Review - Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager (2006-2012)

        Hey guys, Chuck here. And, with my love of Star Wars, it shouldn't be a surprise that I would also enjoy parodies and fan films based on Star Wars. And, of course, one of my personal favorites of these is a YouTube series called Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager, or Chad Vader for short. 

       Created by Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda of the Madison, Wisconsin based YouTube comedy channel BlameSociety, Chad Vader came from a concept by one of their friends, Tim Harmston. The idea: what if Darth Vader was the manager of a grocery store. Well, after changing the name from Darth Vader to Chad Vader, the series was born, and was an instant success on both YouTube and MySpace. But, let's get into what made it so popular. 

      The series open in a fictitious grocery store called Empire Market (filmed on location at the Willy Street Co-Op in Madison, Wisconsin), where Chad Vader serves as the Day Shift Manager. And, Chad is decked out in a Darth Vader suit and quotes several of Darth Vader's lines from the Star Wars franchise. But, anyway, we see some of the people that Chad works with at the store, including store manager Randy, cashiers such as Tammy and Clarissa, the latter of whom he asks out to dinner, stock boys like Tony and Jeremy, the latter of whom becomes Chad's apprentice, deli attendant Lloyd, who is a pain in the ass and kind of a perv, and Night Shift Manager Clint, who is Chad's rival in the series. 

      Anyway, while at dinner with Clarissa, Chad reveals the reason for the suit he's in. Apparently, in his younger years, Chad rode his bicycle and lost control, and accidentally rode it into a volcano. The suit was sent to him by his older brother, which we assume is Darth Vader, and Chad's life is sustained in the suit. Unfortunately, Chad uses a hand-hologram to spy on Randy, which causes Randy to promote Clint to Day Shift Manager, forcing Chad to be Night Shift Manager. Yikes. 

       Unlike the Day Shift, the Night Shift is a bit more outlandish, with Chad's first night dealing with a sleeping customer, a shoplifter, a customer dropping product on the floor, and a dog roaming the store. We also meet Lionel, the oddball cashier for the Night Shift, as well as Weird Jimmy, a functioning lunatic who was once both Day Shift Manager and Night Shift Manager of Empire Market, lost his mind, and is now store custodian. After his first night, Chad can't handle the Night Shift, and knowing that he can't get the Day Shift back, resigns from Empire Market. Unfortunately, in a drunken stupor that nearly wrecks a date between Clint and Clarissa, Chad attempts to jump off a bridge. However, a Force ghost called Ben talks him out of it. Now back to his senses, Chad resolves to get another job. 

       However, most of these jobs don't last past a day, including working in the office of the Mayor (played by the then IRL Mayor of Madison, Dave Cieslewicz). Ultimately, after some counsel by Ghost Ben, Chad resolves to reclaim his job at Empire Market. This leads to a showdown between Chad and Clint, which doesn't go well, but is quickly resolved when Chad uses the Force to fling lemons at Clint, and shove him into a lettuce display. Speaking on the matter with Randy, Chad makes it seem like Clint went insane and ultimately quit. However, Randy points out that Clint's father owned Empire Market, but may be preparing to sell to a larger conglomerate. Luckily, Randy held on to Chad's Day Shift Manager name tag, and happily reinstates Chad. Clarissa welcomes Chad back, and hints that she's willing to go on a second date with him. And, we see that Jeremy is also skilled in the Force, hinting at something down the road. 

       Okay, so I want to get into some of the cast here, as BlameSociety regulars Brad Knight, Craig Johnson, Rob Matsushita, and Paul Guse were all fantastic in such roles as Randy, Weird Jimmy, Lloyd, and Jeremy. Christina Lavicka as Clarissa was certainly entertaining, as was Asa Derks as Tony. Series co-creator Matt Sloan was hilariously devious as Clint, and co-creator Aaron Yonda reprised his role of Hal Thompson from another BlameSociety series, Fun Rangers, with great hilarity. And, of course Yonda and Sloan's combined performance as Chad is what sold this series. Yonda, with occasional doubling from either Brad Knight or Craig Johnson, in the Vader suit, with Sloan providing the voice, is absolutely fantastic. In fact, the staff at Lucasfilm loved the performance so much that they actually hired Matt Sloan to voice Darth Vader for several Star Wars video games. 

