Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager | |
---|---|
Genre | Sitcom |
Created by | Aaron Yonda Matt Sloan |
Developed by | Aaron Yonda Matt Sloan |
Directed by | Aaron Yonda Matt Sloan |
Presented by | Aaron Yonda |
Starring | Aaron Yonda Matt Sloan Brad Knight Christina LaVicka Paul Guse Craig Johnson Rob Matsushita |
Voices of | Matt Sloan |
Narrated by | Matt Sloan |
Theme music composer | John Williams |
Opening theme | The Imperial March |
Ending theme | The Imperial March |
Composers | Andrew Yonda John Lee |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 4 |
No. of episodes | 38 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer | Matt Sloan |
Producer | Courtney Collins |
Production locations | Madison, Wisconsin |
Editors | Matt Sloan Aaron Yonda |
Camera setup | Tona Williams |
Running time | 4–11 minutes |
Production company | Blame Society Productions |
Release | |
Original network | Channel 101 Blip YouTube Ustream Hulu |
Original release | July 10, 2006 – December 18, 2012 |
Related | |
Star Wars |
Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager is an American fan web sitcom created by Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan, who wrote, directed, and appeared 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.
The original idea for the character of Chad Vader came from Yonda's friend, stand-up comedian Tim Harmston. [1] [2] [3] 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. [4] The show has received several awards, including an Official Star Wars Fan Film Award.
Following the end of Season 4, Aaron Yonda has confirmed no further seasons are planned, due to the expense of the production and his and Matt Sloan's frustration about not being able to pay their actors for their time. [5] Characters from the series continue to make appearances in Blame Society Film productions, especially Chad and Hal Thompson.
The "Empire Market" scenes were filmed on location at Willy Street Co-op, Madison, Wisconsin. [6]
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. After the battle, Chad and Jeremy reconcile.
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 attempts to turn the store into a "bozo circus" as Chad describes it. New employee Damien Nightshayde joins Chad and Jeremy, whilst Weird Jimmy's ghost tells Jeremy a prophecy. Finally, during the day of Chad's management, Randy attempts to blow up the store, though only Damien is killed. As a result, previous store owner Champion J. Pepper (Clint's father) buys Empire Market back, promoting Chad the general manager, and demoting Maggie to night shift manager. Champion congratulates Chad for his bravery. Jeremy, still depressed over Damien's death, chooses to take a leave of absence to go on a spiritual journey of discovery. Chad wishes Jeremy good luck in his quest.
The fourth season opens up with Chad as the general manager of Empire Market. Weird Jimmy's brother Johnny enters the store to pick up his brother's belongings. When he reminisces about Jimmy, the latter possesses him, and ultimately becomes the janitor for the store again. Chad manipulates Jeremy to return with the hope of making the store "fully operational". Disturbed over the lack of faith his employees have in him, Chad becomes convinced that he must locate his "dark soul half" to become the manager that they deserve. He descends into madness and forces a tyrannical martial law on the store. Soon, a generator malfunction threatens its very existence. Chad sacrifices himself to neutralize the generator and save Empire Market. The generator shorts out his life support suit, sending him into a near-death experience, until the suit is unexpectedly rebooted by Hal Thompson. Chad then apologizes to everyone, and gives them promotions before demoting himself back to day shift manager, and Jeremy assumes the general manager position in his stead.
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 (the main source of humor being Chad going about day-to-day life while retaining a behavior befitting of a Sith lord), 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, Chad follows Randy's orders to "ditch" the Star Wars attitude and become more normal. 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 doing the end of Season 3). While he has inappropriate and rocky relationships with most of his co-workers, most notably Clint Shermer, 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 Vader 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 this led to him becoming the new voice actor for Darth Vader. His voice appears in the games Empire at War: Forces of Corruption , [7] [8] Soulcalibur IV , and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed . [9] It is also noted that in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed , if the player kills 12 Stormtroopers as Darth Vader during the introduction sequence, they will receive an achievement called "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.
