Characters / Total Drama Hosts

Total Drama Main Character Index
Main Series: Hosts | Killer Bass | Screaming Gophers (Male, Female) | New World Tour Contestants | Mutant Maggots| Toxic Rats | Pimâpotew Kinosewak (Floating Salmon) | Wâneyihtam Maskwak (Confused Bears) | Ferocious Trout | Frogs of Death | Others
Spinoffs: Ridonculous Race Newcomers | DramaRama

Total Drama's cast got so big that the page had to be split into several pages. This page is for the hosts, Chris McLean and Chef Hatchet.

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Chris McLean

"The great thing about lawyers is, that they make LOTS of copies."

Voiced by: Christian Potenza (2007-2014), Terry McGurrin (2023-)

Label: The Host With The Most

The host of the Total Drama series. Chris is a sadistic and narcissistic sociopath who takes pleasure in the suffering and misfortunes of the contestants, loves to mess around with their relationships, and is willing to change the rules to his whim - all in order to maximize the show's ratings.

Click here to see his self demonstrating page.

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• Ambiguously Bi: Chris has openly acknowledged Justin and Caleb's attractiveness, becoming easily enamoured with the latter. In the intro for the 2023 season of Island, he and Chef also gaze at each other in place of the usual clip of the season's main couple. That said, it's implied that Chris has a crush on Lindsay if his "not too shabby" and "she's delicious" remarks are anything to go by and he enjoys the attention he receives from his female admirers as shown in the second season's special.
• Arch-Enemy: To everyone who isn't named Chef. However, the original cast are easily the ones who hate him the most—after three seasons enduring his sadism, the only reason they bother sticking around is because of contractual obligations and another shot at a million dollars. Many blatantly state that they hate Chris with every fiber of their being.
• Artistic License: Chris's Screw the Rules, I Make Them! tendencies. In real life, a mere host would have to answer to much higher-ranking producers. While the show sometimes correctly portrays them having some power over him, as they cancel some of his ideas for challenges when they find them too dangerous, there are times when Chris acts on his own without contacting the producers first or receiving orders from them, such as when he disqualifies an immune Sierra for destroying the plane in "Awwwwww, Drumheller" or when he disqualifies Max solely for being done with evil in "Scarlett Fever".
• Artsy Beret: For the duration of the movie-themed Action season, Chris regularly wears a red beret to signify his role as film director.
• Ass Pull: Chris is the in-universe master of this trope. On many, many occasions he changes the rules of a competition at the last minute or after it's finished, or whenever he feels like it.
• Attention Whore: Justified as he is the host of the show. Exaggerated in later seasons, such as "Team Chris Is Really Really Really Hot" in World Tour and the McLean-brand of products in Revenge of the Island.
• Ax-Crazy: As Harold would say, Chris is freaking insane.
• Bad Boss: Chris has a good amount of creative control over the show, often berates the production crew, and gets interns maimed or killed on the regular. The producers themselves don't care if it brings in ratings, and only intervene at the threat of a lawsuit.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Zigzagged depending on the season as Chris does not have an ultimate outcome for his actions and instead torments the contestants until one of them remains to receive a cash prize from him for all the trouble. Revenge of The Island though is the only season in which he actually loses due to his arrest.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: In "Top Dog", when he's explaining the animal buddy challenge to the contestants, he has a parrot sitting on his shoulder. After it bites his finger, he tells the contestants to give him a minute, and then walks off screen. Violent sounds of punching and squawking are heard, then Chris comes back with his hair messed up and covered in feathers.
• Bald of Evil: In Season 2, Aftermath part four, it shows Chris is actually bald and that his trademark hair is actually a toupee. And the evil... well, that's pretty much a given. This is later contradicted in "Ice to Beat You", where Chris is shown having a Bad Hair Day. Given that the reboot takes place fifteen years after the original Island in 2007 however, it's possible that Chris may have had a hair transplant since then.
• Berserk Button:
  • Hearing anyone mention his age.
  • Any mention of his past life.
  • Being interrupted.
  • Being corrected.
  • Falling victim to any form of major property destruction whether it was accidental or not. He disqualified Sierra after she accidentally blows up his plane and then he disqualified Duncan and got him arrested after Duncan deliberately blew up Chris's cottage with dynamite.
  • Being played by the contestant. In Revenge of the Island, he once decides to make a safe and fun challenge for the contestants but angrily changed his mind after getting caught into one of Scott's traps, making him stuck in the outhouse. He manage to get his revenge when Scott gets eliminated by sending Fang along with him. He also set out to humiliate Topher in TDPI once he figured out Topher was deliberately getting under his skin so Chris would crack and Topher could replace him.
  • Insinuating that he is a coward, as he furiously reacted upon seeing the footage of him screaming and cowering in "Zeek And Ye Shall Find".
