Posted at 8:30 a.m. Monday, Aug. 25

The man who almost single-handedly created the extreme jobs TV genre is upping the ante with “America’s Toughest Jobs.”

Thom Beers’s new reality competition series puts 13 men and women through tasks seen on Beers’ shows “Deadliest Catch,” “Ice Road Truckers,” “Ax Men” and “Black Gold,” along with new tough jobs such as “bullfighting,” better known as rodeo clowning.

Beers came up with the idea for the 10-episode NBC show, debuting at 8 p.m. Monday, after receiving tons of letters, e-mails and phone calls from fans asking him how they could get the jobs on his shows.

“I got so many people saying ‘I can do that,’ ‘I can do this,’” Beers told reporters last month. “My favorite was ... ‘I was watching “Ice Road Truckers” and I got so into it I spilled my bong.’”

The 13 contestants, who currently work jobs ranging from math teacher to an investment broker, will quickly learn each new job, then be expected to carry them out under the supervision of real employers in the field.

The contestants are playing for the combined yearly salaries of all the jobs, which comes to roughly $250,000.

Most of the contestants, Beers said, were ready for the challenge, and seemed disillusioned with their current jobs. But that didn’t mean they responded to the new challenges right away.

“Half these people had that weird thousand-mile stare,” he said. “It’s just like ‘Eh, I don’t know if I’m even alive. I’m just a drone. I’m just working.’”

That changed after the challenges of the first two episodes—crab fishing and ice road trucking. “All of a sudden man, they all spark to life,” Beers said. “I mean, they had a look in their eye ... It was like, ‘Game on.’”

The contestants are required to live and work under the same rules as the professionals; in Monday’s premiere working as crab fisherman in Alaska. At the end of each job, the pro boss or co-workers decide who stays and who goes.

"It was great because it took us out of the mix—the producers—and allowed real bosses to make decisions on who was good and who was bad,” Beers said.

According to the show’s host, Josh Temple, the bosses and co-workers embodied the passion that Beers tries to show audiences workers in dangerous jobs bring to their careers.

“These bosses are the guys that do this for 40 years and their pride in their work, and if you ask any of them, none of them will say that strength is the most important thing to succeed in their job. It's heart," Temple said. “They all said that. And you could see it. They could train anyone and that's the point. They could train anyone—a green horn, but you got to have heart. And watching it, I totally believe it now.”

Temple told reporters that despite what each of the jobs entailed, none of the contestants ever showed any signs of quit.

“None of them quit," he said. “They were all tired. You could see it. You could see how tired they were, how beat they were physically. I mean, they all had limps and cuts and bruises, and grimaces. But none of them quit.”

Don't miss what Beers and Temple have to say about rodeo clowning after the video below.

On of the jobs shown on “America’s Toughest Jobs” that hasn’t been part of a previous Thom Beers series is bullfighting, or rodeo clowning. These people attract a bull’s attention to get them away from a bull rider. Beers and Temple talked a little about that episode:

Thom Beers: I have to be honest with you, that show was the most brutal show I’ve ever taped in my life. I’m not kidding. I mean, you know, nobody came out of that unscathed.

You know, obviously “Deadliest Catch”—when we were out in those boats—it was really cold and gnarly and icy, and the work was just really, really tough.

That was nature at its worst. But animals are different. They’re a big wild card and man, we knew going in we had the best rodeo guys in the world with our people and our people were literally covered in Kevlar suits from neck to ankle.

But my God, we walked away with—what do we got, Josh? Dislocated shoulder …

Josh Temple: We got jaw. We got ribs. We got shoulder. We got …

TB: Ankle. We got a broken leg. It was broken fingers. It was carnage.

What happens to the people after they are eliminated?

TB: We kind of post script every show with the results—the person that kind of, you know, goes away from that show, that didn’t move on to the next job.

We kind of give you a little profile on that. In the first episode, [the contestant who leaves] literally flew back to California, packed bags, closed their apartment up and moved back to Alaska, got a job working at Denali National Park.

So it’s life-changing. This show was amazingly hard but at the end, every one of these people’s lives were changed. And many of them—most of them didn’t return to their old life.

What are the logistical challenges associated with the show?

TB: Oh god. Yeah, boy, I tell you, we went in the one day alone, literally in 24 hours we were at 20 degrees in Deadhorse, Alaska, and within 24 hours we were in Midland, Texas, and Odessa and it was 104.

So an 80-degree, 90-degree temperature swing. You know, so literally grabbing a whole army of production team and going from one extreme to the other, we went through a lot of that.

Temperature extremes, job extremes. … It was long hours. Literally, the four worst that went back out on the boat, they were working for 56 hours with nothing more than four hours of sleep, you know.

But our film crews and all of the production crew had that same issue. I mean, these poor guys were working on very, very short hours of sleep.

Do you think that “Aemrica’s Toughest Jobs” makes the survivors on “Survivor” look like wimps?

JT: I apologize but I don’t think I’ve ever seen “Survivor.” But I’ll tell you this, no one is going to come out of this looking like a wimp for sure. They’re just—man or woman, it doesn’t matter—no one gives up.

Why do these types of shows work?

TB: I take people to exotic locations and I’m taking people where … I often tell this story. When I went on the crab fishing boat the first time was back in 1999. And I had read Spike Walker’s books on crab fishing, and I had realized how incredibly dangerous it was. And I very quietly, you know, changed—I doubled my life insurance and I told my wife that I was heading off to Alaska, and I’ll see you soon.

And, you know, and I went off and literally within, you know, three days I was in the biggest storm in 30 years. I’m 200 miles at sea. The wind is pushing 70 knots. The seas are pushing 40 feet, you know, and that season three boats sunk around us. Seven guys drowned, never found their bodies.

You know, so that was very real, very dangerous and the rewards were unbelievable, you know. And it was the last wild west and people—you know, there’s no way in the world, you know, most people would ever, you know, sign on for that existence. But at the same time, good god, it was great television.

JT: Maybe it’s not the life for everyone else, but it’s certainly something that everyone wants a taste of.

TB: But it’s transformative and that’s the key to it. I got to tell you, when I came off that boat in 1999 something happened to me. Something changed.

I swear to God I got off that boat and I felt like I’d spit in the eye of the devil and just one day I didn’t say a word of English. I grunted. I was like—I was so feral, man. I was just like er, er, you know. I really felt it. I’m serious. And I think that (just comes through) ...

Nothing is just more real than when you’re standing on a pitching crab fishing deck, when the waves are pushing 20 miles an hour or 20 feet, and the wind is blowing and rogue waves are slapping over the deck. And ice cold, freezing water is just running down the back of your neck, and you’re dodging—you know, slipping on the ice on the deck and you’re dodging 700 pound crab boat pots swinging over your head, and you’re covered in fish guts.

There ain’t nothing realer than that, man. And that’s the thing. I mean, literally you can taste those shows. They’re powerful. I really believe that.

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Interesting. This sounds like a riff off of Discovery's Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe.

Curt's reply: It does, except this is an actual competition. Thanks for commenting, Doris, and reading.

Great jobs are those with decent bosses and enlightened management.

Curt's reply: Thanks Richie.

I would love to know how to become a contestant! I'd like to see my husband try more than pushing dirt and farming corn and soybeans!

Curt's reply: Try the NBC Web site, Tami. I think there's a place to apply for future seasons. Thanks for reading.

What ever happened to the show, world's toughest jobs. We never saw the end!!!

Curt's reply: "America's Toughest Jobs" aired its finale on Oct. 25, I believe. You can watch the show at http://www.nbc.com/Americas_Toughest_Jobs/

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