       And, it was during the first season that Matt and Aaron teamed up with Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy at RiffTrax to do a commentary on Attack of the Clones, and the release of said commentary was accompanied by a short called "Chad Vader Does RiffTrax," which also featured appearances by Rob Schrab and Steve Agee. After the conclusion of the first season of Chad Vader, Sever other videos involving Chad were released, such as a parody music video of Chad doing a cover of Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain," and a series of Empire Market Employee Training Videos, which were hilarious. But, it's time for the second season. 

       Season Two kicks off with Empire Market owner Champion J. Pepper showing the store to Maggie McCall of Red Leader Foods, the corporation that Champion sold Empire Market to. Along with Maggie is her assistant Libby, who becomes a new romantic interest for Chad this season. Something hinted at in the first season was an all-powerful Laser Checkout System. Unfortunately, the Laser Checkout System proves to be too powerful, and it literally destroys a can of beans, covering an incensed Maggie in the can's contents. 

       After a few weeks, Maggie is now interim General Manager, while Randy is Night Shift Manager. Maggie implements a strict "no dating" policy, meaning there will be severe consequences for any employee dating a fellow employee. Maggie also suggests Chad to look into recalibrating the boiler, which sends Chad and Jeremy to the basement of Empire Market. It's here where we see Jeremy recalibrate the boiler, and Chad, Jeremy, and Weird Jimmy have to fend off three rogue droids, which are destroyed by Jeremy when he takes up Chad's lightsaber. Unfortunately, Jimmy's mop is cut in half, and Jimmy mourns the loss of the mop. And, Chad reveals that he built the droids, but they were failures and he left them in the basement. 

       And, remember how I mentioned the Empire Market Employee Training Videos? Well, apparently, a guy named Robby Johnson got a job at Empire Market, and was fired in a day for taking the videos too literally. However, that was when Randy was general manager, so Maggie opts to reverse that decision and rehires Robby. Making things worse, Maggie forces Chad to make Robby his new apprentice, driving a wedge between Chad and Jeremy. Also, we see something odd going on with Randy, as not only has the Night Shift driven him insane, but he apparently is hallucinating hearing a bizarre baby doll called Baby Cookie talking to him. 

       Robby, meanwhile, is named the first recipient for an Employee Rewards Program, which is an evening dinner at a local restaurant, and Chad, Robby, and Libby enjoy a night of food and drinks, although a little too much on the drinks. Chad and Libby share their first kiss, and Jeremy witnesses this from a distance, and reports what he saw to Maggie. The next day, Maggie speaks with Chad on what happened between him and Libby, and reveals that Libby was deported, and sent back to New Zealand. In reality, actress Kate Sprecher, who played Libby, moved to New Zealand along with her husband Justin, and the deportation was Matt and Aaron's way of writing her out of the series. And, it's here where we meet a weirdo calling himself the Marshmallow Bandito. And, who is he? Well, he was a disgruntled customer named Sean Banditson, who was upset when Chad ended a sale on marshmallows, and vowed to destroy Chad. But, he poses no real threat and is more of an annoyance. But, all credit to his actor, Sean Moore, because this character was damn hilarious. And, the Bandito outfit is a white sweater, chef's hat, and white cape with white face paint, which both in story and IRL caused Sean to have a burning rash. Yeesh. 

        Unfortunately, a guilt ridden Jeremy contemplates leaving Empire Market, but is convinced by Maggie to attend a two-week training camp, and he'll be the new general manager of Empire Market upon his return. And, upon Jeremy's departure, Sean is made a new employee, as a further means of annoying Chad. Two weeks later, and Jeremy is given his first task as general manager: check in on the night shift and fire Randy. 

       That night, Chad confronts Jeremy, and Weird Jimmy makes a passing remark about a conversation two had previously, hinting that Jeremy ratted out Chad, causing Libby to be deported. And, it's here where we get a lightsaber duel between Chad and Jeremy, and we see Jeremy's lightsaber. Now, while the blade is blue (my favorite lightsaber color), the hilt looks like an aluminum drink bottle with buttons and adornments to make it look like a makeshift lightsaber hilt. And, it's during their duel that Randy, completely crazed and under the control of Baby Cookie, attempts to kill Chad with a sword. Jimmy shoves Randy out of the way, as does Jeremy to Chad, and Jeremy unintentionally impales Jimmy with the lightsaber. Jimmy sees the Force ghost of his mop, and he becomes one with the Force. In other words, Weird Jimmy is dead. A few days later, Jeremy is no longer general manager, and instead of instantly giving the position to Chad, Maggie opts to create a "General Manager for the day" program, allowing everyone at Empire Market to have a chance to be general manager. Oh, and Randy is now store custodian, and Jeremy finds himself haunted by Weird Jimmy's Force ghost. 