  • Showing any form of humiliating footage of him is a surefire way to get him upset. He freaked and fired Geoff and Bridgette from the Aftermath sessions when they showed a list of humiliating moments of him on TV, and they only got their jobs back thanks to the intervention of the producers. He furiously freaked over seeing himself get flung into the septic tank in Revenge of the Island, and he was steaming mad upon seeing the clips of him calling for help when captured by Ezekiel in All Stars.
• Beard of Evil: Downplayed. While certainly evil, Chris only has Perma-Stubble.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: When Larry's egg hatches, one of its offspring looks like Chris. When said offspring appears on the screen, Chris nervously whistles in response.
• Big Bad: Of the whole series. Chris creates all the challenges that causes the contestants' suffering, regularly puts them in life-threatening situations, and is antagonistic to everyone on the show.
• Broken Pedestal: To Sierra, who didn't register how cruel he was until she managed to incur his wrath by accidentally blowing up his jet at the end of "Awwwwww, Drumheller".
• The Bully: He loves treating Chef, his interns and teenage reality show contestants like crap because of how sadistic and mean-spirited he is.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: That's why they pay him the big bucks!
• Card-Carrying Villain: He straight-out admits that he's a sadist.
• Catchphrase: "Awwwee-some!!!", "Last time on Total Drama...", and "Right here. On Total. Drama..."
• Celebrity Endorsement: Chris will put his name and/or face on anything. In Revenge of the Island, he has his own brand of products, including hot chocolate, soaps and conditioners, instant coffee, etc.
• Characterization Marches On: He was a gadfly earlier on before becoming more of a sadistic guy.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: He's usually seen with a Sadistic grin on his face.
• Comedic Sociopath: Since Action, he became a sadist, and it gets worse each season.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Of Jeff Probst. Both are hosts of popular reality shows and have a few Jerkass tendencies here and there. However, whereas Jeff still cared for the contestants, Chris shows utter disdain for the teenage contestants and does whatever he can to torture them simply because he can.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Word of God states that Chris went through a traumatizing event that made him into the sadistic host that he is today. However, that particular event has never been revealed.
• Depraved Kids' Show Host: Words cannot express the downright sadism and lack of empathy this man expresses as the host of a reality show with teenage contestants. He doesn't even attempt to hide his cruelty.
• The Dog Bites Back: Although he is usually a Karma Houdini, Chris occasionally gets what's coming to him. In half the seasons, there's a moment the contestants or Chef Hatchet get back at him.
  • In "The Very Last Episode, Really!" of Island, he gets thrown into the lake by the contestants.
  • In "The Aftermath: IV" of Action, Geoff and Bridgette show a montage featuring Chris in humiliating moments on international television.
  • In "Brain vs. Brawn: The Ultimate Showdown" of Revenge Of The Island, Chris gets pushed into the lake again by a bomb explosion although he is unharmed but wet. He also gets arrested for turning the island into an environmental disaster with toxic waste and spends an entire year in jail.
• Draco in Leather Pants: In-universe, Sierra's mother has a crush on him. Sierra herself thinks he's an amazing host, only realizing the full extent of his cruelty when he leaves her behind in "Planes, Trains, and Hot Air Mobiles".
  Sierra: (confessional) Okay, mom? I know how hard it is to end a crush, but he's a total JERK-FACE! When I come home, the Chris McLean Museum/guest room better be DESTROYED!"
• Drama Queen: He screams and throws tantrums frequently—most of the time over silly, selfish reasons.
• Dreadful Musician: As shown in "The Aftermath: IV", Chris is a terrible singer. This is probably why his time as a member of the boy band Fametown is an off-limits topic of discussion according to "Broadway, Baby!"
• Dub Name Change: In the Canadian French dub, his name is changed to "Louis Mercier."
• Dungeon Master: His job is to make the challenges interesting, and constantly pays lip service to his own rules.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He's a Narcissist who feeds off the pain and agony of his contestants, yet it seem his only positively functional relationship to a human is his mother (though he seems to be on good terms with his cousin Jerd). As evident, it has been revealed that he calls her everyday and in one instant his mother texted him her cat in a shoe box.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: There's four people — and four people only — that Chris shows affection to: his mother, his cousin Jerd, his pet plant Larry, and Chef Hatchet. And just because he shows affection to the last two doesn't mean they're immune to his cruelty, but at least Chris doesn't want them dead.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He was genuinely disgusted when Heather read Gwen's diary on National Television; and feels bad when, in the same episode, Justin is the one who gets voted off.
    Chris: That's really messed up, dude.
  • In "No Pain, No Game", he is disturbed by Izzy's willingness to do a poison ivy treatment challenge, and calls the production crew to get their approval before allowing it.
