Netflix’s newest comedy isn’t exactly new.
From the comedy production company American High, the first iteration of “Minimum Wage” premiered on YouTube in 2024. Then, it was essentially a series of rapid-fire comedy sketches about incompetent teens working at a pizza shop. (Think a PG-13 “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”)
As of this week, it is the latest YouTube hit to try its luck on Netflix. As the two services, TV’s top dogs, battle for our attention, Netflix has been making a concerted effort in recent years to convert YouTube successes into phenoms on its own platform. (Earlier examples include “Ms. Rachel,” “Hot Ones” and “CoComelon,” among umpteen video podcasts.)
For as much as Netflix has changed the TV game, mining web series for gold is a fairly traditional move. (See Comedy Central betting on “Broad City,” HBO expanding “High Maintenance” vignettes, or even Canada’s Crave turning “Letterkenny Problems” into simply “Letterkenny.”) And YouTube remains the most popular streaming platform in the U.S. by a substantial margin.
No matter the show, the key to successfully transitioning from one platform to another is by serving preexisting fans and converting enough new ones to justify the jump — which might sound complicated. But it usually just means keeping the spirit of its first iteration alive.
Throughout 14 new episodes, Netflix’s “Minimum Wage” is smart not to stray too far from its original formula. In particular, the choice to retain its original cast, many of whom also write and direct on the show, pays off.
Grace Reiter, who last month became the first “Saturday Night Live” cast member born in the 21st century, returns as a 17-year-old whose management style lands somewhere between Michael Scott (Steve Carell) from “The Office” and Dewey Finn (Jack Black) from “School of Rock.” A supporting gaggle of men, including the brothers Ryan and Aidan Micho, take entertaining turns melting down over tiny inconveniences. Julia DiCesare, as she did in the YouTube version, turns in the show’s standout performance as a painfully earnest home-schooler who approaches every day like an alien who’s only heard great things about planet Earth.
It’s telling that the only new recurring character is also the show’s least compelling. Randall Park is a consummate sitcom professional, but in the role of the shop’s feckless owner, he nonetheless struggles to find a foothold among the show’s pre-established dynamics.
Park’s presence is one of a few signs of the show’s bigger budget at Netflix. The slice shop staff now wear color coordinated costumes rather than ratty T-shirts. They play with more expensive props, including a hollow cardboard cake that can hide a grown man and white stretch limo straight out of “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.” More immediately obvious is the set’s physical makeover into a wood-paneled room of neat checkered tablecloths, evoking a restaurant that might rate 3.5 Yelp stars rather than the YouTube version’s house of health inspector horrors.
The most significant difference, though, is in the show’s new run time. YouTube’s “Minimum Wage” episodes never ran longer than five minutes; Netflix’s land somewhere between 12 and 18.
There’s more time for plot twists this way, sure. But stretching out the action also inevitably means slowing the original’s pace. Shows like “Broad City” and “High Maintenance,” which use comedic beats to explore the nuances of interpersonal relationships, thrive with extra breathing room. A more slapstick comedy like “Minimum Wage,” which delights in throwing characters around the room like hyperactive pinballs, only gets better as its editing gets tighter.
But now, to paraphrase a song that is older than many of the show’s stars: “Minimum Wage” is not a web series, but not yet a sitcom either. It’s moved on from bite-size episodes, but only expanded them enough to give scenes another beat or two that they rarely need.
Watching the show on my TV made the episodes blend together into one frantic soup; watching on my phone only made the superfluous minutes more obvious. It was only once I tried watching again on my laptop, scrunched down on my couch at the end of a long day, that it felt like I’d finally figured out how “Minimum Wage” was meant to be seen.
Maybe the Netflix of a decade ago wouldn’t have counted occupying one of a dozen open browser tabs as a success. But in 2026, every streaming platform wants a place on every one of our devices. For Netflix, giving audiences a reason to tune out other noise in favor of something as benignly bonkers as “Minimum Wage” — on something, anything other than YouTube — may be exactly the point.
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