If you’re a regular watcher of Discovery Channel, then you know that Shark Week is quickly approaching. It starts August 1st and this year looks to be exciting, full of new programming for viewers to tune in for.

In the past few years, MythBusters and Dirty Jobs have gotten in on the shark action, airing a few fascinating shark-related episodes. Discovery is working with Image Entertainment on bringing some of these episodes to home video. “Shark Week: The Great Bites Collection” is now available on both DVD and high definition Blu-ray formats.

I just bought the Blu-ray version and I can’t wait to watch it. Here is a breakdown of what is on the discs:

Surviving Sharks
For “Survivorman” Les Stroud, staying alive against odds is nothing new, but this time he’ll be showing us how to survive a swimmer’s worst fear.

How Not to Become Shark Bait
Join a group of amateur shark enthusiasts as they dive into the warm waters of the Caribbean to find out how easy it is to wind up on the menu.

Mysteries of the Shark Coast
Northeastern Australia boasts the world’s largest concentration of sharks… but that appears to be changing. A team of top scientists seeks an answer to why these magnificent predators are disappearing.

MythBusters: Shark Special 2
Jamie, Adam and the MythBusters team return to the water to take a bite out of some of the better-known shark myths.

Day of the Shark
Everywhere in the world, whenever swimmers get into the ocean, they enter the domain of sharks. Learn what happens when unsuspecting victims break a few simple shark rules.

Dirty Jobs: Greenland Shark Quest
To find what may be the world’s most mysterious shark, Mike Rowe joins a team of scientists to go ice-fishing in Canada’s frigid far north.

BONUS FEATURES:

Shark Attack Files IV: Swimmer of the Shark
Travel the globe to witness the stories of actual shark attacks and the victims who survived… and some who didn’t.

Dirty Jobs: Jobs That Bite
In South Africa’s deadly waters, Mike Rowe takes a job cutting chum for shark bait and then jumps in to see if any Great Whites are interested in a snack.

Dirty Jobs: Jobs That Bite… Harder
Mike Rowe helps create replica sharks, builds a shark-proof suit, and then jumps into the water to test the suit on real live sharks in the Bahamas.

As you can see, there is a lot of great content here. Those episodes of Mike were some of the memorable we’ve seen. Amazon has these for a great price right now and the Blu-ray is even cheaper than the DVD as of the publishing of this article.

Click on the picture to buy Shark Week: The Great Bites Collection

If you don’t have a Blu-ray player and would only like the DVD version, no problem. Discovery also has all of these episodes on a 2-disc DVD edition.

Sadly there is no news concerning new episodes in the immediate future, but we do get to see a few great repeat episodes soon. Here is what is on tap for the next few weeks:

Vellum Maker – July 24th at 7 & 10pm Central
Dirty Chip Maker – July 24th at 8 & 11pm Central
Avian Vomitologist – July 25th at 9am Central
Termite Controller – August 1st at 9am Central

Discovery sent out a reminder to their newsletter subscribers stating that this was the last week for their enormous DVD sale.

Whatever subject you may be interested in, there’s a chance Discovery has it covered. They have traditional documentaries on sale as well as regular series such as Dirty Jobs, MythBusters, Deadliest Catch, Whale Wars, Pitchmen, Man vs Wild, Planet Earth, etc. It’s all on sale. This is also a good time to get in on the great space documentaries. We just celebrated the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s landing on the moon. Discovery has documentaries related to NASA’s famed missions.

I’m not usually one who pays much attention to awards shows, but I couldn’t help but pay attention to this year’s Emmy nominations when I heard Dirty Jobs was nominated for “Outstanding Reality Program.”

Mike Rowe and his fellow Dirty Jobs crew have some stiff competition, however. Let’s take a look at all of the nominations in that category:

Antiques Roadshow – PBS
Dirty Jobs – Discovery Channel
Dog Whisperer – National Geographic Channel
Intervention – A&E
Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List – Bravo
MythBusters – Discovery Channel

If Dirty Jobs doesn’t get the win, I would hope it goes to MythBusters. It’s their first Emmy nomination.

If you haven’t gotten in on Discovery’s big DVD sale, I recommend checking it out. Nearly every DVD is on sale, so take a look.

Also, I noticed Amazon is having an excellent sale on the Dirty Jobs “Collections,” which are compilations from Image Entertainment. You can get all four DVD sets for a sweet price of $43.99, nearly half of what you would normally pay.

Dirty Jobs‘ Mike Rowe was recently interviewed by US News and World Report and we have a snippet of the interview, wherein Mike discusses his family, work ethic, the economy, and one of our favorite shows, Dirty Jobs.

So when the president talks almost romantically about putting people to work building wind turbines and installing solar panels, is that music to your ears?

Well, it’s music, all right. Like Philip Glass. Politically, there’s no smart response for me. I’ll plead my record. I basically took the position a year ago that Dirty Jobs was the greenest show on television, by far. I theorized, on camera, that it didn’t get any love in that regard because unlike every other green show, we made no claim to be green at all. What if the greenest people on the planet were the people with dirty jobs? And what if so much of the tension in the environmental movement was coming from the fact that a huge percentage of the country was being asked to accept role models that didn’t resonate with their core beliefs? What if, for instance, millions of people in the heartland didn’t cotton to Leonardo [DiCaprio], or maybe weren’t comfortable with Vice President Gore, or just looked askance at any idea that came out of Hollywood or the beltway?

I figured, maybe we’ve got some great role models on Dirty Jobs. You don’t see it because they’re too busy making a living doing what they do. There are other things that are more important to them than saving the planet—namely making a living and taking care of their family. The more I looked back at shows, everywhere I looked, I saw examples of brown before green. Matt Freund, who makes flowerpots out of cow s—t in northwest Connecticut. He started doing it because nobody was buying his milk. Now, he’s buying more cows because he needs more crap. How much browner could you get? It’s a completely environmental play, and yet this guy is covered in crap 24-7 and making a fair amount of green as a result. But it all happened because of his personal economy, not because he was looking to leave a lighter footprint.

To see more of the article, go on over and check out their website right here.

Despite doing voice-over/narration work for shows like Ghost Hunters, Mike claims to not believe in the supernatural and this includes the elusive creature known as Bigfoot. One of his fans asked him what he would do if he ever saw a Bigfoot and, well, I just loved Mike’s answer:

If I came face to face with a Bigfoot, I would bolt toward him with extreme prejudice, screaming loudly, doing my level best to tackle and throw him to the ground. I would then go about the process of attempting to remove the creature’s head, secure in the knowledge that I was wrestling with a regular mortal man inside a Bigfoot Suit. Having removed his costume head, I would then insist on pictures, along with a signed admission and videotaped confession by the perpetrator of his intent to defraud the general populace of their time and/or money by advancing another weird fiction. Then, armed with such irrefutable evidence, I would corner my dear friend Simon, who still believes that crop circles were created by aliens, and show him yet another example of mans endless capacity for mendacity and fraud. It would be of course, a total waste of time, as Simon has built his entire belief structure around a world with ESP, alien abduction, haunted houses, astral projection, and reincarnation, and is now so hopelessly enamored of things that go bump in the night I fear there is no hope left for him.

Mike

You can find more of Mike’s question and answer segments on his Discovery blog.