Dirty Jobs

- Season 5

(2009)

Mike heads to Pennsylvania and tries his hand at making bologna and then goes to Alaska to repair a very special toilet.

Mike travels to Ohio to check on the Common Tern population and then he finds himself in Northern California plugging an abandoned mineshaft.

Mike heads to Southern California to find out what it takes to keep a tar pit clean. Then Mike travels north where he learns about rendering and discovers how much of a farm animal can be recycled.

Mike heads to Meridian, California to find out what it takes to harvest walnuts. Then he spends some time in Tulelake where he learns how to make goose down pillows and comforters.

Mike journeys to Queen Creek, Arizona to press olives into oil and then heads to Sacramento, California to clean dirty diapers.

Mike ventures to Payette, Idaho to learn how to make high quality bird food. Then he heads to Yarnell, Arizona to collect spiders from the desert to milk them for their venom.

Mike heads to MotivePower in Boise, Idaho to build and restore locomotives for his 200th dirty job.

Mike takes a look back at his previous jobs, toughest co-workers, and his ongoing encounters with dirt and poo. He also entertains with a look at some of the more memorable and unexpected moments in Dirty Jobs history.

Mike Rowe challenges his bosses to see if they have what it takes to get dirty. The two executive producers responsible for sending Mike out to the dirtiest jobs around the country are going to roll up their sleeves and attempt a dirty job of their own.

Mike ventures out to discover what it takes to breed and train sled dogs at the Happy Trails Kennels in Big Lake, Alaska.

Mike heads to Miami to recover and crush abandoned boats. Then he heads to San Francisco to pick up and recycle used mattresses.

Mike travels to Hawaii and joins the crew of Worldwide Window Cleaning where he harnesses up and hops into a bosun's chair to clean windows 40 stories above downtown Honolulu.

Mike treks to a creek in Arkansas to perform tests on endangered Alligator Snapping Turtles. Then, he travels to San Francisco where he removes and recycles toilets.

Mike visits a camel ranch and gets to know them intimately. He milks them, checks their toes, assists with mating and takes the temperature, you know where, of the entire herd. Finishing off with a ball busting camel race, Mike is ready to put camels out of his life for good.

Mike's jobs this week aren't so much dirty as painful since he hasn't recovered from last week. He aggravates his rope blisters and gets burned at a tofu factory in Hawaii. But he gets to release his aggravation deconstructing those pesky electronic devices that have invaded our lives.

When you research dung beetles you need loads of dung. And where there's dung you'll find Mike Rowe ready to pitch in, ice cream scoop at the ready. Then, Mike learns to make art glass, a challenging art form which requires considerable skill. In other words, it's a job Mike to perfectly unsuited to.

Mike and a couple co-workers cram themselves into a crawl space to perform the impossibly awkward job of replacing the seals on a turbine at a hydroelectric dam. Next Mike changes the oil on the turbine but first he has build a work platform while perched precariously on a wobbly beam. Then, after a little fish surgery, Mike does what he does best, digs through poop.

Mike takes a retrospective look at past dirty jobs focusing on efforts to ensure safety or lack thereof.

Shrink wrapping a boat may not sound that dirty but when Mike falls down every five minutes it's hard to stay clean. The other problem is it takes a heat gun to shrink the wrap and Mike hasn't been doing too well with fire lately. Then Mike dons a red suit and cools of in Alaska tending a herd of Reindeer.

Mike finds a company that is in the business of making dirty shirts; ten thousand of them each month. In the ultimate irony, they make the shirts dirty in washing machines. Next Mike returns to the glass industry to make marbles. In the process he enjoys burned shoes, gloves, hands and feet, glass in his pants but he wore a respirator to avoid breathing glass dust.

Mike spends a day making fireworks from scratch, including the black powder. To avoid sparks (and explosions) mixing is literally done by hand. Mike is completely coated with the explosive dust, including his eyes which burn like the dickens. Shifting gears from dirty to disgusting Mike visits a dairy and peers through the hole in the side of a cow to watch it's digestion process. He even takes a turn as cameraman but first he has to empty the cows guts to make room.

Mike catches clams and earthworms. And it's nothing like he expected.

Mike returns to San Francisco to participate in the great American recycling effort. This time he's recycling paint which is plenty messy but colorful. Then Mike goes to sugar camp to make maple syrup. That proved more complicated than dirty for Mike until he had to clean the furnace.