American High Turned a Pizza-Shop Sketch Into a Netflix Show
Seven creators, and the media powerhouse that built them.
Breakout
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On April 30, 2026, Netflix ordered 28 episodes of Minimum Wage, a workplacecomedy set in a chaotic pizza shop, launching later this year.
It started as a web series shot on phones inside a converted school in Liverpool, New York. Eight episodes, posted to TikTok under American High Shorts, more than 30 million views since May 2024.
The seven original cast members return as series regulars and writers. The studio behind them, American High, has made 18 feature films and runs a digital network with over 8 billion views.
American High was built to make this outcome repeatable.
In 2017, Jeremy Garelick bought a defunct school in Liverpool, New York for around $1 million and shot films inside it on Central New York tax credits. Owning the building meant the cost of making things dropped close to zero.
In 2022 he created that same structure for short form. Comedians filmed sketches for five days each, the funniest stayed on salary, and American High Shorts passed 7 billion views.
When Netflix wanted the show, everything it needed already existed in one place. American High already owns the talent, format, footage, and the proof of concept.
Digital studios have the edge. They arrive with the proof already done, so Netflix never has to guess whether the audience would watch or not.
This is the shape talent incubation is taking now, and American High is not alone in it.
Adam Faze runs Gymnasium the same way, a short-form studio behind Boy Room and Girl Room that signs comedians regardless of following and builds shows around them. He says he wants it to be the incubator for this generation that SNL was for the last.
The old path made the creator carry everything: the audience, the risk, the reinvention every morning. The studio model absorbs all of it and turns individual virality into an owned catalog.
For the creator, that is a stable job with real distribution. For the studio, it is an asset that keeps producing after talent moves on.
The talent gets discovered. The company that built the room gets to keep discovering.