Benson Dunwoody

"You're Fired!"

- Benson's catchphrase

"Rigby, I'm proud of you. Not only did you last the whole day without quitting, but you applied to what you learned from your mentor to keep your job. Welcome back."

- Benson when he told Rigby that he is proud of him when he passed the mentorship program

Benson Dunwoody is a high-tempered gumball machine and the semi-main antagonist/anti-hero, also (from time to time), tritagonist of the Cartoon Network show. Regular Show.

When calm, he sounds almost monotone, but when mad, he turns red and screams in an ear-bleading way. He cannot stand Mordecai and Rigby's irresponsible behavior, and threatens to fire them. Next to Skips, He is also the only serious worker of the park, although he still seems to have a sense of humor.

Despite his disapproval of Mordecai and Rigby, he still considerably likes them, as he has invited them to special celebrations, and most notably in the episode Stick Hockey, he risked himself to help the two. He also admitted the two were cool in Cool Bikes helped saved them from the cool police, and in Eggscellent, after Benson helps Mordecai train for the omelte challenge, Mordecai tells Benson that even though he acts like a jerk, he's a true friend. In Think Positive, while he's yelling at Mordecai and Rigby after pops finally allows him to, he mentions he's trying to teach them responsibility. From that point, he also promised to yell less of the time. He has also admitted he does not hate Mordecai and Rigby, just some of the things they do.

Appearance
Benson is a gumball machine with pinkish purple/red gumballs enclosed by a glass dome and sunken eyes. The gumballs may act as facial hair for Benson, as noted by story boarder Benton Connor. It is also worth noting that the dispenser slot sits in a rather phallic position. The turn switch on his chest is shaped like a heart symbol, hinting that's probably where his heart is. When his latch is open, it is considered to him being naked, as well as his private area.

Personality
Benson is easily the most short-tempered character of all. Whenever he is greatly upset (usually in the form of Mordecai and Rigby slacking off), Benson loses his temper, turning varying shades of red. He'll even make big deals out of the smallest of things. Aside from this, Benson is usually calm, and in fact, enjoys being social, even with his two most disliked people. Whenever Benson is in a good mood (which happens more often after the episode Benson Be Gone), Benson rewards his employees with time off, usually in the form of nightly entertainment or dining out.