  • He was horrified when the psycho killer with a chainsaw and a hook came across Gwen. Admittedly, he was more worried about potential lawsuits rather than actual concern for her, but he still left the safety of his surveillance room (alongside everyone else) to warn her.
  • Mike calls him out on this in "The Treasure Island of Dr. McLean", stating that burying someone alive is dangerous, even by Chris's standards.
  • He is genuinely concerned when Sierra starts having a breakdown.
  • Even he doesn't approve of Courtney trying to give his starving interns a sundae covered in chocolate coals and bird vomit in "Sundae Muddy Sundae", changing the rules so that the contestants have to eat their own sundaes and forbidding Courtney from eating anything else until she finishes hers.
    Chris: You won't get anything else until you finish the sundae that you thought was good enough to feed my interns.
  • While he may flush the losers down a giant toilet in All-Stars, he gets pretty pissed at the Sasquatchanakwa for using it as an actual toilet.
    Chris: Seriously, bro, we put PEOPLE in there!
  • In "The Bold and the Booty-ful", he was genuinely scared when Mal came up out of nowhere and was about to hit Gwen with a pipe and it caused him to head to the panic room!
    Chris: Whoa! Where did he come from? That guy is just spooky!
  • Like Sugar, he considered the way Sky rejected Dave in front of the world was 'pretty much like watching someone hoof a kitten in the nards'.
    • That's not to say he was above rubbing it in Dave's face, of course.
  • In "Scarlett Fever", he doesn't even waste time with an elimination ceremony for Scarlett, instead chewing her out and throwing her off the island as soon as everything is resolved.
  • Even he is scared of Scary Girl.
  • In episode 10 of the reboot, he's just as sickened as everyone else when he learns just how awful of a boyfriend Chase was to Emma.
  • While he's fine with making the contests eat gross food that's barely edible, making them eat ink still crosses a line for them.
  • When doing the recap of the waterside challenge, he found it harsh that Millie tricked Damien into going a dangerous four point pipe.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In the All-Stars finale Chris can't stand the fact that Mike and Zoey, Heather & Alejandro, and Gwen & Cameron were all happy and didn't remotely care about the game or challenge anymore.
• Evil Counterpart: Chris is this to Don (from The Ridonculous Race). While Don cares more about fair play and prefers to be more faithful to the rules, Chris will stop at nothing to not only change the rules at the last minute and start drama at inopportune times.
• Evil Laugh: He pulls off a pretty impressive one in the first episode of Revenge of the Island, and in "Finders Creepers".
• Exact Words: He often uses this as an Ass Pull to eliminate contestants based off a technicality:
  • In "That's Off The Chain" he states that whoever crosses the finish line last in the bicycle race challenge will be automatically eliminated. He then eliminates Lindsay for crossing the finish line last since she crossed it second after Heather, and given that Owen and Duncan were taken out of commission due to the course hazard.
  • In "Haute Camp-ture", the eliminated campers are given the chance to vote off a contestant from the final five. When the former contestants are discussing who they will vote off he counts every mention of Leshawna's name as a vote against her, including a parrot. Trent lampshades it by telling Chris it's a parrot who doesn't even know who Leshawna is, only for another vote to come in since he mentioned her name while saying that.
  • In "I Triple Dog Dare You", Heather has to have her head shaved as part of Lindsay's dare, Heather however kicks the razor out of Chef's hands which ends up landing on her hair and shaving it bald anyway however she gets eliminated since she didn't technically accept the dare.
  • In "I See London" he sets a challenge to capture Ezekiel dressed as Jack the Ripper, Owen and Noah do whereas Courtney and Gwen come back with Duncan. He's pleasantly surprised by this to the point that he declares their team the winner with the justification that he told them to "capture a criminal" which Duncan was.
  • In the "World Tour" finale, he declares Alejandro the season's winner since Heather accidentally threw Alejandro's wooden-pineapple sacrifice instead of her own.
• Expecting Someone Taller: As stated by Beth.
• Expy: He is a parody of Jeff Probst, the host of Survivor.
• Faking the Dead: In Get a Clue, he uses a rubber replica of himself to pretend he was murdered as part of the mystery-solving challenge.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's a good show host and a pretty chill dude, but he's a downright, self-acknowledged Sadist.
• Flanderization: He gets progressively more evil and sadistic with each passing season. In Island he at least has some semblance of humanity and was just a mean jokester. But by All-Stars he exists solely for the purpose to cause pain and suffering, which he thrives on. This is even lampshaded a few times where he explains it's due to the effects of his time spent in prison.
  Chris: "After my involuntary year-long "vacation", I really need to be in a familiar environment, surrounded by the people I love... to hurt."
  • Season 7 though significantly tones down his flanderized personality.
• For the Evulz:
  • Before the start of the Yukon challenge, Chris mentions that in the past, he noticed that teams tend to work much harder during elimination rounds. Just because he can, he promises that every challenge COULD result in an elimination from that point.
