeader: "The Worst Job I Ever Loved" segments on the Los Angeles CBS news; ''{{Hoarders}}'' (the cleanup crew and filmmakers have to deal with ''psychologically disturbing'' levels of clutter that includes rotten food and dead animals); ''Dhani Tackles The Globe'' on Travel Channel and ''Sports Jobs With Junior Seau'' on Versus; the [[CulturalTranslation second US variation]] of ''Secret Millionaire'', ''UndercoverBoss'' (the premier episode features the CEO of Waste Management).

* {{Spinoff}}: Of a sort: ''BillyTheExterminator'' (the over-dressed yet philosophical goth exterminator) now has his own show on A&E.

Popular DiscoveryChannel show in which host Mike Rowe visits a variety of job sites that are filthy, dangerous, weird, disgusting, or all of the above. He interviews workers, learns about the job, and tries his hand at performing each task.

* 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.

* NoDeadBodyPoops: An interesting aversion. When touring the facility where a couple makes high quality birdseed part of the job involves scalding a bag full of maggots in a pail of hot water so they'll die instantly, and after they put it in Mike asks why the water got so cloudy so quickly. The host then informs him that what he's seeing is the result of the maggots, in effect, shitting themselves to death.

** The crew once lost over $10,000 worth of equipment when the boat they were on in the Everglades tipped over and threw them all into the water. The denouement of the show was Mike surveying the damage so the audience could see why they were no longer on the air (which turned out to not be the case, thankfully).
** Sometimes crosses over with camera''man'' abuse (though usually not intentional) like how Troy got his hair caught in the pull line half way up a skyscraper in Hawaii. If he'd fallen he would have been ''scalped'', but luckily all he lost was a bit of hair thanks to a member of the window washing team and a swiss army knife. The guys have also set up cameras underneath trees that are about to be felled or explosives that are about to be set off in the hopes of getting interesting footage.

** Mike is also astounded when he finds out that the name of one llama is literally [[HookerWithAHeartOFGod Call Girl]]. When he has it explained to him that her avoiding a male's advances is a sign she might be pregnant he jokes that this would probably be true of any woman named Call Girl.

** Also repeated jabs at Discovery Channel, such as explaining that their cameramen have no money to steal, which doubles as BitingTheHandHumor.

* CameraAbuse: Frequently, and sometimes camera''man'' abuse (though usually not intentional) like how Troy got his hair caught in the pull line half way up a skyscraper in Hawaii. If he'd fallen he would have been ''scalped'', but luckily all he lost was a bit of hair thanks to a member of the window washing team and a swiss army knife. The guys have also set up cameras underneath trees that are about to be felled or explosives that are about to be set off in the hopes of getting interesting footage.

** And he used to be a host on the QVC home shopping network, and says that they fired him three times for snarking about the products he was hawking on air. He later found out that the guys at ''MadTV'' loved to watch him to inspire their own subversive humor.

* PantheraAwesome: In one episode Mike [[http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/dirty-jobs-playing-with-teeth.html helps take care of a Ti-Liger]] (which is the result of a tiger breading with a liger, aka a lion and tiger hybrid) named Coby, and Mike is visibly uncomfortable being around her even after being told that she's like "a big puppy", especially since her jaws can crush bones.

* ClipShow