Jill Greenberg
Mike Rowe has drawn a crowd. Again. This time it's on a chilly December night in Florence, South Carolina, at a local joint called J. Michael's Grill and Raw Bar. In between autographing beer naps and posing for pictures, Rowe, the craggily handsome star of the Discovery Channel's hit series Dirty Jobs, is officiating an ill-advised drinking contest between one of the show's crew and a friendly waiter. The crew is enjoying a rare night off, and by the time Rowe joins them, the challenge--be the first to chug an Irish car bomb (a shot of Bailey's dropped into a pint of Guinness)--has already been negotiated.
After watching two increasingly boisterous elimination rounds, Rowe decides to jump in as judge and jury. He sets the stage while his fans gather round. "I'll say, 'One, two ...'" He thumps the table. "Then you drink." He eyes the two gladiators. "When finished, glasses down. The one with the least remaining liquid wins."
"What about spillage?" someone yells.
"I'll be factoring that in," he deadpans. "And as always, the decision of the judge is final." The crowd roars. Rowe beams. The Dirty Jobs soundman puts on his game face and prepares to power down. Sadly for him, his fellow crew members have loudly bet on the local. Not a good sign. "One, two ..." Thump! Some six seconds later, Rowe studies the glasses intently. "Too close to call. There's one simple solution." He pauses. "Drink-off!" The place erupts. For years, Rowe was a master of the simple solution. Largely free of ambition, he got by as an itinerant actor, taking on an infomercial here, a pilot or two there. He spent three years as a pitchman on the night shift at QVC, a job he lost for appearing to do ungodly things to a nun doll on the air. His was a life of guiltless underachievement.
But Rowe has stumbled in the past couple of years into international celebrity through a most unlikely route--by doing other people's dirty work. On Dirty Jobs, he performs the sorts of tasks most of us couldn't bear to do but are really happy someone else will. He has tried his hand at more than 165 of them. He has sloshed around in sewers, peeled roadkill, cleaned up epic septic explosions, castrated horses, and hunted plagues of vermin--all while being coached (and sometimes mocked) by the real people who do it every day. (Unlike most shows in the reality-TV mold, it's the star, not the civilians, who ends up the butt of the jokes.)
Dirty Jobs, which first aired in November 2003, is an homage to George Plimpton, with a nod to Studs Terkel--an introduction, Rowe says, to the "men and women who do the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us." Watching Rowe struggle with a forklift or wade through raw sewage is good, nasty fun. But for all the bathroom humor, his real curiosity about and respect for his subjects telegraphs a powerful message: There's dignity in hard work, expertise in unexpected places, and deep satisfaction in tackling and finishing a tough job.
These themes--plus the chance to see Rowe vomit on camera, which he does occasionally--have struck a chord with viewers. They flock to online fan boards, unabashedly declaring their "man crushes" (though the ladies dig him too) and reliving their favorite dirty moments. He is swarmed by autograph seekers at airports, captured on camera phones at Starbucks, and regaled with stories from dirty jobbers everywhere. "My family owns a sewer business!" gushed a waitress recently in South Carolina, as Rowe signed menus for the staff. Walking down the street in New York, Rowe got a shout-out from a cop and the handcuffed perp in his cruiser: "Man, you're awesome!" they said in unison.
But Dirty Jobs isn't just working-class fare. It has become a monster hit, at least by cable standards. Based on total audience, the program has remained a top-three series on the network for the past two years and sits in the top five of all ad-supported cable shows for its Tuesday-evening time slot. And while it's huge with older folks, Dirty Jobs has given Discovery a welcome boost among younger viewers, delivering a double-digit rise in the lucrative 18-to-34 and 2-to-17 demographics. It was on track to air 700 times in 2007 alone.
For Rowe, that success has translated into opportunities he'd never thought possible. He negotiated a major relationship with Ford (starring in a slew of spots throughout 2007 and 2008) and is inking deals with Whirlpool and HP. He commands six figures as a speaker, talking about the show's themes with undirty places such as
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Recent Comments | 2 Total
February 8, 2008 at 11:00am by Robert Safian
Mike Rowe is appearing at the Border's bookstore in Westwood California tomorrow, Feb 9, at 1pm to sign copies of the magazine and of the new Dirty Jobs DVD. All are welcome!
February 12, 2008 at 7:26pm by Andrew Wilson
Good article. Fascinating character morphed out of a seemingly ordinary lad.