Funny / Dirty Jobs

Pointing out all the side-splitting funny moments in this show is near impossible, but we're going to give it a good try anyway.

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• One word: Geoducks.^note Pronounced "Gooey Duck" Especially:
  Is that a Geoduck in your pocket or are you just happy sashimi?
  • One bit that didn't make it into the show was him saying that he was frozen from his neck down to his geoduck. Yes.
• During an episode where Mike accompanies a crew of abandoned mine shaft pluggers, the head of the crew makes a remark that you get "surprisingly philosophical with a shovel in your hand." While Mike's reply is funny, the crowning moment comes during the show's credits, where Mike and the head of the mine pluggers have a discussion on philosophical authors. And it's a dead serious discussion, where Mike Rowe quotes Descartes. And just to make things funnier, it sparked a lengthy discussion on the subject on the show's forums.
• He went up with a windmill maintenance crew, and one of the guys told him about how snakes sometimes crawl into the head of the windmill while it's on the ground, only to bite one of the workers once the whole thing was assembled.
  Mike: Bit by a snake in an erection.
  Storyteller: That's right.
  Mike: (Aside Glance) Every man's worst nightmare.
• This sequence, in which Mike has way too much fun with tossing bologna. That's not a euphemism.
• The episode where he assists the Department of Fish and Wildlife with eradicating sea lampreys around the Great Lakes has some hilarious moments, especially how the lampreys repeatedly latch onto the camera lens, the tank, and the faceplate of Mike's biohazard suit. Not to mention how they demonstrate that spitting into the lamprey tank makes the lamprey go insane, and then Barsky tries the same thing with no effect.
• The goose plucker who was displeased that the government no longer allows you to discipline a child by hitting them with a dead duck. And her now-adult grandson mildly stating that he has in fact been hit with dead ducks and it's "all-around wrong."
• The episode where Mike assists in the Crawley Cheese Factory has some funny moments. The factory manager tells him that the grandson of the factory founder actually died on the floor while making cheese, and when she points out the exact spot where he keeled over from a heart attack (not two feet away from where they're both standing), Mike's expression is priceless. It becomes even more so when the manager tells him that she thinks his spirit is still there.
  Mike: You're telling me I'm in a haunted cheese factory?!
• In the "Wetland Warrior" episode, while playing the role of "escaped prisoner" on the run from C.B. Wiley's team of bloodhounds, Mike takes a moment to wonder:
  Mike: What would I do if I were Bear Grylls? I'd say [mimicking Grylls's accent] "My only chance is to get out of the open. I've got to somehow find the woods, the cover of the trees. And then, fashion a lean-to perhaps, from matchsticks."
  • The chase ends with Mike up a tree, surrounded by dogs, handlers, and C.B. and Cash Wiley, both of whom are clearly enjoying the situation immensely.
    C.B.: Of course we don't know how dangerous this individual is, so you wanna borrow my handcuffs?
    Mike: [into his handheld camera] I... am so scared!
    ...
    Cash: Convict! Do you wanna come down out of the tree peacefully? Or do you want us to remove you?
    Mike: I'm a branch! I'm a branch covered with moss!
    Cash: Come down or we're gonna shoot you out of the tree, one of the two.
    Mike: That seems extreme, Cash. [into his handheld] I think they found me.
• Most of Mike's visit to Skip Cockerum's bird-feed operation in the "Spider Pharm" episode is comedy gold, particularly the segment where Mike and Anne have to climb into a tank to clean out the encrusted fat left over from making suet, accompanied by peanut gallery commentary from Skip: "What's better than ass and gravy?"
  Anne: Is this a family show?
  Mike: It was.
  • The hilarity continues when Mike tries helping Anne remove the massive blocks of now-solid suet from their metal molds, a process which involves trying very hard not to drop the greasy seventy-pound mold on either his own fingers or Anne's:
    Mike: Note the placement of the fingers. Note the size of the device. Behold the weight - roughly seventy pounds. Imagine the pain. [Aside to Anne as she laughs quietly:] Not now, I'm building drama.
    • He then asks Anne to move her hand out of the way, only to find when she does that her hand was in the way because she was holding down the plastic tray the mold was propped on. Which immediately pops up to smack Mike in the knuckles.
• During Mike's visit to a llama ranch with a large-animal veterinarian, he learns that when male llamas fight, they instinctively go for each other's testicles. After being gobsmacked for a few moments, he jokes around with Steve the llama rancher about how he hopes only the male llamas do this...and then Steve mentions a Noodle Incident at a local bar...
• Mike's visit to the Starmont Winery is full of funny moments, as he's guided through every step in the wine-making process by Operations Manager Remi Cohen, who makes a point of doing the dirty work herself once a year to remind herself how hard it really is. As a consequence both Mike and Remi demonstrate about equal levels of competence (which is to say, not a huge amount), and they both share some self-deprecating humor. At one point Remi accidentally slips into Marketing Speak, which amuses Mike no end.
  Mike: Did you just say 'Localize the Fruit Zone?'
  Remi: I...I think I did.
  Mike: [rolls his eyes] Management...
• The Crew also get their moments. Troy allowed himself to be strapped to a table for a bad haircut. Amber twice (on two separate jobs) locked the keys inside their rental vans (which gets a Call-Back in "Dirty Jobs Down Under", when Mike and Dave argue that they agreed that Amber wasn't allowed to drive back in the states, let alone Australia). There is also Jones in the shower at the Chicken Farm (with his sound equipment acting as a Scenery Censor) and so on.
  • Two Words: Barsky Elf.
• Mike paddling through a lake of human waste (a.k.a. "Shit Creek"):
  Mike: (to the tune of "O' sole mio") O' sole mio, don't know the words...I paddle for hours, in ponds of turds!
  • If becomes even funnier if you consider the fact that Mike Rowe used to be an opera singer.
• Holding a duck upside down against his chest, bent over..."Fraaap!" and flapping feathers. "It was the duck, I swear to god."
• When helping level out concrete, Mike finds out about his companion's surgery scar And his red thong!

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