Dirty Work (film)

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The VHS cover to Dirty Work

Dirty Work is a comedy movie released in 1998. It is noted for having comedians such as Norm MacDonald, Artie Lange, and Chevy Chase. It is the last movie Chris Farley worked on before he died.

The film was the first starring role for MacDonald and was released on June 12, 1998, just months after he was fired from Saturday Night Live. Lange had also been recently fired from Saturday Night Live's main sketch-comedy competitor, Madtv, before the film's release.

Made for just over $1 million and grossing just over $7 million, Dirty Work featured cameos from Rebecca Romijn, John Goodman, Adam Sandler, Gary Coleman, David Koechner and Don Rickles.

Additionally, former SNL writer Jim Downey and former SNL writer/performer Fred Wolf make cameo appearances as homeless men. Both writers collaborate frequently with MacDonald and Adam Sandler.

Dirty Work was also the first movie directed by Bob Saget, who left his long-running role as host of America's Funniest Home Videos to concentrate on a directing career.

1 Cast
2 External links

[edit] Cast

Starring

Director

Bob Saget

Writers

Frank Sebastiano
Norm Macdonald
Fred Wolf

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Taking the maxim "don't get mad, get even" to profitable ends, lifelong friends Mitch Weaver (Norm Macdonald) and Sam McKenna (Artie Lange) start a "Revenge for Hire" business in order to raise $50,000 to save their father. The fact that they are half-brothers is revealed to them as a plot point.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Trivia

Norm MacDonald uses the "Note to Self" gag (making obscure or overly obvious notes to himself by speaking into a pocket tape recorder) that he had popularized on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update segments.

Due to the publicity surrounding MacDonald's early 1998 termination from the Saturday Night Live cast, no ads for the film were initially shown on NBC.

On the October 12, 2006 episode of his radio show, Howard Stern interviewed director Bob Saget, who recounted a number of entertaining stories from behind the scenes with Artie Lange. During the segment, Stern revealed that he had been offered the role of Satan in the movie but turned it down because he "just didn't get it."

Adam Sandler cameos as Satan. In Little Nicky, Sandler plays the son of the Devil.

The company's phone number is revealed to be "555-0187," which is a false number frequently used on Saturday Night Live.

In a scene where Mitch (MacDonald) and Sam (Lange) are getting berated by Mr. Hamilton (Rickles), Don Rickles couldn't remember his lines; as a result, he started ad-libbing insults. At one point, he started insulting Norm MacDonald personally and not his "Mitch Weaver" character. This, of course, didn't make it into the film (though an outtake is shown during the end credits wherein he states "How you got this movie, I'll never know") but the "baby gorilla" line directed towards Artie Lange was used.

Lange would go on to guest star (before ultimately joining the cast) on Norm MacDonald's ABC sitcom Norm as MacDonald's character's half-brother. Additionally, Jack Warden guest stars on a first season episode (as the father of Ian Gomez' character); toward the end of the episode, he attempts to grab Norm's crotch (as he had done in Dirty Work).