The Best New TV Show Is Somehow This Chevy Dealer’s Surprisingly Good Parody Of ‘The Office’

The Office is a sitcom classic, with NBC currently developing a new iteration of the show as we speak. But there’s no need whatsoever, because someone else has already made a worthy successor. Enter The Dealership. It’s a stunning parody of The Office from the talented staff at New York’s Mohawk Chevrolet.

If I told you a dealership had made their own sitcom, you’d be forgiven for having low expectations. You’d expect a tacky bit that gets old fast, filmed on a phone in a desperate attempt to sell cars. And yet, let me shock you. The Dealership is anything but. I’m going to be bold here. This is the greatest series any dealership has ever made.

The team at Mohawk Chevrolet are actually great on screen, neither over- nor under-acting. It’s all tongue-in-cheek, of course, but the documentary-style camera work and the staff personas are perfect. It genuinely feels like someone started shooting The Office at a dealership.

Episodes are taking off on TikTok, with the later installments racking up millions of views. However, the real fans know that the quality viewing is had over on the dealership’s YouTube channel. There, you can watch the extended-length episodes in glorious 4K.

Just like The Office, the show is all about the characters. We meet Grace in episode one, as she pranks the dealership with endless plastic ducks. From the drop, it’s clear she’s a precious soul, one that just wants to be seen. But she really hits her stride in episode six, as she holds auditions for her big break—a Blazer EV walkaround video. The episode hits its marks perfectly, with these flawed, real characters vying for greatness as they pursue the utterly mundane. That was always a hallmark of The Office, and the same magic shines through here.

@mohawkchevrolet

Safe to say the Mohawk Man of The Year award may have gone to Howie’s Head… Here is episode 2 of The Dealership, “From The Ground Up” ???? #theoffice

♬ original sound – Mohawk Chevrolet

Howie is also sure to be a fan favorite. He’s out there keen to big-note himself in episode two, but he’s more bumbler than boss. At heart, he’s at his bets when he’s simply enjoying watching the garage door go up and down. Other staff at the dealership help to fill out the cast, with techs and office workers adding color to many of the scenes.

They do topical bits, too. Episode seven is titled “Down With The System.” It draws from the current crisis that dealers have been facing with the CDK Global cyberattack shutting down operations.

@mohawkchevrolet

Episode 7 of The Dealership, “Down With The System”✍️ #TheDealership #MohawkChevrolet #CarDealership #TheOffice #Skit #Comedy #OfficeParody #Officelife #cdk #automotive @Grace Kerber

♬ original sound – Mohawk Chevrolet

A lot of the comedy comes from the cuts. The diary pieces to camera are on point, while also serving as a strong visual link to The Office itself. Meanwhile, interrupting lawnmowers and dealership staff frustrate the best-laid plans of the main characters with impeccable timing.

Speaking to Times Union, the dealership marketing team explained that the magic of the show came from their real-life workdays. After a fellow employee hid little plastic ducks all over the office, the marketing crew realized it would make for an amusing video. In-house video editor Ben Bushen shoots most of the video on a Sony mirrorless camera, mastering the shaky-cam mockumentary-style shots of the original show.

“A lot of it is improvised,” says Bushen. Letting dialogue go unscripted is perhaps part of the magic; it goes a long way to making the performances come across authentically. “Even those interviews are just shoot-off-the-cuff,” he says.

Bushen works on the project with Grace Kerber, a digital branding creator for the dealership. She plays her namesake character, and is behind some of the funniest moments. She branches out into physical comedy in episode five—entitled “Lemme drive the ‘rado.” The popular episode was inspired by a very real situation, where Grace found herself executing a 38-point turn in a crowded dealer lot.

While much of the humor is bite-sized, the team isn’t afraid of stretching its legs when it can. Episode four is a particularly juicy 6-minute episode, as we see Grace take on a secret reconnaissance mission to Mohawk Honda.  It’s an obvious nod to the classic “Branch Wars” episode of The Office, while also rooting the characters firmly in the Mohawk world.

Perhaps the reason these videos work so well is that they’re not trying to directly advertise cars or the dealership. It’s not a sales tactic, it’s a quality comedy set in the sometimes banal world of a car dealership. The marketing team tried to make something genuinely fun and creative, and that authenticity rings through to the viewer.

Will the videos help the dealership sell cars anyway? Quite possibly. Speaking to Business Insider, Kerber noted that they’re not trying to convert buyers looking for other brands. “If they want a Chevy, they’re going to buy a Chevy,” she says. Regardless, they’ve seen comments from viewers well outside their local area who are keen to visit Mohawk Chevrolet to see the real-live set of The Dealership. “Part of doing these fun videos is it makes people feel like they know you and are comfortable going there,” Kerber told the outlet. “They love the environment from what they see online, and that’s where they might want to get their next car.”

Ultimately, if you’re looking for a chuckle on your lunch break, fire up the YouTube playlist and binge-watch The Dealership. It’s free, it’s fun, and it’s good. A pat on the back is in order, because the team at Mohawk nailed it.

Image credits: Mohawk Chevrolet via YouTube screenshot

[Ed note: Shoresy is clearly the best show on television, but I’ll grant you that this is already better than season 3 of The Bear. – MH]