With ‘Office Movers,’ Jae and Trey Richards turn hyperlocal Toronto culture into comedy hit

By Canadian Press on November 6, 2025.

TORONTO — When Jae and Trey Richards were younger, their dad would scold them for skipping shifts at his moving company to pursue careers as content creators.

“We spent years and years, from ages 12 to 25, just working against our will, man,” says Jae.

“I’d be like, ‘I’m trying to make YouTube videos.’ He’d say, ‘No, come to work now!’”

Years later, those same videos would lead the Brampton, Ont.-born brothers to create a Crave comedy series that’s become a local hit and even brought new customers to their father’s business.

In season 2, premiering Friday, Drake makes a cameo, proving that Canada’s biggest stars are fans, too.

“Office Movers” stars Jae and Trey as brothers Everett and Eric Saunders, who reluctantly take over their father’s unhinged office-moving company in the Greater Toronto Area — a story inspired by the duo’s real-life experience hauling furniture through the city’s office towers. The show landed an early renewal for Season 3 this week.

“My dad can’t believe it. He’s so proud of it,” says Trey, adding that fans of the series now often seek their father’s company for moving gigs.

“He’ll tell us, “Oh, I booked a big job, thanks to a guy who watches you,’” adds Jae.

“He’s not cutting us any percentage whatsoever.”

The brothers say “Office Movers” has also struck a chord with working class communities in the GTA that seldom see themselves reflected on TV.

“What really moves me is the movers that reach out like, ‘Yo man, I feel so seen. I never thought I’d ever see moving on TV a day in my life,’” says Jae.

Season 2 finds the Saunders’ company Shazam struggling to compete with Zenithon Logistics, a ruthless corporate juggernaut bent on wiping out every small-time mover in the city. While Eric gets tempted to join the dark side, Everett resorts to increasingly desperate cash-raising efforts — from phoney insurance claims to fudging the truth on a DEI grant application — to survive.

“A lot of the storyline is rooted in truth,” laughs Trey.

“The insurance fraud, that was a real thing. I can’t even say names because they’ll probably get arrested.”

“Office Movers” pulses with uniquely Toronto energy, reflecting the city’s mash-up of cultures, slang and hustles. Everett and Eric work with a diverse, ragtag crew — including their Cuban stepbrother Riccardo, played by content creator Lucas Lopez, and Muslim slacker Hassan, played by comedian Hassan Phills — while their new landlord is Trinidadian subwoofer salesman Shamez, played by standup Gervail Sean Lemo.

Characters frequently speak in Toronto’s multicultural slang blending Caribbean, Somali and South Asian influences, often subtitled for laughs — a device the Richards’ first started using in their early online sketches.

Long before “Office Movers,” the brothers were already unofficial ambassadors of Toronto culture via their YouTube channel 4YE Media, now rebranded as Random Order Studios. Their sketches featured hyperlocal references and characters who sounded like people you’d hear on the TTC, tossing around words like “waste yute” and “marved” with unapologetic pride.

They even caught the attention of Drake, who appeared in one of their 2017 sketch series, “T-Dot Goon Scrap,” a phony advertisement for an illicit street brawl DVD. The Toronto rapper tapped the brothers earlier this year to create a Valentine’s Day skit promoting his album with PartyNextDoor, “Some Sexy Songs 4 U.”

Jae and Trey say a goal of “Office Movers” was to capture a side of Toronto they weren’t seeing represented on Canadian TV.

“It’s an honour to put Toronto on and continue to put forward how multicultural it is here, just with the small jokes and details and the whole Toronto slang,” says Jae.

“That’s always amazing because when we were kids, that slang was all we used.”

Toronto lingo grabbed global attention last year when Kendrick Lamar sprinkled it into his Drake diss track “Euphoria,” mocking the rapper in his own city’s dialect.

“It even made it all the way out there. He didn’t say the slang right, though. He didn’t apply that right,” Jae says of Kendrick’s reference.

Still, the brothers say they’re floored when they meet American fans who not only know their sketches but casually drop Toronto slang into conversation.

“We’ll be in the States and someone will come up to us and say, ‘Yo, mandem!’ I’m just like, ‘Wait, hold on, what the hell, where am I?’”

“It blew our minds that people were even interested, but not only that, they’re also understanding it and finding humour in it just like us,” adds Trey.

The brothers say it’s proof that culturally specific stories can still resonate widely, recalling how they were initially hesitant to release their first “T-Dot Goon Scrap” sketch, worried it might be too hyper-local.

“We actually wanted to scrap the whole thing because we were like, ‘Who’s going to watch this? It’s so Toronto-focused,’” recalls Trey.

“And then everyone loved it.”

Jae says the experience taught them that authenticity, not generalization, is what makes their stories travel – a lesson they’ve hauled into “Office Movers.”

“It was a moment of realization that people want to watch something super specific and niche. They just want to be immersed in a new world.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2025.

Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press