        Season Three picks up pretty much where Season Two left off, and Chad installs a new surveillance device in the store: the Surveillance Assailant. It's pretty much a papier-mâché model of the Death Star from A New Hope with a surveillance camera on top of it. And, Chad uses it to identify three candidates for general manager for the day: Tony, Lloyd, and Sean. Now, what was neat was, at the time, fans could determine the order in which the three could be managed for the day by way of voting. It was simple: click the annotations in the video (back when those were a thing), and the character with the most votes would be general manager for the next episode. 

       So, first up was Sean, who actually turns out to be a pretty good general manager, but he goes nuts when a customer mishandles a bag of marshmallows, and then Sean collects a rocket powered shopping cart, which Chad designed but was deemed unsafe after a test (with Lloyd as a test dummy. Go figure), and goes on a rampage through the store. After him is Lloyd, who is alright, but ends up pulling the fire alarm as a distraction to him harassing Clarissa, which results in Chad taking some duct tape and wrapping Lloyd up like a mummy. Lastly is Tony, whose tenure as manager does something amazing to Empire Market - nothing happens. Yeah, no craziness, no bickering between Chad and Maggie. Hell, even Jeremy doesn't care when Weird Jimmy's ghost shows up. The closest we get to anything happening is when Lloyd attempts to steal coffee beans, and Chad whacks him in the back of the knees with a broomstick. The episode ends with Tony's demeanor changing when the shift is over, and he gleefully takes off his apron, struts towards the store exit, and kisses Clarissa on the lips. And, Chad notes "there goes the best manager I have ever seen." 

       Unfortunately, Maggie is unimpressed with this trio Chad chose to be manager for the day, so she takes up the task of selecting managers for the day. Her first pick: Clint. Yep, Clint is back to make things in Empire Market go insane. And, Clint filed a restraining order against Chad...of a three-foot radius around his person. Clint wears a device to detect if Chad is anywhere near him, and if that.is a case, an alarm will sound. If the alarm sounds for more than five seconds, the police will arrive and arrest Chad. Throughout his tenure, Clint starts turning Empire Market into some kind of bozo circus, by marking up the price of beans to ludicrous prices, and marks them as being radioactive, brings in a woman in a bikini to help customers, and hires a new stock boy: Damien Nightshayde. Damien's hiring has a lot to do with the popularity of the Twilight movies at the time. And, an interesting fact is that Damien is played by Ian Zander, son of Cheap Trick lead singer Robin Zander. 

        It's also around this time that we meet a new cashier named Michelle. Michelle, much like Clarissa and Libby in the first two seasons, is Chad's love interest this season, and I will admit that I enjoyed Michelle as a character a bit more. Don't get me wrong, both Clarissa and Libby were good characters, but Michelle definitely feels like she could fit in the world of Star Wars. And, a lot of that does come from the more down-to-earth performance by actress Sarah Rogers. Anyway, after Clint's stunt as general manager for the day, Chad ends up getting sick and having to call out of work, leaving Empire Market in the hands of Jeremy and Damien. While sick, Chad ends up having bizarre dreams, one of which happens to have him receive a phone call from his own brother, Darth Vader. Oh, and Michelle drops by with some soup to help Chad get better. Back at the store, Maggie picks, out of sheer convenience, Hal Thompson to be general manager for the day, and his only contribution is calling the distribution center, and ordering live chickens and flakes. Also, when the guy at distribution asks about Randy, Hal realizes that he needs to get back Baby Cookie. 

