Benson

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Benson Dunwoody
Biographical information
Home:	Apartment 1635
Occupation:	Stick Hockey Master (formerly) Pro drummer (formerly) Park Manager (formerly) Space Tree Ranger (formerly) Construction Worker (formerly) Park Owner (currently)
Species:	Gumball machine
Gender:	Male
Hair color:	Bald (formerly brown, briefly formerly black)
Relatives:	Benson's Family Unnamed Father Unnamed Mother Unnamed Sister Pam (wife)
Show information
Voiced by:	Sam Marin
First appearance:	2 in the AM PM" (unofficial) "The Pilot (official)

Benson Dunwoody is one of the seven main characters of Regular Show. He is a gumball machine, and was originally known as The Park's manager in the entire series until the series finale, after the death of Mr. Maellard. As a manager, he is the boss of every park worker (with the exception of Pops). He has a short temper and tends to yell at his employees when they are not working (particularly Mordecai and Rigby). Although he may come across as abrasive, Benson is a kind individual that cares deeply about his employees' wellbeing. Benson's design made its debut in J.G. Quintel's animated short "2 in the AM PM", where one of the cashiers (voiced by Sam Marin, who would go on to voice Benson himself, along with Muscle Man and Pops) transformed into a prototype version of Benson after being drugged by some candy. It is possible his name came from another animated short by Quintel, titled "The Naive Man from Lolliland", in which a prototype version of Pops has a human chauffer named Benson. He then made his first official appearance in the Pilot.

Appearance

Benson is a gumball machine with pinkish-purple/red gumballs (that always seem to align in the shape of a beard) enclosed by a glass dome, sunken eyes and a large, straight nose that just about overlaps his mouth. While story boarder Benton Connor has noted that his gumballs may act as facial hair, this is easily disproven by his actual facial hair grown throughout the series. Despite having rather long arms and legs, Benson is relatively short compared to most other characters. It is also worth noting that his dispenser slot sits in a rather phallic position, and the latch being open seems to be the equivalent of him being naked. The turn switch on his chest is shaped like a heart symbol, hinting that's most likely where his heart is.

Benson's gumballs also change color depending on certain things Benson is feeling. The most common example of this is when he gets angry, in which they quickly turn a bright shade of red. The gumballs also turn a darker shade of pink (almost gray) when Benson is feeling incredibly sad. When becoming sick, as shown in "Sandwich of Death", his gumballs will turn green.

Benson appears as bald throughout almost the entirety of the main events of the series (with the exception of The Dome Experiment and the finale). Benson did previously have hair, which was a medium chestnut brown. It is revealed to have all fallen out in the episode Expert or Liar, after he was humiliated on the game show "Say That Word." Despite being bald, however, Benson is still able to grow facial hair rather quickly. It has been shown on numerous occasions that he will quickly grow a stubble if he goes even just a day without shaving, implying that he shaves at least once a day. In the finale, Benson is shown with long, grown out hair, which could imply that it was able to grow the entire time, but he voluntarily kept it shaved, which could be very possible given the situation of his facial hair. While, in The Dome Experiment, Benson does grow a full head of hair, given that its color is drastically different from what his hair normally looks like, it is likely that this was nothing more than a visual-aesthetic choice as a comedic reference to the Rambo film series, in which the main character has an identical hairstyle along with a red headband.

Biography

Early Life

Benson being picked up by his dad in "Lunch Club"

It is made clear in the series that Benson grew up in a verbally abusive household. During a flashback in "Think Positive," his Family is seen arguing at the dinner table, and given Benson's demeanor, it is likely that this was an incredibly common occurrence. In that same flashback, Benson tries to speak up and ask his father to pass the salt, but apparently does not say it loud enough, leading to his father telling him that he will not get anything in life unless he yells for it. This is presumably the reason for Benson's short temper and constant yelling throughout the series. Another factor for his anger issues could be that his father never approved of Bensons hobbies growing up, as stated in "The Lunch Club" when he states that his father would tell him "you don't have any talent!" and "get a real job!" when he was a drummer.

After leaving his parents' house, Benson would go on to become a Stick Hockey Master under the name "Death Dragon," along with his apprentice, Dave. However, Benson immediately quit after Dave was decapitated by Chong. This would become a part of his past that he would refuse to confront until the events of "Stick Hockey," where he finally defeated Chong and avenged his former apprentice ten years later. After this, Benson became the drummer for the hit band Hair to the Throne, in which he famously performed "The Legendary Drum Solo" on a 150 piece drum kit on the band's first album. However, the band left Benson completely uncredited from the album as a whole, and eventually kicked him out after only 6 months, replacing him with the Drumatron VI.

