Now, That's a Dirty Job

Since I spent a lot of time on the sofa this past year, watching tee vee, I tried to make the effort to watch educational tee vee, so I could at least get something out of the only thing I was able to do. As such, and as I've mentioned many times, I watched the Discovery Channel a lot---and in the process got completely hooked on Dirty Jobs. If you're unfamiliar with the premise of the show, it's fairly simple: people who have "dirty jobs" invite the host, Mike Rowe, out to complete a day's labor. It's one of the funnier things I've seen in a long while, because Rowe is completely incompetent and always manages to screw things up. Very funny stuff. Think of it as "Inspector Clouseau Goes to the Dump" or anywhere else that's even remotely filthy. It's a lot fun, and it has the added benefit of making you realize that being a television show host ain't all that glamorous.

Anyhoo, the husband forwarded this interview with Mike Rowe along, and not surprisingly, I laughed just as much reading it as I would have had I been watching his show. Here's one brief, but hilarious, excerpt, regarding Mike's pre-Dirty Jobs days at QVC:

{...}QVC taught Rowe the ins and outs of live TV and how to talk off the cuff on just about anything. "There was no training," he recalls. "Nothing." Working the ultimate graveyard shift--3 a.m. to 6 a.m.--Rowe was left alone to hawk thousands of different products pretty much however he wanted. "Basically, I just made fun of the products and the callers. I was a complete anarchist." He was selling lava lamps, Hummels, and other nonsense, and falling in love with the occasional hand model.

Then came the business with the nun doll. He had just returned from a weekend getaway involving the beach, a case of Dos Equis, and one of those hand models, when a Sunday-evening emergency call arrived from the studio: The prime-time host was ill. Eager to prove his mettle, Rowe rubbed the weekend from his eyes and headed into work, only to find a display of collectible girlie dolls waiting for him. "There were dozens of little hobbits," he recalls, still sounding vaguely offended some 18 years later. "Little pixies from another time, just sitting there like these little Victorian whores. I thought it was a joke."

He was about to be humiliated in his first shot at prime time. "I'd already called everyone I knew to watch." The producer tried to calm him down, but in his panic, Rowe just reverted to his usual shtick. He picked up the first doll, Rachel--"a nightmare in crushed velvet"--by the hair and plopped her in his lap. "I think I described her as 'soulless, a little creepy but kind of hot,' and as 'a runaway from Little Women,'" he says now, rubbing his head. The crew on the set was dumbstruck. But, Rowe says, "I was really encouraged because the little whore sold out in record time."

Then someone handed Rowe a 2-foot nun doll named Sister Mary Margaret. "If you wound her up, she played 'Climb Every Mountain,' which I thought was hysterical." Rowe had four minutes to kill but ran out of material in 30 seconds, including the time he spent having her spank him with a ruler. Then he tried to crank up her music feature. "I've already announced that she plays music, and I'm squeezing her hand, looking around her neck, but I can't figure it out." When the technical director finally cut away to a display version of the same doll, Rowe, in desperation, turned the little sister upside down in his lap and peeled down her garment. He finally found the crank "in the small of her back, but it's really sort of in her ass." Unfortunately, the technical director cut back to Rowe without warning: "Suddenly, I see myself live on the monitor, with Sister Mary Margaret's face in my crotch, my hand on her ass, and her habit around her neck. And the damn thing is playing 'Climb Every Mountain.'" Rowe froze in horror, then made an unfortunate gesture not suitable for prime time. "It was not good." {...}

Go read the whole thing.