Parents' Guide to Minimum Wage

Silly and occasionally surreal, this show based on a popular web series of shorts keeps the original's sensibility, with quick comic-sketch-y premises, rapid-fire jokes, and a hangout atmosphere. If Minimum Wage's jokes didn't hit so often, you might find yourself asking questions, like why does a failing pizza place need six or seven staff members working at all times? Or, why does the cast of purported teens work seemingly full-time, including during school hours? No matter, shut your nitpicking brain down and simply enjoy the ridiculousness of a workplace comedy where absurdity rules. When chain owner Mr. Sylvester visits the Slice Club outpost to check out why this, amongst his many upstate New York franchises, is not turning a profit, he's nonplussed by a displayed rat skull ("to warn all the other rats") and an expense line item for a $4,200 cottage cheese-covered trampoline that manager Grace (the priceless Reiter) lamely explains was kind of a promotional thing.

Some of Minimum Wage's humor revolves around the weird customers who show up, like a high school drama club whose snotty members mock a failed audition by Julia, or a couple who noisily breaks up at the restaurant, with employees taking sides. But as customers come and go, the real meat is in the interactions between coworkers, who become a kind of pseudo family, a la The Office, with Randall Park playing the Michael Scott who shows up for a few minutes to do something kooky, then leaves to allow his "teenaged" employees to flirt, tease, and comfort each other. The mostly sub-20-minute episodes pass in a flash, and are so peppered with jokes that while you're laughing at one, you might miss the next one. Minimum Wage is a goof, just like most minimum wage jobs, but viewers who like to laugh will want to clock in anyway.