It started being broadcast on Blip since April 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.
Jedi, Jedi Knights, or collectively the Jedi Order, are the main protagonists of many works of the Star Wars franchise. Working symbiotically alongside the Old Galactic Republic, the Jedi Order is depicted as a religious, academic, meritocratic, and military (peacekeeping) organization whose origin dates back thousands of years before the events of the first film released in the franchise. The fictional organization has inspired a real-world new religious movement and parody religion: Jediism.
Darth Vader is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. The character is the central antagonist of the original trilogy and, as Anakin Skywalker, is one of the main protagonists in the prequel trilogy. Star Wars creator George Lucas has collectively referred to the first six episodic films of the franchise as "the tragedy of Darth Vader". Darth Vader has become one of the most iconic villains in popular culture, and has been listed among the greatest villains and fictional characters ever. His masked face and helmet, in particular, is one of the most iconic character designs of all time.
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith is a 2005 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It stars Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Lee, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, and Frank Oz. The sequel to The Phantom Menace (1999) and Attack of the Clones (2002), it is the sixth film in the Star Wars film series, the final installment in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and third chronological chapter of the "Skywalker Saga".
Obi-Wan Kenobi is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. Within the original trilogy, Obi-Wan is a Jedi Master as a supporting character and is portrayed by English actor Alec Guinness. In the later-released prequel trilogy, a younger version of the character serves as one of the two main protagonists, alongside Anakin Skywalker, and is portrayed by Scottish actor Ewan McGregor. In the original trilogy he is introduced as Ben Kenobi, an alias he uses while in hiding from the Empire. He is a mentor to Luke Skywalker, to whom he introduces the ways of the Jedi. After sacrificing himself in a duel against Darth Vader, Obi-Wan guides Luke through the Force in his fight against the Galactic Empire. In the prequel trilogy, set two decades earlier, he is initially a Padawan (apprentice) to Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, and later mentor and friend of Luke's father Anakin, who falls to the dark side of the Force and becomes Vader. The character briefly appears in the sequel trilogy as a disembodied voice, speaking to protagonist Rey, and serving as the namesake of Ben Solo. He is frequently featured as a main character in various other Star Wars media, including the streaming television miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi, in which McGregor reprised the role.
Yoda is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe, first appearing in the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back. He is a small, green humanoid alien who is powerful with the Force and is a leading member of the Jedi Order until its near annihilation. In The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda was voiced and puppeteered by Frank Oz, who reprised the role in Return of the Jedi, the prequel trilogy, and the sequel trilogy. Outside of the films, the character was mainly voiced by Tom Kane, starting with the 2003 Clone Wars animated television series until his retirement from voice acting in 2021. Yoda is an iconic figure in popular culture due to his distinct pattern of speech and role as a wise mentor.
"The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme)" is a musical theme present in the Star Wars franchise. It was composed by John Williams for the film The Empire Strikes Back. Together with "Yoda's Theme", "The Imperial March" was premiered on April 29, 1980, three weeks before the opening of the film, on the occasion of John Williams' first concert as official conductor-in-residence of the Boston Pops Orchestra. One of the best known symphonic movie themes, it is used as a leitmotif throughout the Star Wars franchise.
Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader is a novel set in the non-canonical Star Wars Legends continuity, written by James Luceno, that was published by Del Rey on November 22, 2005. Dark Lord takes place in the immediate aftermath of the events in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, and focuses on Darth Vader and his rise to power in the newly inaugurated Galactic Empire.
George Lucas's science fiction multi-film Star Wars saga has had a significant impact on modern popular culture. Star Wars references are deeply embedded in popular culture; references to the main characters and themes of Star Wars are casually made in many English-speaking countries with the assumption that others will understand the reference. Darth Vader has become an iconic villain, while characters such as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2 have all become widely recognized characters around the world. Phrases such as "evil empire", "May the Force be with you", Jedi mind trick and "I am your father" have become part of the popular lexicon. The first Star Wars film in 1977 was a cultural unifier, enjoyed by a wide spectrum of people.