Benson on Say That Word, moments before losing his hair.

It is shortly after his experience as a Pro Drummer that Benson becomes manager of the Park. During a flashback in the "Unfinished Business" segment of "Terror Tales of the Park IV," Mr. Maellard is shown introducing Benson to the office in Pops' House, mainly the computer. It is likely that this was his first day as the park manager. It is shortly after this that Benson makes an appearance on the game show "Say That Word," in which he makes it to the final round, where he claims that he will use the prize money to "quit [his] dumb job at the Park." However, Benson ultimately loses after mispronouncing "bandana" as "banana." Having just been nationally humiliated, all of Benson's hair immediately falls out, leaving him bald for the rest of his life until the finale. According to Benson, for years, he could never leave the house without someone handing him a banana.

Life as Park Manager

Given the timeline of Benson's life until this point, it is likely that he had been the Park's manager for at least a few years before Mordecai and Rigby were hired. His first shown interaction with them was telling Rigby to not eat on the table, while helping Pops get rid of the chair that the two would go on to play rock, paper, scissors for, against Benson's behest, saying the game is "evil." The two would go on to tie one hundred times, leading to the Park's first major incident caused by the two of them, and Benson's eventual first time threatening to fire them if they did not complete their work, which he would go on to do numerous times throughout almost the entire series.

Mordecai and Rigby very quickly became Benson's least favorite employees. He repeatedly found himself shouting at the two of them for not working, not completing their work, or completing their work poorly. He got so used to this to the point that he became genuinely surprised whenever the two actually did their work properly. But despite all this, Benson deeply cares about Mordecai and Rigby and almost never goes through with his threats to fire them. He has risked his own life repeatedly to save theirs, and to help them out. Like in "Stick Hockey" when he saved Mordecai and Rigby from Chong. Or in "Eggscellent" when Benson helped Mordecai get the Eggscellent hat to save Rigby's life.

"Trapped" in a Dome

In "The Dome Experiment", Benson makes an announcement during what seemed to be a normal park meeting, stating that the Park is going to be sealed in a dome for a month in order to create a contained ecosystem. In this announcement he states that the dome would be sealed the following day to give everyone time to move out. However, the dome is unexpectedly placed on the park right after stating this, causing everyone to panic. While everyone panics about the dome, Benson reassured them that the dome would be sealed the following day. However, Mr. Maellard makes it seem like Benson got the date wrong, which devastates him more than that fact that the dome is even there.

In search of making sure Benson got the date right, he figured out this experiment was not made to study the park, but the workers themselves. His workers eventually find Benson and they all work together to escape the dome. After escaping, they run into Mr. Maellard, who tells them that the plan was to basically play them as fools them the whole time, and proceeds to cover it up with the idea that it would "prepare them for a zombie apocalypse," which they didn't believe. Mr. Maellard covers it up again by saying he felt like doing so because "he was rich", which the group easily took as an "honest answer". After this, the dome experiment seems to be "finished", but wasn't, as it was part of an ongoing experiment called the spark initiative.

In "The button", the dome returns. As it is being placed, everyone at the park thinks it's an earthquake. Benson starts the day off with an earthquake "aftermath" meeting. While Benson goes over the meeting, everyone else stares speechlessly at the returned dome. Benson tells Pops to go look for branches and Skips to go get a new kit; the latter responds that it's not going to happen. Benson thinks he won't because it's a long drive; however, Skips turns his head towards the dome, telling him to look up, to which Benson replies with a simple "No..." before saying it twice again, but more panicked.

The group is told not to press the button, which, in a long term of events, causes the park workers to reach near insanity, caused by their curiosity of what were to happen if they pushed it. While Benson tries to get information from Mr. Maellard, the other workers took some of the scientists and questioned them with force, getting one to admit that "terrible things will happen" if it is pressed. By the time they learned of this, Benson was extremely close to pressing the button.

