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Buster Baxter is the best friend of Arthur Read from the TV show, Arthur, and he is the main titular protagonist of its spin-off, Postcards from Buster. He is very comedic, has a huge appetite and has a very kind heart. His parents have been divorced, and he usually goes to stay with his dad sometimes. He is partnered with Arthur in many episodes, and sometimes Francine.
Biography
Past life
When Buster was a baby, he was wearing a purple shirt, disposable diapers (colored gray instead of white to avoid mixing in with his white complexion), and red and white sneakers. When he was around two years old, he wore a dark bluish-green sweater and light bluish-green shorts and sneakers. It was also revealed in "Arthur's Baby" when he was 2–3 years old he would cause his mother a lot of trouble by "stealing" foods (basically eating them without having paid for them).
Future life
Buster Baxter is shown as a teenager at the end of the episode "The Contest". His head is more oval-shaped and he is shown wearing a black and brown coat with some yellow, a pair of blue jeans and black shoes. In another, he is wearing a blue fancy jacket and a white long sleeve shirt.
Family and home
Buster is the only child of Bitzi and Bo Baxter. His parents are divorced; he lives with his mother in a condominium in central Elwood City. His mother is a "worrywart" who often fears for Buster's well-being throughout his daily life, but in later seasons she has learned to relax more. They are extremely close and are like best friends. Buster has gone on many travels with his dad, such as in the spin-off series, Postcards from Buster. His father, besides in Postcards from Buster, has made appearances in a few episodes. He and Buster are also very close, and Buster thoroughly enjoys the few opportunities he has to see his dad.
In recent seasons, Bitzi started dating Harry Mills, a fellow photographer and journalist at the Elwood City Times. After getting over his initial theory Harry was an alien, Buster became best friends with Harry, having shared the same interests in sports, aliens, etc. Buster was disappointed to learn that his mom broke up with Harry much later on in the show, but the three of them remain the best of friends.
Physical appearance
Buster is an anthropomorphic white rabbit who wears a cyan polo shirt with a pink collar, blue jeans, orange boxer shorts with a UFO design (white briefs in the books), and red and white sneakers. He only wore suspenders on his pants during "Buster's Amish Mismatch". In the books, he wears different-colored shirts. He also has buck-teeth that are visible when he opens his mouth (in the early books, his buck teeth were especially visible with his mouth closed, but the TV series and later books had his buck teeth only visible with his mouth open). His sleepwear includes a purple button-up pajama top with dark pink dinosaur designs, dark pink pajama bottoms, and aardvark slippers. His swimwear includes blue swimming trunks with periwinkle dots. In "D.W. All Wet", his mom required him to wear a bathing cap to keep his ears covered, but in many later episodes, Buster no longer wears the bathing cap. On formal occasions, Buster wears a navy-blue tuxedo jacket. He also sometimes wears a white shirt, red bow tie, matching trousers and brown shoes. When he first appeared in Arthur's Eyes in 1979, he had whiskers like a normal rabbit, but the whiskers were removed in Arthur's April Fool in 1983.
In other media
In the Living Books computer games such as Arthur's Teacher Trouble, Arthur's Birthday and Arthur's Computer Adventure, Buster's complexions ranged from white to cream-colored. In these three games, he was voiced by Robert Bell before the cartoon show replaced him with Daniel Brochu.
Personality
Buster is easygoing, fun-loving, and somewhat odd. He has a strong interest in space aliens, and claims to have seen flying saucers over Elwood City. His easygoing personality often takes its toll on his performance at school: he sometimes has trouble finishing reports, math assignments, and book reports. However, it is usually that the poor performance is due to lack of effort rather than low intelligence. As seen with some subjects he has an interest in, such as paleontology, he has given answers smart enough to impress Brain. Generally, Buster has a somewhat short attention span. He doesn't have the patience for reading books, unless it's a book he really likes (such as the Scare-Your-Pants-Off Club series). He also has trouble keeping secrets.
Buster also has a strong love for food, and will eat virtually anything, and thus one of the show's running gags features him pigging out wherever he goes. Some of his eating habits are rather unhealthy, though, with him consuming food while following the "5-second rule" or ingesting foods that are beyond expiration. In one episode Buster even claims to have eaten a two year old cupcake and says that the icing was still soft. He also has a personal food collection in his room from his various travels or simply because he is fascinated with what he eats on a particular day. His mom often has the job of throwing this food out when it goes really bad. However, he is surprisingly lean. He used to eat a lot when he was younger too.
Buster also is shown to have poor hygiene. He sometimes chooses not to wash his hands when he should. He occasionally is very dirty, and doesn't maintain his hair well. In fact, during an outbreak of lice in the school, Buster was the only one unaffected because his hair was simply too dirty to support the vermin. He eventually became a germaphobe, until his friends calmed him down, and after which, he became much more hygienic.