The Sith are the main antagonists of many works in the fictional universe of the Star Wars franchise. They are the antithesis and ancient enemies of the Jedi. The Sith Order is depicted as an ancient cult of warriors who draw strength from the dark side of the Force and use it to seize power by any means necessary, including terrorism and mass murder; their ultimate goals are to destroy the Jedi and rule the galaxy. The various antagonistic factions in the franchise, namely the Separatist Alliance, the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the First Galactic Empire, the Imperial Remnant and the First Order, all originated, either directly or indirectly, from the Sith.
Aaron Yonda is an American comedian, writer, actor, director, and YouTuber from Menomonie, Wisconsin.
Matthew Sloan is an American voice actor, director, writer, and YouTuber from Madison, Wisconsin. He and his friend Aaron Yonda are notable as the co-creators of the web series Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager, in which he voices the title character. Additionally, he appears in season one as the main antagonist, Clint. He later appeared in the first few episodes of the second series as Champion J. Pepper, Clint’s father. Since Chad Vader, he has gone on to voice Darth Vader in various Star Wars media as the sound double for James Earl Jones.
A Star Wars Pez is a Pez candy dispenser themed after the Star Wars movies, and is one of the company's most prominent merchandising deals. Over 90 dispensers have been released on the market from 1997 to 2022, among the many collectibles spawned by the franchise.
Sheev Palpatine, also known by his Sith name Darth Sidious, is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas. He first appears on screen in the original trilogy films The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), in which he is credited as The Emperor, and serves as the main antagonist of the nine-film Skywalker saga, in which he is portrayed by Ian McDiarmid. In creating Palpatine, Lucas was inspired by real-world examples of democratic backsliding during the rise and rule of dictators such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler.
Darth Maul, also known simply as Maul, is a character in the Star Wars franchise. He first appeared in the 1999 film Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace as a powerful Sith Lord and Darth Sidious' first apprentice. Though seemingly killed by Obi-Wan Kenobi at the end of the film, Darth Maul returned in the 2008 computer animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Star Wars creator George Lucas had intended for the resurrected Maul to serve as the main antagonist of the sequel film trilogy, but these plans were abandoned when Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. The character nonetheless reappeared in the 2014 animated series Star Wars Rebels and the 2018 film Solo: A Star Wars Story, voiced again by Witwer; Park physically reprised the role in Solo. Since his initial defeat in The Phantom Menace, Maul has become an independent criminal mastermind and endured as Obi-Wan's archenemy.
"Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II" is a 2008 episode of the television comedy series Robot Chicken, and the sequel to the Annie Award winning "Robot Chicken Star Wars", which aired as a one-off special during Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block on November 16, 2008. Like "Robot Chicken: Star Wars" it has been released on its own DVD, on July 21, 2009, and will not be part of a season box set. The DVD contains the original broadcast version, and the "Extended Version", which features an additional 15 minutes of footage cut from the broadcast version. It was nominated for a 2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.
Lego Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures is a 3D CGI animated television series that is based on the Lego Star Wars theme, and premiered on Disney XD on June 20, 2016. Disney XD announced that it had renewed the series for a second season on April 3, 2017. A new series of five shorts debuted on May 4, with the second season premiering airing on June 17, 2017; the series' final episode aired on August 16, 2017. A follow-up series, Lego Star Wars: All-Stars, aired in 2018.
The Grand Inquisitor, introduced simply as The Inquisitor and also known as the Master of the Inquisitorius, is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. Created by Dave Filoni, based on a character concept from the Star Wars and Dark Empire Sourcebooks, he is introduced as the main antagonist of the first season of the animated series Star Wars Rebels (2014–2018), in which he is voiced by Jason Isaacs. However, the character was later revealed to had once been of the masked Jedi Temple Guards as seen in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, making that his first appearance.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)