The park workers desperately try to stop Benson from pushing the button, but he has come to a point where he does not know who to trust. Debating with himself, he enters an illusion where he's holding onto an antenna hanging upside down, looking into a mess of storm clouds which peel away to reveal the Park, in the dome, which resembles Pops now, with the mustache, nose and hat and pink tint in the lines. An above mechanism lowers the button in front of him, expecting him to push it. He stutters, now unsure, as the antenna breaks. He slips, now dangling from the bottom of it, looking down into deep space when a huge button appears below, telling him (with grotesque like teeth) he'll catch him so he doesn't fall, yet Benson insists he shouldn't. It asks him to push it now (as Mordecai and Rigby's arms appear at the bottom) in which Benson declines, making the decision to not push it after all. As soon as he says it, everyone's hands come pull him back to reality.

At the end of the experiment, Dr. Langer gives all the workers "beepers", telling them to meet at the front of the house every time it beeps, while Benson is given the strap-on fax machine that gives him special orders from the dome. Benson and the park try to get answers from Dr. Langer, but he instead leaves with his jet pack.

Staying in the Space

In "Rigby's Graduation Day Special", Benson gets a message saying that to end the experiment, they all need to push the button, the same button seen in "the button". Unfortunately, this ruins Rigby's graduation day party. As everyone from the high school graduation is walking towards the park to attend the party, Benson, Mordecai, Rigby, Pops, Skips, Hi Five Ghost, and Muscle Man push the button together and immediately try to escape but become trapped in. Everyone begins wondering why and the park gets lifted up flying toward the air. Everyone looks up including: Mr. Maellard, Dr. Langer, Mordecai's parents, CJ, Doug, Mr. Ross and Thomas. The park is now in space and everyone becomes shocked at what just happened. Just then, Eileen comes out of the house in the park holding a banana souffle and becomes yet shocked to where she is right now, the souffle even deflating, much to everyone's surprise. The episodes ends with the park in space and Eileen asking "what's going on" as a dandelion seed flying off into space, as it's revealed that the episode takes place at the immediate start of One Space Day at a Time, much to the viewers' surprise.

Later he orders to his employees and Eileen to find some things connect with the Earth, later he Rigby had a discussion, but after that they went to the house because a unknown bots wanted to destroy them with their "kindness", later he punishes Mordecai and Rigby to accuse the Reaperbots but later he knew the reaperbots true nature to attack The Park Gang. After that battle, he gets brought with the Space Tree Rangers, but rejects all of the Space Tree and he had a "bad future", but he entered in a simulator to the earth and accepts.

Getting used to staying in the Space Tree

After he accepted to stay in the space, he is part from the space rangers, he helped Muscle Man and Ralws to make a vengeful joke against The Space Bush, later he helps Pops in The Dream Warrior to fight his Nightmare Carl (who worked secretly by a enigmatic man similar to Pops), After that, he was broken by Pam and later he finds a rock called Roxy and he fall in love, after that he escaped from Anti-Pops (Pops' evil brother) to find another places to escape from him.

Final Battle, Returning to the Earth, Pops' death and Legacy

Later he with his employees accompanied Pops to battle against his evil brother Anti-Pops in Loliland (alongside the Stream and his minions). After Pops' sacrifice, he returns to Earth and he hugs Apple Sauce. After the return, The Park Gang put up a statue in the park of Pops to honor him. 25 years later he and Pam are managers of the Park and have new employees, then they make a statue of Mr. Maellard and take a photo for the end.

Personality

Benson is easily the most short-tempered character of all. His short temper is usually contributed by the lack of productivity by Mordecai and Rigby, as they always prefer to slack off and play video games rather than doing their jobs. Benson often threatens to fire Mordecai and Rigby if they don't finish their work or do a simple task such as buying tortillas or going to a Karaoke Bar. Whenever they destroy park property or slack off, Benson loses his temper, turning varying shades of red, and often ends up yelling at Mordecai and Rigby. Although this could be because he wants to push them to do better and to learn from their mistakes. Aside from his short fuse, Benson is usually calm and, in fact, is friendly and social, even with Mordecai and Rigby. Whenever Benson is in a good mood, he'll reward his employees with time off, usually in the form of nightly entertainment or dining out.

Skills/Habits

• Short Temper - Benson is known for his extreme mood swings. Some notable examples are "Think Positive" when Benson almost killed himself and others because he got so angry, that he went into a freak fireball, and when he finally cracked, he yelled at Mordecai and Rigby so hard that they temporarily became deaf due to tinnitus. Also, in "Busted Cart," he got so mad at Mordecai and Rigby for pit-stopping at an arcade while he was asleep that he actually began to cry. His neurotic personality and tendency to become quickly angered is a running gag in the series. An example is in "Jinx," when Rigby threw trash at him. Benson flipped out by throwing a trash can into the sky and kicking it angrily. Benson has also gotten physical with Mordecai and Rigby in "The Best Burger in the World," when he kicked them onto the ground.