  • When people call him out for some of his excessively cruel challenges, he often comments "where would be the fun in that?"
• Freudian Excuse: According to Word of God. Chris suffered a tragic event in his past that made him the sadistic asshole he is today.
• The Gadfly: Early on in Island, he was just a mean jokester.
• Hated by All: The cast of every season hates him, but none more so than the first generation cast, many of whom are just sick of him and want absolutely nothing to do with him—and/or the show in general—anymore.
• Hate Sink: Becomes one after season two, as he gets more and more sociopathic.
• The Heavy: While Chris must answer to the producers and there's at least one Big Bad or two among the contestants for each season, he's still the overall antagonist that drives the plot of the show by bringing the contestants to the locations where they'll be competing and coming up with the challenges that they all must endure.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In the Revenge finale, he tries to blow up the contestants' boat... only to blow himself up because Chef switched the explosives' location.
• Hypocrite: He gets mad at Sierra for blowing up his plane, as well as Duncan blowing up his mansion, yet he loves blowing stuff up. He also calls Scarlett out for trying to blow up/ take over Pahkitew Island despite contaminating Camp Wawanakwa with radioactive toxic waste during Revenge Of The Island.
• I Know Madden Kombat: His role as badminton player, the Flipper in Badminton: The Movie in "Get A Clue".
  Chris: It's not Badminton, it's Good-minton, Heck, it's Great-minton!
• I Lied: Uses this liberally when people point out his contradictions.
  • The Cake Is a Lie: The original contestants were clearly mislead on the nature of the show given their initial reactions on getting out the boat.
• Insistent Terminology: His (now blown up and sunk) lakeside mansion is a cottage.
• It Amused Me: He puts the contestants through increasingly difficult challenges for two reasons: Ratings, and kicks.
• It's All About Me: He's an arrogant megalomaniac just waiting to do what he wants because it's his just for the ratings.
• Jerkass: A sadistic, narcissistic, and smug host who holds very little regard for the contestants (and even less for the interns) and often laughs at their misfortune, pain, and suffering.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: He seems to show concern to the contestants when they nearly drown in "Masters of Disasters", but it turns out he was merely worried about being sued.
• Karma Houdini: Chris ends up getting away with nearly everything he does, aside from the occasional mishap here and there just for laughs.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: In "Brains vs. Brawn: The Ultimate Showdown", karma finally catches up to him after he unwittingly blows himself up and is subsequently arrested by the Canadian government for his environmental crimes. However, this doesn't last long as the producers post bail on Chris so that he hosts All-Stars and Pahkitew Island.
• Kick the Dog:
  • In the Yukon, Bridgette gets her tongue stuck to a pole. Instead of giving her his hot water bottle, he drinks it in front of her, then tosses it aside.
  • In Gwen's ending of Island, he forces Gwen to compete for a million dollars, and brings her back for multiple seasons, despite Gwen making it clear that she is done with the show.
  • As bad as he treats all the campers, Chris is worse towards his interns, regularly abusing them and some of them even died on his watch.
• Lack of Empathy: Especially concerning his interns. In the first episode of "World Tour", when Chris unleashed the carnivorous scarab beetles in Egypt, he was standing on top of an intern, who was raising him up off the ground like a piece of furniture. The scarabs begin to crawl up the intern, who was then quivering in fear. The next scene shows all the contestants running away, but when we pull back to Chris, the intern was stripped clean to the bone. He continues to use the intern's skeleton as a footrest later on in the episode, not even batting an eyelash about it.
• Large Ham: His bombastic personality is based off real-life excitable game show hosts.
• Laughably Evil: He's a sadistic and sociopathic reality show host who goes out of his way to torture or in some cases kill teenagers in cold blood. That doesn't stop him from being funny and hilarious.
• Legalized Evil: All the sadistic challenges Chris puts the contestants through are all technically legal due to them signing a contract. The one time he had a run-in with the law was due to using Wawanakwa as a dumping ground for toxic waste.
• Loophole Abuse: A master of this. In "No Pain, No Gain", he breaks the general rule that campers voted off can come back, ever, which has him bring back Eva and Izzy. He gives no other reason except "I Lied".
• Mad Bomber: He enjoys blowing stuff up, especially so in Revenge of the Island.
  • In "Who Can You Trust?", he uses mild explosives as an obstacle in the rock climbing challenge and later in the blind toboggan race.
  • In "Bigger! Badder! Brutal-er!", he blows up, with McLean-Brand explosives, the new contestants' yacht, Dakota's paparazzi entourage, and Owen. Also, he rigs the teams' totems with bombs with 7-minute timers.
  • In "Backstabbers Ahoy!", he puts mines out in the lake, with Dakota and Bridgette getting blown up while demonstrating the challenge.
  • In "A Mine is a Terrible Thing to Waste", due to pressure from a government environmental agency, he sends the campers into an abandoned mine turned toxic dump with bombs strapped to their backs. After the campers evacuate the mine, he blows it shut.
