Jae and Trey Richards bring their YouTube comedy to TV with The Office Movers

24:36Jae and Trey Richards: Their new comedy series The Office Movers

Brothers Jermaine and Trevaunn Richards are known for creating vlogs and sketches on their YouTube channel Jae & Trey Vlogs. Now, they're taking the lessons they've learned to their very first TV show on Crave called The Office Movers.

The half-hour comedy is about two brothers, Everett (Jae) and Eric (Trey), who run a dysfunctional office-moving company as they reluctantly follow in their father's footsteps. Everett's goal is to build the business, sell it to a moving industry giant, and never move furniture again.

When Crave first approached them about making a show, Jae and Trey explored several ideas. "It seemed to hit a wall every time," Jae tells Q's Tom Power in an interview alongside his brother. "But then we thought about office-moving and we were like, 'Oh my God, this is it! There's so many stories, we worked here for so many years, saw some random characters of different backgrounds, different ages.'"

Jae and Trey spent most of their lives helping their father with his moving business. "I was a kid," Jae adds. "So imagine the crew is a young kid, an old Asian guy and then a Jamaican guy fresh from Jamaica. There's [also] one guy that's illegally in Canada."

In a sector known for high turnover and low pay, the brothers remember encountering an eclectic mix of unconventional, quirky and amusing individuals that inspired the series' characters.

Bringing their YouTube sketches to TV

Jae and Trey's videos reached millions of viewers, even catching the attention of Drake, who featured a clip of one of their sketches at the end of his song Madiba Riddim. The rapper later appeared in one of their sketches.

Despite their success, their father would still call them for office-moving gigs. "It doesn't equate to real life for my dad," says Jae. "He literally asked me if Drake is free to help work," Trey adds.

With The Office Movers, the brothers follow the steps of other Canadian content creators who have made the move from social media to TV, such as Boman Martinez-Reid (Made for TV) and Jus Reign (Late Bloomer).

"Everyone was patient with us," says Trey, adding that they were very open to learning the ropes of TV while also bringing some of their YouTube comedic style to their show. "We're not trying to make a traditional TV show."

One such aspect is their signature subtitles on YouTube, which they've brought over to their Crave series. They started adding subtitles to their Jamaican sketches on YouTube so that everyone in their audience could understand. The literal translations eventually transformed into Old English adaptations of Toronto slang, adding a comedic effect.

The Office Movers is streaming on Crave.

The full interview with Jae and Trey Richards is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Jae and Trey Richards produced by Glory Omotayo.