''The Temp Life'' is an American

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

web series A web series (also known as webseries, short-form series, and web show) is a series of short scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet (i.e. World Wide Web), which first emerged in the late 1 ...

created and produced by

Wilson Cleveland Wilson Cleveland (born July 4, 1974) is an American actor, producer and writer. He is known as the creator, producer and co-star of ''Leap Year'' and ''The Temp Life''. Career In 2006, Cleveland created and starred as the character Nick Chiapet ...

, who also stars as Nick Chiapetta (AKA "Trouble"). The series, sponsored by

Spherion Spherion is a North American temporary work agency headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, that operates under a variety of brand names. History Spherion was first known as City Car Unloaders, a Chicago company created by Leroy Dettman and Joseph Perfe ...

debuted on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

on November 29, 2006, ran for five seasons and is considered to be the first and longest-running online

branded entertainment Branded content (also known as branded entertainment) is a type of entertainment product made or otherwise funded by an advertiser. They are designed to build awareness for a particular brand by presenting content that reflects its values and image ...

series.

Premise

The series revolves around Nick “Trouble” Chiapetta (Cleveland), an incompetent

temp agency Temporary work or temporary employment (also called gigs) refers to an employment situation where the working arrangement is limited to a certain period of time-based on the needs of the employing organization. Temporary employees are sometimes ...

boss and the temps he works with.

History

In 2006 while working at a public relations firm in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, Wilson Cleveland was inspired by then one year-old

and the potential of online video to "make little TV shows on the Internet for clients to tell their stories." Cleveland created ''The Temp Life'', in 2006 for

Staffing to raise brand awareness among 18-25 year-olds. ''The Temp Life'' was among the first web series to become a new media signatory with the

Screen Actors Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...

and Writers Guild in 2009. and featured guest appearances by

Milo Ventimiglia Milo Anthony Ventimiglia ( ; born July 8, 1977) is an American actor. Making his screen acting debut on '' The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'' in 1995, he portrayed the lead role on the short-lived series '' Opposite Sex'' in 2000 before landing his br ...

Craig Bierko Craig Philip Bierko (born August 18, 1964) is an American actor. Early life Bierko was born in Rye Brook, New York, where, for a brief time, his mother Pat was president of The Harrison Players, a local community theatre. After graduating Bl ...

and

Illeana Douglas Illeana Hesselberg ( ; born July 25, 1961), known professionally as Illeana Douglas, is an American actress and filmmaker. She appeared in three episodes of '' Six Feet Under'', for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination as Outsta ...

The first four seasons premiered on YouTube,

Blip Blip may refer to: * Beta-lactamase inhibitor protein * Blip.tv, a defunct web video platform * Blip.pl, a Polish social networking site * Blip, a message in the Apache Wave (formerly Google Wave) collaboration platform * Blip Festival, an an ...

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

Daily Motion Dailymotion is a French online video platform, online video sharing platform owned by Canal+ S.A., Canal+. Prior to 2024, the company was owned by Vivendi. North American launch partners included Vice Media, Bloomberg L.P., Bloomberg, and Hears ...

and

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

. Episodes of the fifth and final season premiered first on

My Damn Channel Omnivision Entertainment (formerly ''My Damn Channel'') is a digital entertainment company. It has launched several original comedy series on YouTube and Dailymotion Dailymotion is a French online video platform, online video sharing platfor ...

and YouTube before becoming available on

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

MSN Video MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps provided by Microsoft. The main webpage provides news, weather, sports, finance and other content curated from hundreds of different sources that Microsoft has partnere ...

, Blip, Daily Motion, Facebook and various

video-on-demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typical static broadcasting ...

platforms including

Roku Roku ( ) is a brand of consumer electronics that includes streaming players, smart TVs (and their operating systems), as well as a free TV streaming service. The brand is owned by Roku, Inc., an American company. As of 2024, Roku is the U ...

and Boxee set-top boxes and Verizon Fios. In January 2010, ''The Temp Life'' became available

on-demand On-demand or on demand may refer to: Manufacturing * Build-on-demand * Just-in-time manufacturing, a methodology for production * Print on demand, printing technology and business process in which new copies of a document are not printed until an ...

in nearly two million U.S. hotel rooms via

LodgeNet SONIFI Solutions, Inc. is a provider of guest-facing entertainment technology in hotels and healthcare settings. The company's corporate headquarters are in Sioux Falls, South Dakota with offices in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, Mexico, ...

’s DoNotDisturbTV hotel room network.

Reception

''The Temp Life'' added an average of 85% more viewers with each season and had reached over 18 million upload views when ''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is an American business magazine published monthly in print and online, focusing on technology, business, and design. It releases six print issues annually. History ''Fast Company'' was founded in November 1995 by Alan Webb ...

'' called it “a bona fide phenomenon” in September 2010. The series received generally favorable reviews with critics calling positive attention to the minimal Spherion branding contained in ''The Temp Life'' episodes. In her August 25, 2010 review, AdWeek's Rachel Kaufman wrote, "It doesn't hurt that there's almost no pitching, just a quick logo at the beginning, and that the series is genuinely humorous" and

GigaOm Gigaom is a technology-focused analyst firm and media company. It was founded by Om Malik in San Francisco, California. In March 2015, it was shut down and in June 2015, its website and content were acquired by Knowingly and relaunched. History ...

