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 Mary à tout prix (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.
Chris Farley's final role, though he went uncredited. The film was released six months after his death.
On Artie Lange's podcast in November 2021, Bob Saget revealed that he had written a script for a "Dirty Work" sequel. They had the money and Norm was set to do it, but Norm had passed away from leukemia (which Bob had no idea Norm had). Bob also mentioned that he was trying to put together the original R rated cut in honor of Norm MacDonald passing away, but he was having trouble locating the deleted footage. Saget also passed away two months after this.