Buster Baxter

"I know one person who's always happy. He's never been upset for more than three seconds. Buster Baxter. The happiest jolliest most fun."


 * &mdash; Arthur Read, "Buster's growing grudge"

Buster Baxter is a character in the Arthur books and TV episodes. He is eight years old and in the third grade. He is Arthur's best friend.

Profile

 * Name: Buster


 * Gender: Male


 * Age: 8


 * Parents: Bo Baxter (father), Bitzi Baxter (mother)


 * Siblings: None
 * Other Family: Stu (uncle)

Personality
Buster is easygoing, fun-loving, and slightly 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 the like.

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" series).

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. 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.

Buster also is shown to have poor hygiene. He sometimes chooses not to wash his hands when he should, 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.

Although Buster is generally a nice person, he has been shown to resort to stealing if he sees something he wants but can't have. However, after stealing an item, Buster will feel guilty about doing so and sometimes worry about being arrested for stealing. In the end Buster will usually return the item. Also if Buster gets angry about something he'll tend to stay angry about it for rather a long time and it is usulally 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 him if this is the case.

Whenever something happens with no explanation at the time Buster will suggest the explanation is 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, Arthur will suggest Aliens before Buster does. Buster then genuinely believes Arthur until he points out that the only reason he said it was because he knew Buster would've said it if he hadn't.

Buster also has a strong liking for dinosaurs as shown in the picture with it being the focus of one episode.

Buster can sometimes be influenced in a very big way. When Mr. Ratburn's class went on a field trip to some Amish people's home Buster became fascinated by their way of life for a short time.

When it comes to tests exams or homework Buster is usually forgetful and just carries on with watching TV and hanging out with his mates only usually getting started on the work when it has to be handed in.

Appearance
Buster is an anthropomorphic white rabbit who wears a cyan polo shirt with pink collar, jeans, orange boxer shorts with a Saturn design, and red and white sneakers.

Family and home
Buster is the only child of Bitzi Baxter 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 spinoff 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.

Trivia

 * In some episodes of Season 2, Buster made cameos, since his character didn't officially return until Season 3.