        Now, at the start of the season, Randy seems a bit more like his old self, and he claims to have thrown Baby Cookie away. But, he hid the doll under the cabbage, and is still going crazy, despite trying to be free of its influence. Luckily, Hal arrives and recovers Baby Cookie. But, Randy has more dolls like Baby Cookie stashed away, and all of them rigged. Once Chad has recovered, he's back in the store, and it's time to, once again, choose a general manager for the day. And, in what would be the first Chad Vader episode to be completely improvised, we get the return of Champion J. Pepper, who reveals he put a clause in the sales pitch for Empire Market. Apparently, Champion made it so he could insert himself as an employee for a single day, which he even admits was a stupid clause and has no idea why he included it. The episode sees Champion interact with the likes of Randy, Jeremy, Chad, and Maggie, while Chad has a run-in with Michelle, thanking her for the soup. Champion makes his leave of Empire Market, and hears something odd, and puzzled as to the sound he heard. 

       Anyway, it's finally Chad's turn to be general manager for the day, and Maggie reveals that she's already made her choice for who will be permanent general manager: Clint. Unwilling to let this happen, Chad decides that he and Clint must face off once more. This time, for good. Clint, initially not interested and hiding behind the restraining order, eventually relents and reveals that he nabbed Jeremy's lightsaber. Chad and Clint have an old fashioned lightsaber duel, but a couple bags of chips get cut up during the duel. Heading towards the main part of the store, Chad has Jeremy and Damien throw a net onto Clint, which doesn't do much. However, Jeremy then recovers one of the Baby Cookie dolls, revealing that the doll is a bomb. And, of course Randy is responsible, and reveals that he rigged six Baby Cookie dolls as bombs, and they'll soon explode and destroy Empire Market. 

       Chad and Clint, who reveals that he was once part of a Bob disposal club, come up with a plan: Chad collects the five remaining bombs, and Clint will defuse them. Chad is able to get most of them, collecting them from Michelle, Hal, and Lloyd, as well as a customer named Yeshmin. Unfortunately, the last bomb is inside of the Surveillance Assailant, and Jeremy isn't able to open it. However, Jeremy initially thinks that he needs to get the Surveillance Assailant outside, this getting the last bomb outside, but Damien takes it upon himself to carry out the deed. Thoroughly puzzled by what's going on, both Maggie and Champion ask why there was a bomb in Empire Market, and Maggie attempts to blame Chad, which reminds Champion of something Maggie said in Season Two: "Employee stupidity often stems from manager incompetence." And, when Champion asks who the manager for the day is, Chad takes responsibility, but then Champion asks who's responsible for Chad, and his attention goes to Maggie. And, it turns out that Champion addad another clause in the sales pitch, which made it possible for him to repurchase Empire Market from Red Leader Foods, which he does, which removes Maggie from power. 

         At a ceremony, Champion rewards Jeremy for his deeds, Michelle is named Head Cashier, and Lloyd is stuck being the deli attendant. Maggie manages to get herself a position in Empire Market...as Night Shift Manager, something that Champion remarks as a punishment instead of a reward. Also, Champion reveals that Clint will be general manager of Empire Market's new expanded location. As for Chad? Well, he's officially named general manager of the main Empire Market location. And, despite Chad attempting to make Jeremy Day Shift Manager, Jeremy decides to go on a journey of self discovery, leaving Empire Market behind. And, the season ends with Chad and Michelle finally leaving to go on a date. 

         And, now we come to the fourth and final season of Chad Vader, where Empire Market has grown quite a bit since Chad became general manager, and both employee and customer satisfaction have both gone up. But, some things never change, as Lloyd is still a bit of a perv. Maggie, meanwhile, has seemed to have taken up a Japanese work ethic, and isn't insane like Randy was as Night Shift Manager. But, Chad misses both Jeremy, who's still on a journey of self discovery, and Michelle, who's on vacation. It's here where Chad meets Johnny, twin brother of Weird Jimmy. Johnny, by contrast to the complete lunatic that Jimmy was, is more sane, and claims to do volunteer work for his church, the Church of the Holy Jesus Flame (a callback to another BlameSociety project called Caught Red Handed), and is merely in Empire Market to collect Jimmy's belongings. 

       After Chad gives Jimmy's belongings to Johnny, Johnny asks for a moment alone. However, Weird Jimmy's Force ghost shows up, and possessed his brother. And, although Chad isn't in favor of Jimmy possessing Johnny, Jimmy was never legally declared dead, so it's not a big deal. And, Jimmy gets is janitor job back. Jeremy then shows up, revealing that his journey of self discovery was pretty much spent at home playing the video game Skyrim, and then wandering the streets, up until Ben the ghost showed up to tell Jeremy to go back to the store and  work with Chad. Only, it turns out that Chad hired Ben to do this, as Jeremy's true destiny was at the Michigan Institute of Technology. 

