Move over, Studio 8H: Central New York is the new home for popular sketch comedy videos.
Liverpool-based film studio American High has expanded beyond movies to digital content led by American High Shorts. The funny, “Saturday Night Live”-like videos poke fun at high school and social experiences, from bathroom passes and gym class to “Alpha Dads” and “If Disney characters went to public school.”
@AmericanHighShorts is now reaching huge audiences with hundreds of millions of views on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts. The TikTok account surpassed 1 million followers and 80 million “likes” in November, and their 25 most popular YouTube Shorts have a combined 300 million views.
By comparison, this year’s popular YouTube clip from “Saturday Night Live” is a fake “Mario Kart” trailer starring Pedro Pascal with 14 million views. This season’s most-watched episode was hosted by comedian Nate Bargatze, drawing 4.9 million viewers on Oct. 28.
American High Shorts might not be in the pop culture zeitgeist like NBC’s long-running sketch comedy series — not yet at least — but it is creating the next generation of stars. American High Shorts cast members include Grace Reiter, Julia DiCesare, Luke Burke, Paige Morrissey, Ryan Micho and Aidan Micho, who all have strong social media followings on their own and through the brand.
Reiter said she didn’t get recognized very often when she was growing up on Wisconsin, but she has become one of the most popular performers among American High Shorts due to her fearlessness to get the laugh. She’ll get frequently stopped by Gen Z fans at Destiny USA or on the Syracuse University campus, where they film many of their videos.
“We go to the university a lot to film. That’s like our demographic and so they’re constantly stopping us and they’re like, ‘Oh you’re the American High group,’” Reiter said. “You’re Grace! You’re Julia! It’s crazy, because they all see our videos.”
Axelle Azoulay, a producer and the director for American High Digital, said Reiter is being recognized outside of CNY, too, including during a ski trip in the Adirondacks.
“If you look at the comments (online), the fans are all over (Reiter),” Azoulay remarked. “She’s absolutely hilarious and a hidden gem.”
Most of the American High Shorts cast has Central New York ties: The Micho brothers, currently enrolled at Syracuse University, and Morrissey, an Ithaca College student, are all graduates of Baldwinsville’s Charles W. Baker High School. Burke is a recent Syracuse grad and DiCesare is currently enrolled at SU’s Newhouse School.
Reiter only recently made CNY her home after American High sent her a DM (direct message) online, recognizing her talent on social media. She previously auditioned for movies like “The Binge” and the upcoming “Empire Waist,” but has since become a standout in skits where she plays the unknown child of Jack Black, poses for senior yearbook photos with an infant photographer, or is a mom struggling to get her teen son to wake up for school.
Many of the skits are from obvious comedy sources, like awkward school dances, drivers’ ed, oddball teachers and class reunions. There are also funny parodies of “House Hunters,” “Indiana Jones,” “A Night at the Museum,” the Fyre Fest documentary and even Miss Frizzle from “The Magic School Bus.” Running jokes include “Alpha Dads,” where guys in puffy vests bro out over sports, lawn mowing or shopping at Home Depot.
Much like “SNL,” their schedule requires a full week of planning out content. Mondays are typically brainstorm sessions, Tuesdays are for writing scripts, and then skits are filmed Wednesday, Thursday and Friday — with editors fine-tuning them around the clock to get ready to share online.
Azoulay, whose mother co-wrote the 2011 Syracuse-shot movie “Session” (starring supermodel Bar Refaeli), said performers follow the lines first before improvising alternate takes to try and maximize the funny. Reiter said “riffing” often leads to ideas for other skits, and sometimes they’ll get more niche (e.g. “Hydroflask drill”) when a topic has been exhausted.
There’s also an active effort to bring in guest stars every week. Notable figures that have appeared in American High Shorts include American High founder Jeremy Garelick, “Accepted” actor Adam Herschman, social media star Charles Brockman III (a.k.a. @c.b.3), “It’s a Wonderful Binge” writer-director Jordan VanDina, stand-up comedian Ben Palmer, “The Goldbergs” actor Kenny Ridwan (who played Dave Kim), and the TikTok comedy duo Curry Barker and Cooper Tomlinson, better known as @thats.a.bad.idea.
American High Digital also has spinoff brands like College Life, which features short comedy videos about — you guessed it — college life. Their @collegelife Instagram account has 103,000 followers cracking up at skits about different majors, campus tours, fake IDs, Greek life and more.
All of it helps fuel American High, too. Guest stars in Shorts can sometimes be a way to learn a performer’s skills to potentially cast them in a future movie. Reiter and the Micho brothers, also known for Krab Videos, will appear in an American High film that was shot this past spring.
At the same time, American High Shorts can be a litmus test for a new character and the popularity of a video can encourage them to focus on certain gags or storylines. “SNL” has similarly turned some of its skits into movies, like “Wayne’s World,” “A Night at the Roxbury” and “The Blues Brothers.”
“If there’s a character like ‘Alpha Dads,’ for example, that has been very popular and our first viral one, we saw that people really, really respond to that,” Azoulay explained. “So we made another one... they keep responding and now we’re thinking maybe we can do a spinoff show based on those characters.”
“What we want to have happen is that fans of that character will have seen the origin story of it,” American High president Will Phelps added. “Whether it’s like some crazy character Grace plays that then we turn into a TV show or a movie, they would have been along for the ride and then watching the videos, liking the videos and helping spread the word is kind of what led directly to the movie being made. So that’s cool that social media (can help) decide what gets greenlit into a movie, answering what they want.”
Bringing characters from social media to a larger project can also help American High establish its brand more, connecting fans to their growing library of films. Since 2017, American High has shot 16 feature-length movies in the Syracuse area, including “The Binge,” “Big Time Adolescence,” “Sid is Dead,” “I Love My Dad,” “Crush,” “Sex Appeal,” “Plan B,” “Looks That Kill,” “The Ultimate Playlist of Noise,” “Holly Slept Over,” “Miguel Wants to Fight” and “Banana Split.”
Garelick, who most recently directed Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston in “Murder Mystery 2,” bought the former A.V. Zogg Middle School in Liverpool for $1 million in 2017. Now known as Syracuse Studios, the building is used as both a school for teaching future filmmakers and as the setting for shooting teen comedies (while taking advantage of New York state film tax breaks).
American High renewed its multi-picture deal with Hulu earlier this year, but had to hit pause on production when the writers’ and actors’ strikes shut down much of Hollywood. That gave them time to focus on American High Digital, growing a following while constantly delivering new material.
“We made good use of this summer, built up a big audience,” said Phelps. “Became kind of like a family with the Shorts crew and now when we’re able to start shooting movies again it’s like they’re our first call.”
American High Digital is also constantly looking to expand. The group now livestreams on YouTube every Tuesday at 5 p.m., and recently released their first music video, “Single in the Fall” (starring Reiter and released on American High Records). Reiter wanders a pumpkin patch alone, lamenting not having a partner for a couple’s Halloween costume as cuffing season approaches.
If anyone in the community is also interested in getting involved, they can email a skit and social media links to auditions@americanhigh.com. Actors and potential extras can also sign up for casting calls at americanhigh.com/casting.
To see American High Shorts videos, visit:
https://www.tiktok.com/@americanhighshorts
https://www.youtube.com/@americanhighshorts
https://www.instagram.com/americanhighshorts/?hl=en
To see College Life videos, visit:
https://www.tiktok.com/@collegelifeshorts
https://www.instagram.com/collegelife/