Alex Carson
Mike Rowe has become somewhat of a household name through his hit program Dirty Jobs. On that Discovery Channel staple, Mike personally engaged with workers from some of the dirtiest industries in the world. This occurred in the form of filmed segments that featured Mike on location, performing the duties alongside the workers themselves. Besides being fascinated with the dirty jobs on display, audiences were won over by Mike’s heartwarming sense of humor and unique affability. Rowe is now looking to translate this winning charm into a new educational endeavor, this time on the Discover Channel network’s new streaming platform, Discovery+. This show, which is spun off from the host’s own podcast, is called Six Degrees with Mike Rowe. It will feature the host tackling numerous topics from throughout history, with the aim of instilling a higher personal connection with history into the audience. Sit tight with Facts Verse as Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs is back with a new show!
Mike Rowe is a television host that is perhaps best known for the program Dirty Jobs. This show, which originated on the Discovery Channel in 2005, went on to see massive success for both the network and it’s host. The show featured it’s host showcasing various careers that most of the public would find somewhat disgusting to do themselves, such as many that involved livestock and public sanitation. Workers from these jobs were keen to participate in the show, allowing Mike to report on what it’s like to perform these grotesque duties. Unsurprisingly, audiences loved tuning into the program. It provided both cheap thrills in the form of gross-out gags, as well as some excellent insight into industries many audience members might not otherwise be privy to. The show was both educational and fun, a philosophy that Mike Rowe and the Discovery Channel were understandably anxious to bring into future endeavors.
Dirty Jobs originally saw an incredibly successful run that lasted from July 26 of 2005 to July 12 of 2012. This is in addition to the original pilot run, which consisted of three individual specials that aired in 2003. Over the show’s run, it was nominated for five Emmy Awards. When it came to an end, Mike Rowe wasn’t totally ready to give up the concept. He leveraged a show based around the same concept with CNN, this time called Somebody’s Gotta Do It. However, that wasn’t the end of the host’s relationship with the Discovery Channel network. Somebody’s Gotta Do It lasted for four seasons, upon which time both Rowe and CNN agreed that the program and run it’s course. However, Mike Rowe still wasn’t done with television and had some new ideas he was interested in developing.
After ending things with CNN, Mike Rowe once again was welcomed back into the embrace of the Discovery Channel network. With him, he brought a new idea that was going to use his patented mix of entertainment and humor to enlighten audiences about an entirely different topic than dirty jobs. This time, the focus was going to be on history. Discovery Channel thought that this could be a perfect fit for their new streaming platform, Discovery+. They quickly agreed to let Mike Rowe film the series, which was to be called Six Degrees with Mike Rowe, based off his podcast The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe.
The show aims to tackle the topic of history with a much more personal connection to the average person, allowing the audience to feel a deeper kinship with tales of the past. It comes as a form of activism from it’s host, who feels that understanding the past and our connection to it may help heal the divide the so many people feel across the world. As per the name of the show, the idea is that there are only six degrees of separation between any two things, being applied to topics throughout history. In this sense, the audience can begin to feel a more personal connection with history. As well, Rowe feels that by understanding the past, there is less of a chance of the past being repeated.
Six Degrees with Mike Rowe aims to instill more humor and personality into history with it’s host’s trademark sense of humor. It is inspired by the concept of his podcast The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe. The title of the podcast refers to the fact that Mike Rowe may not have the facts about history 100% correct, as he wasn’t there firsthand. His recounting of history is simply “the way the he heard it”. With this concept, the host seems to be trying to alleviate some of the stuffy pretense that we generally associate with history. Perhaps, with Six Degrees with Mike Rowe, we can have as much fun learning about history as we did learning about some of the world’s dirtiest jobs! If you’re enjoying this video so far, be sure to hit the like button to show your support! As well, subscribe to be among the first to know when more Facts Verse videos are on their way!
Mike Rowe has said that the concept for Six Degrees with Mike Rowe is meant to pay tribute to his father, who was a high school history teacher. However, Dirty Jobs was also to meant to pay tribute to one of Mike Rowe’s close family members. The television host’s grandfather was a skilled tradesman, and Mike always admired that incredible amount of passion that he put into even the crassest job. In that way, the concept for Dirty Jobs was meant to pay tribute to this aspect of his grandfather.
Dirty Jobs was derived from personal passion, and Mike Rowe came up with the concept on his own. He made a pitch that he offered up as a recurring segment to Good Morning America. The program declined the offer, despite allowing Mike back on later several times as a guest. The early small segments that Mike made to demo the idea to prospective executives were short, but already had the tone down for what the show was going to become, from it’s initial pilot specials until it’s later days on CNN as Somebody’s Gotta Do It. Somebody’s Gotta Do It was more than a spiritual successor, inheriting the name that Mike Rowe gave to the original pitch. Discovery Channel disliked the name, suggesting “Dirty Jobs” instead.
When the show finally got into production, Mike found that filming it was slightly more difficult than he had anticipated. This was due not only to situational events having to do with specific filming locations, but also to an unlikely connection with the mob. You see, many of the jobs that the program sought to film were in the sanitation industries, which the mob seemed to have a stranglehold over in many areas. This sinister connection prevented many filming opportunities for the crew, yet they still managed to get plenty of incredible footage in other lines of work. Dirty Jobs ran for eight seasons in it’s original run, with the final season being rebranded to Dirty Jobs Down Under and taking place entirely in Australia. Despite limitations, Mike and the crew never ran out of ideas, with over 200 episodes in total between Dirty Jobs and Somebody’s Gotta Do It.
Besides sanitation, another avenue that Mike rarely considered for Dirty Jobs was jobs that were in the medical field. However, this had nothing to do with any secret mob connection. Instead, Mike felt that filming the show in a medical facility would be too big of a risk for those involved in the filming. His main concerns were the privacy and safety of the crew of the facility, as well as the patients. However, Mike is keen to express that he has a great deal of respect for those in the medical field.
While Dirty Jobs never had any direct run-ins with the mob, the crew did get into danger a couple of times while filming. One time in South Africa, the show was filming a segment at a monkey sanctuary and a camera operator was attacked and wounded. Another time, Rowe himself was forced to personally engage with sharks. Although the encounter got heated, Rowe survived. Along with his new show on Discovery+, a spin-off of Dirty Jobs has been airing on the traditional Discovery Channel network. This spin-off is titled Dirty Jobs: Rowe’d Trip. Between this new spin-off and Six Degrees with Mike Rowe, Mike Rowe’s future looks promising!
Besides Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe has also hosted plenty of other shows, including Shark Week and Deadliest Catch. Comment down below to share how you know Mike Rowe best, or your favorite segment so far from Dirty Jobs! As always, like the video to support more content, and subscribe and hit the notification bell to be among the first to know when that content is on it’s way!