  • However, he did not like it when Sierra accidentally blew up the Total Drama Jumbo Jet in "Awwwwww, Drumheller", or when Duncan intentionally blew up Mount Chrismore in "Grand Chef Auto" and his cottage in "You Regatta be Kidding me".
• Momma's Boy: Implied by Dakota in "The Treasure Island of Dr. McLean", when she mockingly asks him how many times he'd called his mother that day.
• Mr. Exposition: As part of being the host of the show his job is to explain the challenges, the on-going interactions between the contestants, and things of that nature. The beginning of every episode has him give a quick Recap of the previous episode before the intro plays.
• The Napoleon: He's notably shorter than some of his teenage contestants and seemed pretty annoyed when Beth pointed this out on first meeting him.
• Narcissist: Progressively flanderized over the course of the series. In Action, he let the Killer Grips win a cheerleading challenge because their cheer was about him.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: He looks like the cartoon version of Jeff Probst, host of Survivor.
• No OSHA Compliance: He often invokes this trope in challenges, sometimes taking it up to eleven, especially in later episodes of a season.
  Zoey: This challenge looks a little unsafe.
  Chris: No, it's totally unsafe!
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: A lot of the more antagonistic players mistake his willful looking the other way at their cheating for genuine ignorance, they usually pay dearly if they do something to annoy him.
• Old Shame: In-universe, Chris was NEVER in a boy band. DON'T ever insinuate otherwise. Nor should you mention his cooking show (which was canceled after the first episode, which featured a recipe for plain white rice) and the godawful films about talking cats.
• Older Than They Look: How old Chris is has become a Running Gag throughout the show, with him mentioning to be thirty in Pahkitew Island. If Word of God is anything to go by, he is twenty-five years old in the series premiere. The 2023 reboot, however, takes place fifteen years after the first season, making Chris fourty years old, yet he keeps looking as he did when the show premiered. Granted, it's implied in Pahkitew Island that Chris has had plastic surgery on various occasions, which may justify this]].
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Chris usually allows the villainous players to commit their deeds on their fellow competitors, but if their actions affect him in any way, he will make them pay dearly:
  • Chris arranges for Fang to take the Hurl of Shame with Scott when the latter is eliminated as payback for being flung into the outhouse’s septic tanks by one of Scott’s traps.
  • In All-Stars, Chris has Duncan disqualified and sent to jail for blowing up his cottage.
  • Chris disqualifies Scarlett from the competition in Pakitehew Island for threatening his and the remaining campers’ lives for the million dollars.
  • Chris exposes MK’s cheating to her opposing team and forces her to fight a bear during the first merge challenge as punishment for stealing his hair dryer which gave Chris a bad hair day
• Perma-Stubble: He is clean shaven in "A Blast from the Past", but regains his stubble by the next episode.
• Perpetual Smiler: Played with.
  • Normally the trope is Downplayed, while he usually seen with a Cheshire Cat Grin, he'll occasionally drop it when he gets angry or serious.
  • Parodied in "A Blast from the Past". Due to a Slo-tox injection, his face is stuck with a smile throughout the episode. One would not normally smile through a bear attack, especially if they were the victim.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In "Not So Happy Campers", towards Ezekiel of all people. He took him aside and tried to give him some advice about keeping his head down so his bad people skills don't alienate anyone right away.
  • In "Who Can You Trust", he lets Katie meet and ride the boat of losers with her BFF, Sadie, after she was eliminated.
  • In "Hook, Line, and Screamer", he leaves the safety of the tent with everyone else in order to warn Gwen about the real psycho killer. Although subverted when it was revealed that he was more concerned about lawsuits than the fact that she was about to get killed by an escaped killer on the island.
  • In "Super Happy Fun Time In Japan", he wishes Harold goodbye after he's eliminated without a hint of sarcasm.
  • In the boxing challenge of "Suckers Punched", after Gwen and Courtney's heartwarming boxing match he gives both girls an extra point for "adding warmth to his cold heart".
  • In "Pahkitew Island", he actually allows Shawn and Jasmine to kiss before he blasts the latter off the island.
• Pragmatic Villainy: While Chris has had occasional Pet the Dog moments towards the contestants at times, the only thing that will definitely get him to tone down, or at the very least, actually show welfare, is the threat of a lawsuit, since he knows the show will be cancelled, and he will be out of a job.
• Psychopathic Manchild: He's a Sadist who still sleeps with a teddy bear in his arms and throws tantrums like a Spoiled Brat.
• Sadist: He describes himself as one, and goes to painstaking degrees to ensure the contestants are as miserable as possible.
• Sanity Slippage: Suffered from this by having to spend the off-season in jail.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Chris practically runs on this trope, as lampshaded by Heather in "Masters of Disasters" and Alejandro in "The Am-AH-Zon Race".