Skills/Habits
Sore Loser - As shown in "Dodge This", Benson is very competitive, and when he loses the dodgeball tournament, he doesn't take it well.
 * Short Temper - Benson is characterized by his extreme mood swings.
 * Determined - Benson is very single-minded, which only poses as a detriment for himself, as seen in Peeps, Fortune Cookie, and several other episodes.
 * Drummer - In This Is My Jam, it is shown that Benson has a mysterious past where he was formerly a very skilled drummer.
 * Stick Hockey Expert - Benson also has a mysterious past where he was a very skilled stick hockey player, as seen in Stick Hockey.
 * 'Archery - In "But I Have a Receipt," Benson uses a bow and arrow to defeat monsters. These skills were also used again in "The Dome Experiment" against several scientists and dome-workers.
 * 'Motorcyclist - In "Busted Cart," Mordecai and Rigby ditch Benson at an arcade and drive off toward the cart dealership, so Benson asks a guy with a motorcycle how much he wants for the bike. He then takes it, and drives full speed trying to catch up to Mordecai and Rigby.
 * 'Bus Driver - In "Just Set Up the Chairs," Benson has to drive a bus full of kids to the park for a birthday party.
 * 'Stingy - Benson is shown to be an occasional cheapskate to his workers. Despite obliging everyone to show up at Karaoke Night, he only offers to treat them with one song each, so the food and drinks are on them. In "Over the Top," Benson would only pay for drinks up to $1.50. He also demands Rigby to pay for the crate of eggs he took during Halloween. However, during his streak of good luck in "Fortune Cookie," he buys the whole cart of food for the gang in the restaurant.
 * 'Cat Person - Benson seems to be a cat person, due to all the cat portraits inside his apartment. However, this could be incorrect, as seen in "Out of Commission," when Rigby tells Mordecai about a dog they took to Cheezer's, and it ran away. The dog belonged to Benson. In "A Skips in Time", his check book has pictures of cats. In Terror Tales of the Park IV it revealed that he have a pet cat and also have a cat sitter. It shows that in Cat Videos he got addicted to watching cat videos.
 * 'Lonely - Benson can possibly be looking for a date. In "Grilled Cheese Deluxe," there is a hidden cameo in which Benson is looking at a page on the internet with other gumball machines, but this is only shown for two seconds. He seems interested in Audrey in "Weekend at Benson's." They were a couple for a while but they were revealed to have broken up some time before the events of "The Real Thomas".
 * 'Slacker - He has only been seen slacking off in "Benson Be Gone," when he slacks off with Mordecai and Rigby instead of following Susan's commands. He also does it a little in "Skips Strikes," when he shouts "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" with the group. Benson also shouts "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" in "Benson Be Gone" after Susan fires him. Benson once again shouts "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!" with the rest of the group in "The Real Thomas".
 * 'Pinball Expert - Benson was shown to be an expert at pinball in "The Christmas Special." He played a pinball machine so the gang could cross the bridge to the lava pit.
 * 'Partying - Benson finally cut loose after successfully asking Audrey out in "Party Re-Pete", after he was abducted by Party Savers and forced to serve them in clone-form as "Party Benson." By the end of the episode, Mordecai, Rigby and the "Real" Party Pete all admit Benson is the best at partying.
 * 'Nauseous - Benson displays a tendency to get easily nauseated by a disgusting sight, as seen in "Peeps" and "Terror Tales of the Park".
 * 'Drunk on Wings - Whenever Benson eats chicken wings, he tends to talk in a straight-up kind of way, as shown in "Dodge This", "Gold Watch", "The End of Muscle Man", "Benson's Suit", "Men in Uniform, and The Parkie Awards.
 * 'Trust Issues - As seen in "Blind Trust", Pops brings them to a forest and Mordecai and Rigby have to train him so Benson can trust them. The training escalates when Benson tries to walk away.
 * 'Unlucky in love - Benson has horrible luck with women, even worse so than Mordecai. His first girlfriend, Veronica, left him in a deleted scene from "Mordecai and the Rigbys", Audrey, whom he got together with in "Weekend at Benson's", broke up with him some time before the events of "The Real Thomas", and in the latter episode, his new girlfriend Natalie/Natalia was revealed to be a Russian spy.

