Rampaging peacocks in Florida, that’s a good one. And my favorite, the big black snakes he and the ‘snake lady’ try to catch at that lake. He gets bitten several times, dancing around, ‘ow ow ow ow’ with a snake dangling from his arm, and it cracks me up every time - I would be screaming my head off.
That was just it- most of the laughter was at HIM, because he was so bad at some of these things, or because he found humor in it that wasn’t at the expense of the workers.
I do admit that I did feel bad for Barski and Doug on occasion though; those guys deserved their own episode about how their jobs were tough and dirty in their own right, just trying to film Mike doing his thing.
My favorite episode is the Charcoal maker.
Mike and the film crew were totally covered in soot. Mike gets his foot stuck in an ash pile and it took a couple people to pull him out.
I think they had a behind-the-scenes episode - I definitely remember seeing Doug having to get himself into the spaces before Mike did, while carrying a heavy camera too.
They did have one of those, and lots of little peeks during the episodes. I was thinking something a bit more in-depth than the behind the scenes episodes- maybe showing the everyday difficulty of being a production/camera crew for a TV show, and then show how Dirty Jobs was that much worse, because they had to do it hanging over a lake of sewage or whatever.
One of my favorite aspects of the show was that we were invited to laugh with the people on his show rather than at them. This was at a time when other “reality” based programs were often predicated on laughing at people who were poor or funny accents we could make fun of.
Those charcoal makers were scary as any horror-movie monsters in the woods. I know they worked at one of the world’s worst dirty jobs full time, but they scared the sh*t out of me.
I always thought this scene was staged.
Did you know Santa has a dirty job?
If you think about it, Mike did do chimney sweeping. And worked with reindeer.
And worked with dairy cows. Never did cookies but he did prove that food production equipment gets pretty disgusting when you have to take it apart and clean it out.
handy tip - never watch ‘Dirty Jobs’ if it is about a food item that you really like - there are some things you simply can’t “un-know” when it comes to how certain foods are mass produced.
That being said - the one at the cheese factory was very entertaining.
That actually doesn’t bother me. The episode I absolutely can’t watch is the one about hair lice removal, because it makes my head itch and itch. I’m getting itchy just thinking about it. Blargh.
You know how when everyone upgraded their standard definition TVs to HD about a decade ago, everyone was like “Oh wow, that picture is so much more detailed!” Well, the first thing I watched when I got my first HDTV was Dirty Jobs, specifically Mike collecting a stool sample from a racehorse. Turns out, there are some things you don’t necessarily want to see in full HD detail.
And Barsky touched his head and they shaved all his hair off! Great TV.
The most recent episode we saw had Mike participating in iguana removal from some Florida condo estate grounds. Seems they tunnel under everything and create sinkholes. Plus their waste is quite smelly and carries some disease (e-coli?), The crew he was working with said they sometimes killed dozens and even hundreds per job. I wonder with the recent freeze if the population was thinned out at all. Seems like a good time to have an iguana bonfire.
It was salmonella that they carry. Unfortunately, they were probably safe in their tunnels and just laid low during the cold snap.
Florida really has bad luck with invasive species. Pythons, chickens, and now iguanas, not to mention the plants.
The Texas freeze did some substantial damage to the exotic (but wanted) animal farm populations.
One wonders if they could have had a BBQ, like some people do with nutria along the Gulf Coast. I’ve heard both species are quite tasty.
Mike’s a lot more risque in his banter, and some of it really stretches the limits of basic cable censorship. Oh, well, I’m just glad he’s back.