  Chris: Since I'm the host of the show and I can do whatever I want.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Overdramatic sensitive guy to Chef's hot-blooded manly man.
• Skewed Priorities: He cares more about his personal comfort than the safety and well being of the contestants. This is especially prevalent when Scarlett threatens to blow up Pahkitew Island.
  Chris: (in a panicked voice) CHEF!!! We got an emergency! The foamy thing in the coffee machine won't work at all now! (takes a sip of coffee) (in a more calm voice) Also, Scarlett's gone rogue and is going to blow up the island. We've got to warn the others. (takes another sip of coffee) As soon as the foamy thing is properly working again.
• Skintone Sclerae: Chris's eyes are black beads upon a black line to indicate the lower eyelid.
• The Sociopath: In later seasons, Chris regularly and blatantly puts the cast in danger, which opposes him putting them in dangerous challenges that he didn't want to kill others in "Island" , often with a huge smile on his face; seems to be more concerned about ratings, popularity, and his life of luxury than the safety of the contestants; and even betrays his best friend Chef whenever it amuses him to do so, or whenever he's bored.
  Chris: "After my involuntary year-long "vacation", I really need to be in a familiar environment, surrounded by the people I love... to hurt."
• Solid Cartoon Facial Stubble: Chris has a tanny row of stubble reaching from his jawline to his ear level, and extending upwards around his mouth. This is further accentuated in A Blast From The Past, where Chris becomes paranoid about being replaced by a younger looking host, and thus, his facial hair is temporary gone.
• Still Sucks Thumb: Among the humiliating footage of Chris played in "Aftermath IV: Who Wants to Pick a Millionare?" is a recording of him sleeping with a teddy bear while sucking his thumb.
• Teen Hater: He has stated that he hates teenagers and seeing that he spends pretty much every episode putting the teenage contestants through hell for the sake of ratings, it's easy to believe.
• Too Dumb to Live: Chris comes very close to being brutally murdered in "Zeek and Ye Shall Find" when he tauntingly reminds Ezekiel of all the things he's done to him that brought about that hate. At the time, Chris has just been abducted and is hanging by a rope over a pot of toxic waste.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Every season Chris gets worse and worse. It all starts with his willingness to let interns die, then it grows to a willingness to let contestants die, then it grows to a desire to make contestants die, and so far the top he's at is playing mindgames with the contestants to make them desire to hurt each other. His relation with Chef concurrently deteriorates as his willingness to hurt him too increases.
• Troll: One of his main traits is how much he screws around with the campers which causes them a lot of misery, suffering and misfortune, whether it be for his own entertainment or to bring in ratings.
• The Un Favourite:
  • Though he's mean to all his contestants, he shows a special disdain towards Ezekiel, Dakota, Blaineley, Ella and MK.
  • He usually helps out the Big Bad but he's never shown much interest in helping Courtney unless she's using her lawyers against him. In fact he often seems as annoyed by her as everyone else.
  • In World Tour he used rewards challenges to ensure Team Victory would all be eliminated before any other team lost a single member.
• The Unsmile: Has this expression throughout "A Blast From The Past" due to putting Slotox on his face in order to make himself look younger. Instead of making him look younger it instead made him look more creepy and terrifying with a very big and unnerving Slasher Smile-like expression on his face.
• Villainous Breakdown: Chris loses it when Sierra accidentally blows up his plane in Aaaw Drumheller. He also loses it when Duncan blows up his cottage in You Regatta Be Kidding Me.
• Villainous BSoD: Duncan blowing up his cottage, however, elicited this reaction instead, making him talk in a depressed tone of voice for a few moments in "You Regatta Be Kidding Me".
• Villain Protagonist: Being the sadistic host of the show and the only character (together with Chef) who appears in every season, he's essentially this.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Despite his treatment of the contestants and going to jail for dumping toxic waste by the end of Revenge of the Island, Chris is apparently still popular enough to be chosen by the producers to host All-Stars.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Chef. Chris can be rather abusive of Chef, which really wears on Chef's patience, but the two are ultimately pretty good friends.
• Vocal Evolution: His voice has become a bit higher through the seasons considering that in season 1 (i.e. Island) his voice was much more mellow and relaxed-sounding in contrast to the other seasons where his voice is much more expressive and over-the-top in order to convey his sadistic and sociopathic behavior. The reboot gives him an entirely different voice actor, Terry McGurrin who previously voiced Don in The Ridonculous Race, though Chris is still more bombastic and less formal compared to Don.
• Would Hurt a Child: Chris is responsible for the deaths and maulings of several teenage interns and the fact no teenage contestants have died yet is not for lack of him trying to get them six feet under. Many of them, such as Ezekiel, Alejandro, Scott, and Dave, have suffered horrible fates still. "Three Zones and a Baby" further confirms that there's no age restriction to his cruelty, as he's just fine putting babies in severe danger.