        Some time later, and the staff of Empire Market is having a birthday party for Chad, and it's here where we learn that a famous television actor was once employed at Empire Market around the time Chad got started. Which actor? Well, I wish I was kidding, but it's Brian Krause. Yep, the same guy who became a household name for playing Leo on Charmed was a former Empire Market employee, and reveals some stories about Chad, including his job interview with Randy, and his attempt to clock in for the first time resulting in destroying the punch-clock, and he blamed it on Clint, thus securing the animosity Clint and Chad had for each other. Yeah, we learn that Clint was previously a nice guy, but became a jerk when Chad threw him under the proverbial bus. Yeesh. Anyway, I think that it was cool that Matt and Aaron were able to get Brian Krause to appear as himself in a two-part episode of Chad Vader, which goes to show how big the series got by the time Season Four rolled around. 

         After another trip to the basement, Chad has a massive personality turn, as he goes from being a decent and likeable general manager into being a full blown villain. Adding ridiculous new restrictions, demoralizing, and eventually firing, an employee called Andy, who went on to a career in country music, and eventually hiring the 501st Legion to monitor employee and customer activity in the store. Meanwhile, Chad makes Maggie his right-hand, and Maggie has Jeremy take over her job as Night Shift Manager. Also, Michelle breaks up with Chad after he decides to brag about his relationship with her to Libby, who reveals that she got married since being deported back to New Zealand. And, by the way, Libby's husband Brandon is portrayed by Kate Sprecher's real life husband Justin. 

       All the while, the generator is starting to overload, and Weird Jimmy points out the amount of time it had been since the last time the generator was serviced. Apparently, Irving was general manager, and he was "the guy before the guy before the guy before Randy." But, Chad has become too drunk with power to listen to anyone, and makes the generator off limits. However, Jeremy and Jimmy take it upon themselves to fix the generator, but are caught by a red-robed guard. Maggie then suggests Jeremy fix the generator by pressing a red button, but the electric overcharge keeps hurting Jeremy, forcing Chad to press the button himself. And, no surprise, Maggie sabotaged the generator. However, with help from Hal, Chad is revived and back to normal. At a staff meeting, Chad gives everyone bonuses, raises, and promotions, steps down from general manager to day shift manager, and named Jeremy the new general manager, thus ending the series. 

       Chad Vader was not only a really fun series, but it was the series that put BlameSociety Productions on the map. Prior to Chad Vader Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda mainly produced short skits like "Salsa Chassis" and "We Replaced This Man's Coffee With...," as well as a few of their more popular series like McCourt's in Session, Super Shooter, and Fun Rangers. But, it was Chad Vader that made them easily one of the most popular channels in the early years of YouTube. Heck, Chad Vader even won the prestigious George Lucas Selects award at the "Star Wars Fan Film Awards." That's an achievement right there. Something else really cool is that Willy Street Co-Op, the store used for the filming location for the series, even had their in-store coffee brand, Just Coffee, make a Chad Vader themed blend of coffee called Chad's Dark Soul Half Blend, which was for sale for a limited time. 

        Now, of course, other notable YouTubers at the time made appearances in either the main Chad Vader series or in a Chad Vader short. For instance, Chad once had a crossover with Amber Lee Ettinger aka Obama Girl, as well as a run in with Felicia Day, creator and star of The Guild. Greg Benson, creator of the YouTube channel MediocreFilms, also made numerous crossovers with BlameSociety, even having his own character of Yeshmin appear in the third season of Chad Vader. Chad, himself, made an appearance at the 2008 YouTube Live event, where he appeared on stage with Will it Blend? creator Tom Dickson. Later that year, in a Christmas video, Chad even got a BlendTec blender from Tom as a Christmas present. Cool. And, of course, we had Chad's work with the crew at RiffTrax for their commentary tracks on two Star Wars movies: Attack of the Clones and The Empire Strikes Back.

        Overall, when it comes to the Chad Vader series, it still holds up as a piece of YouTube history. If you want a series that was made for fun, and has many humorous references to Star Wars, then this is one to check out. I'm giving Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager a rating of 5/5. An all-time YouTube classic. 

       Alright guys, this is Chuck signing off, and I'll see you guys later.