Mike Rowe: Forging Hope & Fixing America
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Who is Mike Rowe and what is his new series about?
In his newest project, Rowe is turning the camera on what he calls the real heroes of the country, ordinary people doing extraordinary things. In this episode, we sit down with Mike to discuss his new series, People You Should Know, as well as the cultural and economic shifts that are putting blue-collar Americans back in the spotlight. I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howell. It's Sunday, May 11th, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now is Mike Rowe, who has just launched a new show that we want to talk to him about, as well as some other issues that he holds near and dear to his heart, including plumbers. So we'll get to that later. It's good to talk to you again.
Likewise. Thanks for having me back. We're virtually back or whatever we call this these days.
What inspired Mike Rowe to create 'People You Should Know'?
We'll take virtual Mike. We'll take in-person Mike, whatever Mike we can get. So your new series, you call it a feel-good series, and it focuses on real heroes of the country. Its own phraseology describes it as focusing on the ordinary, which I find very interesting. Tell us, what was the idea behind this series? What sparked it? And what are you trying to accomplish with this series?
It's really the making of a feel-good show. There's certainly a feel-good component at the heart of it, but what I've always tried to do, whether it's Dirty Jobs or Somebody's Gotta Do It or any of the projects I work on, is bring the viewer along for the ride and really try and make them a fly on the wall. We spent a lot of time...
How does 'People You Should Know' relate to Mike Rowe's previous work?
admitting our mistakes and sharing the frustrations with the viewer that come along with making content. I've always done that, and so I'm certainly doing that again here. The project itself... will be familiar to anybody who saw my last project, which was called Returning the Favor. And this is kind of interesting because I don't think it's really happened in entertainment before, but Returning the Favor aired exclusively on the Facebook Watch program. And it was one of the first things Mark Zuckerberg did in an attempt to decide if he wanted to compete with Netflix. So we had this idea to elevate and reward the neighbors that most people wish they had, regular people doing something nice in their community. We'd show up under the auspices of making a documentary about the topic. And then surprise them with an elaborate gift at the end. And the talent would come out and there'd be a parade and people would cry.
What challenges did Mike Rowe face with his previous show on Facebook Watch?
And it was just really a fun, honest celebration of basic decency, right? So we do 100 episodes of this thing. I win an Emmy for it. And the show's canceled a week later when... When Facebook decides... I'm sorry. Well, look, I mean, it's extraordinary because they decided, look, they spent a billion dollars learning that they didn't want to compete directly with Netflix. But that's what they needed to do to get to that place. And so for the first time in my life, and certainly with everybody involved in the project, a hit show was canceled at the height of its popularity. I've just never seen it happen. And so... It took me a couple of years, but there were a couple million people on a Facebook page who were just rabid supporters of this project.
And they've literally been nagging me, bugging me, threatening, I dare say, for the last two years to get this show back. So I don't own Returning the Favor, but the format is anybody's. And so we changed the title to People You Should Know. We're picking up where we left off, and it'll be on YouTube. It's on my YouTube channel as we speak. And yeah, I'm entering a brave new digital world. Late to the party, perhaps, but nevertheless, I'm in.
Maybe too inside baseball. Maybe you can't reveal this, but are you getting any blowback legally?
And honestly, I don't expect to because, you know, Mark was super decent with me about this. We had really candid conversations at the beginning of it. And one of the things I said was, look, there are no new ideas, right? I mean, we can all agree on that. TV is just TV. And this kind of format, it's... It's really dirty jobs.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Mike Rowe and what is his new series about?
0:14–0:58
2
What inspired Mike Rowe to create 'People You Should Know'?
0:58–1:40
3
How does 'People You Should Know' relate to Mike Rowe's previous work?
1:40–2:45
4
What challenges did Mike Rowe face with his previous show on Facebook Watch?
2:45–9:21
5
How does Mike Rowe define authenticity in nonfiction media today?
9:21–12:49
6
Why does Mike Rowe emphasize transparency and behind-the-scenes content?
12:49–14:43
7
Who are some of the extraordinary people featured on 'People You Should Know'?
14:43–17:06
8
What is the impact of highlighting ordinary people doing extraordinary things?
17:06–23:45
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Morning Wire
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