Chef Hatchet

"I slave over a hot stove cookin' dolphin... no appreciation!"

Voiced by: Clé Bennett (2007-2014), Deven Mack (2023-)

Label: The Chef

The camp cook of the Total Drama series and Chris's best friend/sidekick. Chef Hatchet is a fearsome and bad-tempered ex-military man with numerous talents. He will to do whatever Chris tells him to if it means further tormenting the contestants, namely serving them disgusting excuses for food.

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• Ambiguously Bi: Enjoys cross-dressing, tends to be affectionate to Chris occasionally, admires Justin's good looks and blushes at Alejandro's compliments. In the intro for the reboot, he and Chris gaze at each other instead of having that season's main couple do so as previous seasons had done. With that being said, he asks Chris to give his digits to the sister of his female acquaintance in "Broadway, Baby!".
• Ambiguously Evil: He participates in the torment of the contestants but he often goes out of his way to be nice to them on some occasions and even teamed up in alliances.
• Angry Chef: He's a Scary Black Man with a Hair-Trigger Temper who cooks inedible meals and spends most of his time terrorising the other campers.
• Arch-Enemy: To Izzy.
• Artifact Name: In the later seasons, he's rarely shown being a chef, as he mostly works as co-host.
• Ascended Extra: Chef was never really an extra, though his role diminished from Revenge of the Island to Pahkitew Island but he plays a larger role in the reboot than he had previously. In addition to his duties as the cook, he also provides commentary with Chris, helps with expanding on the parameters of each challenge and gives each of the campers the main reason they are up for elimination during the marshmallow ceremony. While he's not the main host, he's definitely become more of a prominent figure.
• Bald of Evil: Downplayed. While he is certainly bald and has done some evil things, Chef does show some morality.
• Beard of Evil: He has a small goatee and a pencil mustache, and he is Chris's sidekick.
• Berserk Button:
  • Insulting his cooking, as Geoff almost found out the hard way in the series debut.
  • Don't ever get caught in his kitchen, otherwise known as "Forbidden Territory".
  • Don't touch or mess with anything that belongs to him.
    Chef: Nobody touches my stuff. Nobody.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: With Chris. Chef is obviously the big guy.
• Big Ol' Unibrow: Chef Hatchet is the unibrow-sporting, no-nonsense, and intimidating enforcer of the show whose past is hinted to be eventful and grim.
• Crossdresser: He even Lampshades in the recap before "Finders Creepers" by saying that "Wardrobe's all out of Vampire Outfits."
• Camp Cook: His label as well as his primary role on the show.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: He helped contestants cheat on the show several times. He did this during actions towards DJ only for DJ to quit out of guilt and expose Chef’s beahvior. However this does not make Chef stop as during World Tour he helped Blainely cheat in the China challenge in both of it’s parts but this time he gets caught by Heather and is punished for it in the Africa challenge by being forced to wear a parka coat in the cricket portion under hot weather.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He might have one. During "Alien Resurr-eggtion", he sees Geoff and Bridgette making out and says, "I once knew a love like that," and in the same episode, when he thought he killed Izzy, he said, "Oh no, not again."
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • Twice in season one. First he's put in charge of a boot-camp / military-themed challenge in "Basic Straining", and later he has to host the entirety of "Are We There Yeti?" because Chris was busy attending an awards show.
  • He also got more of the spotlight when he formed an illegal alliance with DJ in Action and Blaineley in World Tour.
  • He had to host in "Eat, Puke and Be Wary" because Chris has accidentally gotten stuck inside the outhouse.
  • He also had to host in "Zeek and Ye Shall Find" after Chris gets kidnapped and held hostage by Ezekiel.
• Death Glare: His default expression.
• Demoted to Extra: In All-Stars and Pahkitew Island, he has little importance, hardly speaks and mostly stays in the background with his only significant role in those two seasons being in "Zeek and Ye Shall Find" after Chris gets kidnapped.
• Do-Anything Soldier: He can fill any role that Chris needs at the moment. His range includes being a chef, a stunt tester, a man hunter, a drummer, a drill sergeant, a harp player, a doctor, etc.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: He's implied to have spent time in the army. In Action, it's revealed that he was formerly a colonel.
• Drives Like Crazy: In the Action reunion special, off-screen.
  Chris: Dude, where'd you learn to drive? NASCAR?
  Chef: Ah, suck it up, you big baby.
• Dub Name Change: In the Canadian French dub, his name is changed to "Chef Albert."
• Dungeon Master: Twice in Island and once in Revenge of the Island.
• Edible Ammunition: His Meatball Bazooka, yes it fires actual meatballs.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • He and Chris seem to have a genuine friendship over their love of tormenting the contestants.
  • As shown in "The Pink Painter Strikes Again", he is very loving towards his grandmother, hyping her up and complimenting her every time she lands a hit on one of the contestants.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • In "Not Quite Famous", he doesn't give Heather a score during the talent contest for reading Gwen's diary out loud to the entire world, implying that even he was disgusted by her actions.
  • He was a little shocked when he thought he killed Izzy during the alien challenge.
  • He was worried when Zoey snapped in "Eat, Puke, and Be Wary".
    Chef: I may have pushed her too far...
  • He's also freaked out by Mal's cruelty.
    Chef: That kid ain't right!
  • In "The Final Wreckening" he expresses concern about the challenge Chris set up, and refuses to high five the former when he describes how brutal and vicious the challenge is, stating, "People are gonna die."
  • In "Hurl & Go Seek" he is genuinely concerned about the contestants eating food that expired back in 1976, and is visibly dismayed by Chris's apparent joy at the horrible side effects the contestants will be suffering from.
  • In episode 10 of the reboot, he's just as sickened as everyone else when he learns just how awful of a boyfriend Chase was to Emma.
    Chef: Someone raised that child all wrong.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": His full name seems to be Chef Hatchet, though. So maybe it's a very convenient first name?
• Evil Chef: Probably better known as a Lethal Chef but he certainly gets a lot of enjoyment out of tormenting the campers. This was toned considerably as the show went on — many of the campers actually prefer Chef over Chris.
• Evil Laugh: Most of the time, Chef gives off an evil chuckle; however, he does pull off impressive evil laughs in "Grand Chef Auto" and "Eat, Puke and Be Wary".
• Fan Disservice: Anytime he cross-dresses.
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: For a short time during World Tour, there was a segment called "Ask Chef" where he would answer the questions of real-life viewers on the official Total Drama website.