's Liz Shannon Miller called ''The Temp Life'' "an on-the-nose sponsored series" that's "proven that you don't need to drop the sponsor into every scene in order to spread the message." In a 2010 interview,

SFN Group Spherion is a North American temporary work agency headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, that operates under a variety of brand names. History Spherion was first known as City Car Unloaders, a Chicago company created by Leroy Dettman and Joseph Perfe ...

CEO, Roy Krause said that ''The Temp Life'' was the company's top marketing priority. In 2012 ‘’The Temp Life’’ won the

Webby Award The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...

for

Comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

: Longform or Series and received a

Streamy Award The YouTube Streamy Awards, also known as the Streamy Awards or Streamys, are an awards show presented annually by Dick Clark Productions and Tubefilter to recognize excellence in online video, including directing, acting, producing, and wri ...

nomination for Best Branded Entertainment Web Series in 2010.

Plot

Season 1 (2006 - 2007)

The first season premiered on

November 29, 2006. Mark (Mark Rywelski) comes to interview for a temp job at Pedtastic - a social network for shoe lace makers and meets Nick Chiapetta (

), the company's self-professed ‘’Deputy of Trouble.’’ New temp Laura (Laura Kowalcyk) is hired to manage Pedtastic's new office.

Season 2 (2008)

The second season premiered on September 13, 2008 with the episode titled, “Mergers and Acquisitions,” in which Nick gets conned into selling his Pedtastic social network startup for shoe lace professionals to Commodity Staffing in a “multi-hundred dollar transaction.” Nick unwittingly makes Pedtastic's only four employees - Mark, Laura, Paul and Caitlin part of the deal by contractually obligating them to become temps with Commodity Staffing for one year. In the season finale cliffhanger episode titled, “Where in the World?” Paul and Caitlin are accidentally outsourced to a

call center A call centre (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling) or call center (American English, American spelling; American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, see spelling differences) is a managed capability th ...

in Thailand and Nick falls unconscious after drinking some bad coffee.

Season 3 (2009)

The third season premiered on February 19, 2009 with the episode titled, “Dream Big!” Nick's guardian angel

Tom Cruise Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3, 1962) is an American actor and film producer. Regarded as a Cinema of the United States, Hollywood icon, he has received List of awards and nominations received by Tom Cruise, various accolades, includ ...

(played by Evan Ferrante) comes to him in a dream and convinces him to take a 33-week sabbatical and leave Mark and Laura in charge of Commodity Staffing.

Season 4 (2009–2010)

The fourth season was announced on September 10, 2009 and premiered on November 15, 2009. Nick returns from sabbatical to find he and Commodity Staffing have been sued out of business and pushed out of his office space by Celltons, a

cell phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...

button-maker. Having lost everything in the lawsuit, Nick takes a temp job transcribing

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

resume submissions for Celltons' Head of Human Acquisitions, Alina Deloris (Rachel Risen). When Celltons CEO, Eve Randall (

) threatens layoffs, Nick plots to get Alina fired by recruiting only the least-qualified temps who apply to work at Celltons including Nancy Roder (

Taryn Southern Taryn Southern is an American public speaker, artist, and brand strategist who works with emerging technologies. She was formerly known for her work as a TV host, actress and YouTuber. Early life Southern grew up in Wichita, Kansas and landed her ...

) and Stevie P. (

Sandeep Parikh Sandeep Parikh (; born July 23, 1980) is an American writer, director, actor and producer of comedy. He is best known for his co-starring role as Zaboo on the award-winning web series '' The Guild''. He is the founder of Effin Funny Productions, ...

). Nick succeeds in getting Alina fired and convinces Eve to hire him as Celltons’ new head of Human Acquisitions.

Season 5 (2010–2011)

The fifth and final season was announced on July 29, 2010 and premiered on the My Damn Channel YouTube channel on December 9, 2010 with the episode titled "We're Number Two!" which finds Nick (

) living his best life. Celltons has become the number-two cell phone button company ever since Eve Randall (

) fired Alina and put him back in charge of hiring temps. Little does Nick know that Eve has hired his estranged half-brother Eddie (

) to keep an eye on him. But Eddie has his own score to settle and secretly teams up with Alina to humiliate Nick and push him out of the company. Nick teams up with Cook (

), the

office An office is a space where the employees of an organization perform Business administration, administrative Work (human activity), work in order to support and realize the various goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a po ...

lunch cart guy to catch a pastrami sandwich thief. Nick gets conned into hiring Thomas Clancy (

Mark Gantt Mark Willingham Gantt IV (born December 10, 1968) is an American actor, director, producer and writer. Gantt is best known for his role as Neal Bannen in the series ''The Bannen Way''. Gantt grew up in Stockton, California, and comes from a law ...

), the worst corporate spy in the history of corporate spies. Stevie P. (

) gets into a love triangle with Nancy Roder (

) and her twin sister Tammy (

Jessica Lee Rose Jessica Lee Rose (born April 26, 1987) is an American-New Zealand actress who first gained popularity after playing the role of ''lonelygirl15'', a fictional teenage homeschooled character named Bree who appeared in YouTube video blogs, beginnin ...

). The temps undergo corporate sensitivity training led by Counselor Rick ( Tony Janning), a de-motivational speaker on the verge of a nervous breakdown. In the series finale episode titled “Return of the Eddie” which aired on January 23, 2011, Nick and Eddie reconcile and quit Celltons to open a lemonade stand in Mexico. They take all of the temps with them, leaving Alina all alone.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Temp Life American comedy web series YouTube original programming