Trivia

 * The name Benson is of English origin. The meaning of Benson is "son of ben".
 * Benson is spoofed in one episode of the TV show, MAD.
 * In "Rage Against the TV", it's revealed that he lives in an apartment and not at the park with the others.
 * Benson's apartment number is 1635.
 * Even though Benson has anger issues, he has been shown to also have a sense of humor.
 * Benson is first seen as a boring, regular manager, but then would be extremely loud and bad-tempered if ever angry.
 * In both Dizzy and Benson Be Gone, Mr. Maellard says Benson's name as "Beanbag", "Bean Teen", "Beanton", "Beenson" and "Bean Bucket".
 * He is a skilled drummer, as seen in the episode This Is My Jam. He says his ways of drumming are a "funny story", but was interrupted by Rigby before he could say anymore.
 * In "Brain Eraser", Benson's towel fell off, revealing an open hatch (which is his possible "junkmail"); this may be his equivalent of being naked.
 * On a side note, previously in Latin America, when Benson's towel falls off, that part is cut.
 * Benson might be a cat person; in "Rage Against the TV," a picture with cats on it can be seen in his apartment. Also in Prank Callers, the same picture of cats appears behind Benson when he is sitting in his chair.
 * In Grilled Cheese Deluxe, Benson can be seen looking at other gumball machines on the computer, a hidden innuendo that suggests that Benson was possibly looking for a date.
 * The name Benson was taken from J.G Quintel's student film The Naive Man from Lolliland because the Lolliland Man's driver is named Benson, later used for the gumball machine manager in the series.
 * He fired Mordecai and Rigby in Really Real Wrestling, but after Pops explained everything, he rehired them; this is the first time that Benson actually keeps to his threats, despite it being taken back after Pops explains the truth.
 * After the events of Benson Be Gone, he loosened up slightly - while he still gets angry if Mordecai and Rigby mess up, he is more willing to accept their apologies, and has even taken them on nights out.
 * He seems much nicer in Over The Top, due to the fact that Mordecai and Rigby don't play as the main protagonists and are not causing any chaos.
 * In Karaoke Video, it was revealed that Benson turns red visibly at night.
 * Benson's anger is usually directed at Mordecai and Rigby but there have been times where he has gotten angry only at Rigby; in fact, there hasn't been a time where he was only angry with Mordecai. He has gotten angry at Muscle Man at one occasion and has to of yet been angered by Skips or Hi Five Ghost (though his anger may have been directed to both Muscle Man and Hi Five Ghost when Benson got angry with Muscle Man).
 * In a deleted scene from Mordecai and the Rigbys, it was revealed that Benson once had a girlfriend named Veronica, but she left him for a business man. Due to him being a hippie, it was also implied that he was in a band; however, this has to as of yet become canon (official). The fact that he plays the drums very well (This is My Jam) supports the band idea.
 * There have currently been four occurrences when Benson's gumballs came out of his hatch: twice in Season One and twice in Season Three; the first instance was in Caffeinated Concert Tickets when he dropped his gumballs after almost crashing into a speeding lawn mower, the second instance is in The Unicorns Have Got To Go when the unicorn punks took two gumballs from Benson while he was tied up to a door, the third and fourth was in In the House, where he vomited up his gumballs and when he was flushed down the toilet.
 * It is revealed in Stick Hockey that Benson once had hair and that he is good at stick hockey and he also has spent most of his life playing it.
 * Benson's family taught him that yelling is a key to life.
 * Benson's face becomes red onscreen in Prank Callers, Appreciation Day, Karaoke Video, and Think Positive in My Mom and Replaced, his face fades from red back to normal.
 * Benson was the most angered in Think Positive, the second time he was angered the most was in Jinx when Rigby threw garbage at him so he can say Rigby's name three times.
 * Benson's stick hockey nickname is "Death Dragon."
 * In Weekend at Benson's, it's shown that he has a crush on his neighbor Audrey. At the end, he gets her number, which may lead to her being his girlfriend. Audrey is seen again in "Fortune Cookie" where the janitor accidentally sucks Benson's robe off while the two are in the hall, leaving him nude in front of Audrey. Audrey didn't have a speaking line in "Fortune Cookie", though.
 * His personality is based on one of the seven deadly sins, Wrath, which is the the sin of anger and temperament.
 * In Think Positive, when he was a child, he used to be the quiet one in his family, until his father told him that yelling is the key to get anything he wants in life.
 * He knew how to break the tie in First Day, which is possibly due to him breaking a tie when he was young, or he could have had employees before Mordecai and Rigby who had to break a tie.
 * Benson has fired employees seven times in the series so far: in Don (Episode), he fired Muscle Man, in Benson Be Gone, he fired Susan, in Really Real Wrestling, he fired Mordecai and Rigby, in Under the Hood, he fired Muscle Man and Hi Five Ghost, in Weekend at Benson's, he fired Mordecai and Rigby again, and in Replaced, he fired Mordecai and Rigby for the third time, and in Muscle Mentor, he fired Rigby.
 * Benson usually turns red when he is angry, however, there is one exception at the end of Karaoke Video where Benson turns rather a shade of fuchsia pink.
 * Benson called Margaret "the coffee girl" in Yes Dude Yes, even though he hasn't seen Margaret face-to-face, meaning he has overheard Mordecai talk about her.
 * In Out of Commission, it was revealed that Benson had a dog. He let Mordecai and Rigby watch it, but it ran away when they were at Cheezer's.
 * His last name revealed to be "Dunwoody" in The Dome Experiment.