• Friend to All Children: For the 2023 season of Island, Chef seems to be closer his Total DramaRama counterpart. In every episode, he makes sure to point out the most dangerous parts of the challenges and openly questions why Chris would allow the campers to go through certain events. He's much more openly protective of the cast and clearly cares about their well-being in comparison to how he acted towards the contestants in previous seasons.
• Gentle Giant: Becomes one in the reboot season where his Scary Black Man tendencies have been severely toned down, to the point where you can say he's taken a motherly role to the new contestants, as opposed to Chris who is far less likely to show concern for the contestants when they are hurt or endanger.
• Giggling Villain: Most of Chef's evil laughs are a light chuckle.
• Graceful Loser: Was genuinely impressed when Leshawna outplayed him in "Hide and Be Sneaky".
• Heel–Face Turn: Has a temporary one at the end of Revenge of the Island. Sadly, it doesn’t last as he's the one who visits Chris and informs him that the network has posted bail.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: For Chris; it's implied that without Chef, the show would likely fall apart.
• I Take Offense to That Last One
  Izzy: If I can handle hand-to-paw combat with a polar bear... (chuckles) I can handle a bald, emotionally-withdrawn cook in a Halloween costume.
  Chef: Who you callin' a cook?
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: On rare occasions. Mainly reserved for DJ.
• Kick the Dog:
  • In "Backstabbers Ahoy!", he puts Dawn in a garbage bag before catapulting her off the island.
  • In "This is the Pits!", on Chris's order, he pours gasoline on a buffet and lights it on fire because neither team won the challenge.
• Large and in Charge: Downplayed. While Chef is big, he is in charge only in Chris's absence. He can pick up DJ, one of the largest guys among the first generation cast, one-handed.
• Lesser of Two Evils: Unlike Chris, Chef does occasionally show concern for the campers, especially in Season 5.
• Lethal Chef: Deliberately invoked by Chris. It is shown that Chef can actually cook quite well when he wants to, usually when the food is for himself, but it's his job to make barely edible slop for the campers.
• Manly Tears: Most notably in "Basic Straining" and "Riot on Set."
  "STRONG MEN CRY!"
• The Medic: As one of his secondary roles, he treats the campers who get injured during a challenge. More often than not, Chef's "care" is of the Comically Inept Healing variety.
• The Münchausen: Nobody's quite sure what war he was in.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: An Angry Chef whose surname is "Hatchet" is definitely someone you don't want to mess with.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: He is basically an exaggerated version of Samuel L. Jackson, minus the use of his infamous catchphrase.
• Noodle Implements: In "Top Dog", he laughs hysterically when Beth and Owen happily comment on him making scrambled eggs. We never find out what they're actually made of or what he put in them.
• No OSHA Compliance: In the Island, Action, and Revenge of the Island intro sequences, he puts his bare hands in the food he prepares and leaves Heather's wig to brew in it too.
• Out of Focus: In Pahkitew Island he's given not much to do since he doesn't cook for the teams anymore. He also goes entire episodes of not speaking at all and just standing besides Chris just to make us sure that he's there.
• Perpetual Frowner: In contrast to Chris's Perpetual Smiler. While he usually has a Death Glare on his face, he does occasionally crack a smile, although it's often a Slasher Smile.
• Pet the Dog: In "Basic Straining", while he is tough on the competitors who quit or fail to complete the challenge, when he sees Harold throw up mud and in no condition to continue, he lets him off easy and calmly tells him to quit and report to the infirmary.
• Psycho for Hire: Enjoys what he does, most of the time.
• The Quiet One: There are many episodes where Chef doesn't speak, particularly during the first season, where he is silent from "The Big Sleep" to "Paintball Deer Hunter". It becomes more apparent during All Stars and Pahkitew Island, where he's Demoted to Extra.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Chef is large, muscular, gruff, no-nonsense, and has a military past, but he also is an amazing singer, loves taking on roles for which he can wear a dress or bikini, and is a fine cook.
• Sadist: Although not to the same degree as Chris, Chef does enjoy seeing the campers in pain.
• Scary Black Man: Chef Hatchet is black and possesses the largest body type present in the series. He's been in the army and as the co-host of Total Drama has a sadistic streak. While he doesn't succumb to The Worf Effect, the few times a contestant can go toe-to-toe with him is a mark of their own capability.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Hot-blooded manly man to Chris's overdramatic sensitive guy.
  • Also the Scary Black Man to DJ's Momma's Boy.
• Slasher Smile: Anytime he gets to personally mess with the contestants, but pulls an amazing one in "Are We There Yeti?" during the elimination ceremony.
• Suddenly Shouting:
  • He tends to do this quite often. One example is his Bait-and-Switch Comment to Lindsay when she quits one of the challenges in "Basic Straining":
    "Listen here, you have nothing to be ashamed of... EXCEPT FOR BEING A LITTLE BABY AND LETTING YOUR TEAM DOWN!!!"
  • In an Ask Chef segment, a viewer asked him if Gwen could write to them.
    "Jo3113 from Val-des-Monts, here's my answer...DO I LOOK LIKE GWEN TO YOU? WHAT PART OF 'ASK CHEF' DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?!...(Beat)...Gwen says hi."
• Supreme Chef: Contrary to the slop he usually makes for the contestants, he actually is a skilled cook but makes barely edible food on purpose, possibly on Chris's orders.
• Teen Hater: Downplayed when compared to Chris. While Chef does take sadistic pleasure in torturing the campers most of the time, there are moments where he feels that either he himself or Chris have gone too far.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In the reboot, he's much more concerned about the safety of the contestants, and often scolds Chris for making things more dangerous than necessary.
• Top-Heavy Guy: As the most muscular male character in the series, Chef has a huge upper body. In particular, he has a huge neck.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Chris. The two initially bicker a lot and Chef really seems sick of him at times, but they are also shown to get along well offset and consider each other very close friends. In "Zeek And Ye Shall Find," Chef freaks out when Chris is kidnapped by Ezekiel and is genuinely concerned for his safety.
• Vocal Evolution: He originally sounded like a more clear-cut Samuel L. Jackson impression but by the end of Island, it evolved into a raspy tone we’re familiar with.
• Worthy Opponent: He will sometimes show Villain Respect toward a contestant who actually beats him at his own games.
  "Gwen! Congratulations, soldier. I'd go to war with you anytime."
• Would Hit a Girl: He's got no qualms hurting the female contestants with Izzy being his most common victim.
• Would Hurt a Child: Like Chris, Chef has no qualms making the teenage contestants suffer. He even twisted Duncan's arm once and threw a frying pan at Scott's head.

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