Although Buster is generally a nice person and a loyal friend, he has been shown to resort to stealing if he sees something he wants, but can't have and puts it in his best friend's backpack to hide it. However, after stealing an item, Buster will feel guilty about doing so and sometimes worry about being arrested for breaking the law. In the end, however, Buster returns the item. It has also been established that if Buster gets angry about something, he'll tend to hold a grudge, and it is usually the only thing he'll talk about until he can either forget the situation, deal with the situation, or speak to the person who caused the problem with him if this is the case. Most of the time he follows a strong moral code, like insisting that Arthur give James a refund for the defective toy he bought.
Whenever something happens with no known explanation, Buster will almost always become completely convinced that the cause was aliens. The suggestion is usually put down by his friends, yet Buster will continue to suggest aliens whenever something unexplainable happens. Occasionally when something unexplainable happens, another one of the gang will suggest aliens before Buster does. Buster then genuinely believes them until the person points out that the only reason they said it was because they knew Buster would've said it if they hadn't.
Buster can sometimes be influenced in a very big way; when Mr. Ratburn's class went on a field trip to an Amish farm Buster became fascinated by their way of life for a short time and even wanted to become Amish himself.
When it comes to tests, exams, or homework Buster is usually forgetful and just carries on with watching TV and hanging out with his friends before getting started on his work at the last minute. This was revealed in the episode "Buster Makes the Grade" that he will need to repeat the third grade unless his grades improve.
If Buster is insulted or something he owns is insulted he will get quite angry about it, or even cry, and doesn't talk to the person much afterwards. However, when he does, although he is still generally still mad at them, he will usually forgive them after an apology is given or an explanation is made.
Relationships
Family
- Bitzi Baxter: Buster and his mother get along well, and his mother cares dearly for him (for example, in "Arthur Makes the Team", she asks Oliver Frensky if the baseball is hard, and if the cap is made of wool because he's allergic to it.
- Bo Baxter: Even though Bitzi and Bo are divorced, Buster sees his dad often. Buster and Bo travel together throughout the world.
- Grandmother-She is Buster's grandmother and the mother of Bitzi and Stu. She lives in the same apartment as her daughter and grandson. She loves her grandson very much.
Friends
Buster tends to stick with people in his class to be his friends, but he did make friends with Irwin and Sanjeev in "Home Sweet Home" while they shared a bunk at Camp Meadowcroak.
- Arthur Read: He is the best friend of Arthur and they share some interests, like Bionic Bunny, but Arthur thinks his food collection is nasty and UFO's do not exist.
- The Brain: He is another one of Buster's friends, despite the fact that whenever he thinks something was caused by aliens he attempts to try to prove him wrong (which has always been successful.)
- Francine Frensky: Despite Francine being mean sometimes, they have been friends for a long time and still are today.
- George Lundgren: During "George Blows His Top" Buster is shown to constantly ask George to borrow something of his. After borrowing George's tape recorder Buster comes across a recording of George explaining how he feels about being taken advantage of and then Buster comes and returns George's stuff and apologizes and explains if he knew he was hurting George's feelings he wouldn't have been doing what he was doing asking to borrow his stuff all the time. Buster then explains to George to try to be more honest with him because it'll save both of them a lot of trouble.
- Binky Barnes: Even thought there weren't friends in early episodes in later ones they are good friends. One time Buster was even afraid of Binky.
- Muffy Crosswire
- Jenna Morgan
- Maria Pappas
Trivia
- In some episodes of Season 2, Buster made cameos, since he left Elwood City in "Arthur's Faraway Friend", and didn't officially return until the season 3 premiere "Buster's Back".
- Buster says he used to have a puppy, but his mother gave the dog away while he was at school because it was too much trouble for them to look after.
- Buster has asthma.
- Buster is nicknamed the "Sandwich King"
- Buster types 10 words per minute.
- Buster first appeared in the 1979 book Arthur's Eyes.
- Buster is a forward for the Lakewood Elementary Soccer Team.
- Buster is a fan of the Elwood City Grebes, and witnessed the historic moment when the Grebes won the World Series.
- Buster didn't like Bionic Bunny after he watched Top Supermarket Clerk. But in the later seasons, he's shown to like Bionic Bunny again.
- The first three letters of Baxter's phone number are '243'.
- His favorite flavor of jelly bean is jalapeño.
- His favorite type of pie is either Boston cream or boysenberry.
- His favorite citrus fruit is a clementine.
- Even though he can get annoyed with D.W., he doesn't mind her hanging out with him and Arthur. There are sometimes that he enjoys her interests like "Crazy Bus", and a Mary Moo Cow board game.
- Buster is shown to have perfect pitch.
- Buster's favorite color is blue.
- Buster owns a food collection.
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