| Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager | |
|---|---|
Chad at work, Episode 1 |
|
| Genre | Comedy |
| Created by | Aaron Yonda Matt Sloan |
| Directed by | Aaron Yonda Matt Sloan |
| Starring | Aaron Yonda Matt Sloan Brad Knight Christina LaVicka Paul Guse Craig Johnson Rob Matsushita |
| Composer(s) | Andrew Yonda John Lee |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 28 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Courtney Collins |
| Editor(s) | Matt Sloan Aaron Yonda |
| Location(s) | Madison, Wisconsin |
| Camera setup | Tona Williams |
| Running time | 4–6 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Blame Society Productions |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Channel 101 YouTube Ustream |
| Original run | June 25, 2006 – present |
| External links | |
| [blamesociety.net Website] | |
Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager is an American comedy fan web series created by Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan, who write, direct and appear in the series, which parodies Star Wars. The show's central character is Chad Vader, the day-shift manager at the fictional supermarket Empire Market, who clashes with his customers and employees. Initially produced for Channel 101, the project was canceled after only two episodes were released. However, Yonda and Sloan decided to continue the story and the project achieved significant popularity following its airing on YouTube. It is largely filmed in Madison, Wisconsin at Willy Street Cooperative.[1]The show has received several awards, including an Official Star Wars Fan Film Award.
Contents |
The "Empire Market" scenes were filmed on location at Willy Street Co-op, Madison, Wisconsin.[2]
The first season follows Chad and his interactions with his co-workers. He admires his boss Randy, acquires Jeremy as an apprentice, hazes Lloyd and dates Clarissa. After troubles with Clint, Chad is moved to the night shift, where he meets Weird Jimmy, before quitting his job at Empire Market. After unsuccessfully working briefly at a number of jobs, he returns to Empire Market to re-ally with his coworkers and battle Clint to reclaim the day shift manager position.
In the second season, Empire Market is bought out by Red Leader Foods, a large corporation. Maggie McCall arrives as the corporate liaison for the new owners. After failure on the new laser checkout system, Randy is demoted to night shift manager, where he becomes mentally unstable, and Maggie becomes the acting general manager. The series also introduces another love interest for Chad, Maggie's assistant Libby and a minor antagonist, Sean Banditson. The season focuses on Chad's misuse of Jeremy and Maggie's attempts to ally with Jeremy. Afterward, Jeremy and Chad duel, leading to the accidental death of Weird Jimmy.
The third season begins with the trial promotion of employees to general manager for a day. After the employees' failures, Maggie trials Clint as manager-for-a-day, where he pressures Randy to ally with him. New employee Damien Nightshayde allies with Chad and Jeremy, while a dead Jimmy, in Jeremy's visions, tells Jeremy a prophecy. Randy claims an unspecified plan is in motion. Later, former store owner Champion J. Pepper returns to the store and is the manager-for-a-day. He appears to do nothing, although a bit more than Tony. Later, Randy is seen crazier than ever. In the ending of the episode, Baby Cookie is seen ticking behind products. Soon, it is finally Chad's turn to be manager-for-a-day although Maggie has already decided that the best manager is Clint. To compensate, Chad goes to challenge Clint for a duel to the death and they initially duel in the back room, before moving towards the front of the store due to product damage to continue their duel. Soon, Chad surrenders and Jeremy and Damien throw a small net at Clint. Clint is irritated. However, soon after, Jeremy found a Baby Cookie bomb behind the shelf, and the timer indicates six minutes until detonation. Clint, Chad, Jeremy, and Damien race to find the other five bombs before the store blows up. When the sixth and final bomb is found, it turns out to be in the surveillance assailant. Damien grabs the bomb and is killed when it blows up in the parking lot. Seeing the explosion, Champion J. Pepper comes in and exercises a clause in the original sales agreement with Red Leader Foods that allows him to reacquire the store. He hires Maggie as the night manager, and promotes Chad to general manager. Jeremy, however, feels guilty about causing the death of Jimmy and Damien, and goes on leave.
Chad Vader (Aaron Yonda/voiced by Matt Sloan) is the show's central character. He is the day shift manager of Empire Market. Sometimes using lines lifted from the Star Wars films, Chad's main goal is to crush Empire Market's competition and help make the store dominate the food retailing industry. However, as Season 2 progresses along and Chad follows Randy's orders to "ditch" the Star Wars attitude and become more normal and the new leader announces that everyone has a chance to be General Manager, his main goal morphs into a great ambition to become General Manager (which he succeeds in the end of Season 3). While he has inappropriate and rocky relationships with most of his co-workers, most notably Clintfield Chadton, he has better ones with others, such as Jeremy, whom he adopts as his apprentice. Chad implies in the second episode that he is Darth Vader's younger, less successful brother, and that Darth gave Chad a life support suit and helmet similar to his own after Chad accidentally rode his bicycle into a volcano. This fact is mentioned explicitly on the Blame Society website (www.blamesociety.net). Though he uses a red Sith lightsaber as a weapon to threaten opponents and shoplifters, he may not be a Sith; he is never referred to as "Darth", the title given to all members of the Sith order. He is, however, referred to as "Lord Vader" by some characters. Chad had lost touch with his family when they moved to Tatooine without him. LucasArts was impressed by Sloan, and eventually this led to him becoming the new voice actor for Darth Vader. His voice appears in the games Empire at War: Forces of Corruption[3][4], Soulcalibur IV, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed[5]. It is also noted that in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, if the player kills 12 Stormtroopers, they will receive an achievement entitled "Worst Day Shift Manager Ever".
The first episode of Season 2 was released on the internet on February 1, 2009 and subsequent episodes have been periodically released. Season 3 started being released on the internet from early 2010.
The series also has a DVD, which contains all 8 of the first season episodes, and one for season 2's ten episodes. Released on DVD in Fall 2008, Season 1.5 features the collection of "Chad Vader Training Videos" and other material created after the release of the Season 1 DVD. Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager has been translated into at least 6 languages, including Portuguese, Spanish, French, Chinese, Hebrew and Lingua Franca Nova.
The titular character of Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager has appeared outside of the web series.
A spin-off web series, Empire Market Training Videos was produced in 2008. In the webisodes, Chad covers issues of customer satisfaction, custodial duties, the importance of the dress code, the perils of shoplifting and patrolling in a series of in-universe training videos teaching the potential employee of Empire Market. It retained many characters from the main series.