Byron "Buster" Bluth
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| Byron "Buster" Bluth | |
|---|---|
 Tony Hale as Byron "Buster" Bluth |
|
| Cause/reason | End of the series |
| Portrayed by | Tony Hale |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Buster |
| Gender | Male |
| Family | Oscar Bluth (father) Lucille Bluth (mother) Michael Bluth (half-brother/cousin) Lindsay Funke (adoptive sister/cousin) GOB Bluth (half-brother/cousin) Hel-loh "Annyong" Bluth (adoptive half-brother/cousin) |
| Relatives | George Bluth Sr. (uncle, step-father) George Michael Bluth (nephew) Maeby Funke (adoptive niece/first cousin once removed) Tobias Funke (brother-in-law) |
Byron "Buster" Bluth is a fictional character on the television series Arrested Development. He is always referred to as Buster. He is a professional graduate student who later enlisted in the United States Army. He is extremely immature and socially inept. He is portrayed by Tony Hale.
[edit] Fictional biography
Buster is the youngest of the Bluths' biological children. He is the son of Lucille Bluth and George Bluth Sr. However, it was hinted at from the beginning of Season 2 (and confirmed in episode "Out on a Limb") that Buster's father is actually Oscar, the twin brother of George Sr. Buster also has two older brothers, G.O.B. and Michael, and an older adopted sister, Lindsay. He also has a younger adopted Korean brother who is mistakenly called "Annyong", the Korean word for "hello".
Buster is a professional student, but is unable to return to his studies when the Bluth Company funds are frozen following the arrest of George Sr. for a variety of white-collar crimes. Thus far, he has taken $80,000 worth of lessons from the Stanford Institute of Cartography, but in the pilot episode he mistakes the blue part of the map for land. He has studied Native American Tribal ceremonies, 18th century agrarian business principles, participated in multiple sleep deprivation studies (at the University of Chicago and in France), worked on an archaeological dig as part of a Smithsonian fellowship, and endured a study that investigated the relationship between medical marijuana and nausea because it took place at a carnival. He is a graduate of Milford Academy, which he attended for two semesters beyond his graduation date, because he excelled in being neither seen nor heard.
Buster suffers from an Oedipus complex. He has an unhealthy attachment to his mother Lucille, which she encourages, making him feel guilty whenever he puts anyone else before her. He sometimes tries to assert his independence by defying his mother's orders, such as by dating her rival, Lucille Austero, expressing his determination to remain in the army, refusing to eat cottage cheese, or by swimming in the ocean before his deployment to Iraq. However, due to his naive disposition, he often lacks the ability to foresee the actual consequences of his own decisions, and sometimes unwittingly creates even bigger problems in the process. He also occasionally reveals a suppressed resentment of his mother's domineering ways, although he rarely stays mad at her for very long.
Arguably, Buster is the nicest person in the Bluth family. He is kind, good-natured, and is not as involved with the selfish and manipulative schemes that his siblings and parents often plot. At one point, everyone in the family except Buster sells their company stock, jeopardizing the family's control of the company. In order to save the company, Buster breaks up with his girlfriend and gets back together with Lucille Austero so she will sell stock back to the Bluths. This selfless act makes Michael realize that Buster is the one person in his family who deserves happiness the most.
He has frequent panic attacks, hates both closed and open spaces, is terrified of sheep, seals, and birds, and is very wrathful towards his Korean-born adopted brother, Annyong. For a short period of time, he was appointed by his mother to run the company, but was quickly dismissed due to his panic attacks in board room meetings. He has an uncharacteristic habit of greeting people with back rubs, (a trait which he seems to have in common with Oscar), and commonly addresses his relatives by their relation to him (G.O.B. and Michael are commonly greeted with "Hey, brother", Tobias with "Hey, brother-in-law", George Michael with "Hey, nephew", and Oscar with "Hello, uncle-father Oscar"). His mother doesn't let him drink juice, because even a small amount of sugar causes him to become hyperactive. He has an unusually-shaped penis (once described to an Army doctor as a "lobster tail without its shell"). He refers to his penis as his "Linus" and his testicles as his "Charlie Browns." He has been romantically linked on-and-off to his mother's best friend, Lucille Austero (played by Liza Minnelli). She changed his diapers when Buster was an infant and therefore is familiar with his odd-looking genitals. Buster has also been romantically linked to Lucille's former housekeeper Lupe, the robotic vacuum cleaner that replaced Lupe, a nurse at the local hospital, and Michael's former secretary Starla.
In the second season premiere, Lucille signs Buster up for the Army (which he refers to simply as "Army"), although his training is less than successful. In the episode "Out on a Limb", Buster's left hand is bitten off by a loose seal (a play on "Lucille"), and in all succeeding episodes he wears a transradial prosthetic on his left arm, usually a hook or an artificial hand. In the same episode, it is revealed that his real father is George Sr.'s brother, Oscar, but a blow to the head meant that he forgot about this until the season 2 finale "Righteous Brothers", when the secret is revealed from a rather irrelevant comment about popcorn (Oscar wanted to share his "Pop Secret"), which is ironic considering the number of deliberate hints Oscar had given many times previously.
At the series' end, Buster finds himself in the Long Beach Harbor, face to face with the same seal, marked by a yellow bowtie around its neck. The outcome of this encounter, and Buster's fate, is not revealed.
[edit] Cultural References
The song "The Rhythm Method (Move!)" by indie rap group Flobots contains an allusion to Buster's missing hand in the line "This is outta hand like Buster Bluth".[citation needed]
[edit] See also
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