Trivia

Chris Farley's last film, but he wasn't included in the credits. He would die of a drug overdose about six months before this picture was released.

Artie Lange was wary of working with Chevy Chase after having heard many stories from friends and colleagues about Chase's nastiness, but in his book "Too Fat to Fish", Lange recounted that he loved working with Chase and they became good friends. Lange also recounted that Chase warned him that MGM would force them to make the film PG-13 rated for release even though it was written and filmed as an R-rated film, and told him to fight that move. Lange, Norm MacDonald, and the rest of the cast and crew did fight for the R, but the studio ultimately refused because they said that there was not a large audience for R-rated comedies at that point; as Lange sadly noted in his book, "Dirty Work" was ultimately moved to an earlier release date in part to stay clear of There's Something About Mary (1998), which was not only an R-rated comedy, but became one of 1998's biggest blockbusters and revived the entire R-rated comedy genre for years to come.

Due perhaps to Norm MacDonald not being known as a leading man and mediocre promotion, the film only grossed $13 million. It has, however, done exceptionally well on home video, gaining a cult following over the years. Prior to his death in 2021, MacDonald had even thought of writing a sequel.

This movie came out a few months after Norm MacDonald was fired as the "Weekend Update" anchor on Saturday Night Live (1975) by NBC West Coast President, Don Ohlmeyer. Because of this, Macdonald blasted the NBC exec during talk show appearances. Ohlmeyer retaliated by banning all advertisements of this movie from NBC. After two weeks, NBC president Bob Wright called off the ban, Wright did not oppose Ohlmeyer's original decision because he thought the commercials were only scheduled to appear during ''SNL". When it became clear that MGM's commercials were dropped from other NBC shows, Wright decided the situation had gone far enough and lifted the ban.

In the scene where Mitch and Sam are getting berated by Mr. Hamilton, Don Rickles started ad-libbing insults. At one point, Don Rickles started insulting Norm MacDonald, and not his Mitch Weaver character. This, of course, didn't make it into the film, but the "baby gorilla" line, directed towards Sam, was used.