Dirty Jobs

The good news for Mike Rowe is that he’s the star of a hit television show. The bad news? It’s a cable TV show, Dirty Jobs.

He has waded through sewers, peeled roadkill, moved houses, castrated horses, and cleaned up monumental septic explosions. He does the jobs that most of us couldn’t bear to do, although we know how important they are. You might not think that many people would want him in their living room, but in fact they love to see him — 700 times a year.

His name is Mike Rowe, and he’s the star of the cable TV show Dirty Jobs.

Rowe has tried his hand at more than 165 of the dirtiest and most disgusting jobs being done today. He serves slop to pigs, removes bones from fish, hunts plagues of vermin, and sloshes around in sewers — sometimes vomiting on camera. He gets coached by the people who do these jobs for a living, and gets mocked by them as well. Unlike most reality-TV shows, it is the star of Dirty Jobs who ends up the butt of the jokes.

And a star he is. According to Fast Company magazine (February 2008), Rowe is swarmed by autograph seekers at airports, photographed by camera phones in coffee ...