• Determined - Benson is very single-minded, which only poses as a detriment for himself, as seen in "Peeps," "Fortune Cookie," "Think Positive," "150 Piece Kit," and several other episodes. Often he'll be so focused on a task that he'll miss incredibly important things, as seen in "The Dome Experiment".

• Athletic - In some episodes, Benson has displayed incredible feats of athleticism. In "Blind Trust", he was able to do a backflip and a front flip, and was able to dodge the enemy's attacks while carrying Mordecai and Rigby. In "Fool Me Twice", he ran through the gameshow's lethal obstacle course without sustaining any injuries. Finally, in "The Dome Experiment", he managed to sneak through the security in the dome and knock out all the scientists.

• Fighting - While not as strong as Skips, Muscle Man or Mordecai, Benson is more than capable of holding his own in a fight.

• Pro Drummer - In "This Is My Jam," it is shown that Benson has a mysterious past where he was formerly a very skilled drummer. It was revealed in "150 Piece Kit" that he was the former drummer of Hair to the Throne. Before being kicked out after only 6 months and replaced with The Drumatron VI. In the same episode he proved that he could drum better than that same robot with his 150 piece kit.

• Stick Hockey Expert - Benson also has a mysterious past where he was a very skilled stick hockey player known as "The Death Dragon," as seen in "Stick Hockey." He is shown playing stick hockey with Mordecai and Rigby in "Benson Be Gone".

• 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 the episode "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, as well as a checkbook with pictures of cats, in "A Skips in Time". On "Cat Videos", he ends up developing an addiction to watching cat videos. In "Terror Tales of the Park IV", it was also revealed that he has a pet cat and also a cat sitter. 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, and it belonged to Benson.  

• Lonely - Benson looks 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 was only shown for two seconds. Since "Weekend at Benson's", he shows interest at Audrey. Later on, they established their relationship, but have broken up, sometime before the events of "The Real Thomas".

• Slacker - He has only been seen slacking off in the episode "Benson Be Gone," when he slacks off with Mordecai and Rigby instead of following Susan's commands. In response, she fires him, but he yells "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" instead. He also does it a little in "Skips Strikes," when he shouts "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" with the group, as well as 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". 
• Sore Loser - As shown in "Dodge This", Benson is very competitive, and when he loses the dodgeball tournament, he doesn't take it well.
• 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 within "Weekend at Benson's", broke up with him sometime before the events of "The Real Thomas", and in the latter episode, his new girlfriend Natalie/Natalia was revealed to be a Russian spy. After meeting Pam during "Pam I Am", things seem to be better, but she eventually ends up dumping him while he is in space in "Fries Night"
• Jealousy - As shown in "Cool Bikes" Benson became jealous of Mordecai and Rigby and refused to admit they looked cool, even though he admitted in the intergalactic cool court that they were the coolest guys he knows. He also shows jealousy in "Thomas Fights Back" towards Gene since he was invited to the Park Managers' Formal, whereas Benson was not invited.

Relationships

Friends

Mordecai and Rigby

Benson, Mordecai, and Rigby playing stick hockey together.

Benson strongly disapproves of Mordecai and Rigby and always screams at them to stop slacking off and threatening to fire the duo. In turn, the pair have a talent for setting off Benson's short fuse. He even choked Mordecai in "Gold Watch". In "Cool Bikes", however, he admits that they are the coolest guys he knows of. Even though they rarely get along, in "Busted Cart", Benson does not hate Mordecai and Rigby, he just wishes they would get along and listen to him, so he doesn't lose his job.

Benson angry at Mordecai and Rigby's laziness.

When they're on their own, Benson seems to treat Mordecai with more respect and trust than Rigby. Anytime when Benson gets angry at them it is either as a duo, or it's just at Rigby. One example is in, "Terror Tales of the Park II" when he got in a pushing match with Rigby. Benson's animosity towards the duo tends to stem from Rigby's behavior. He recognizes Mordecai's ability to get his job done if not for Rigby's bad influence on him.

Benson, Mordecai, and Rigby performing together in "Guitar of Rock".

However, he can also be insensitive towards Mordecai, particularly in "Eggscellent", which makes the latter fight back to him, yet at the end of the episode, they reconcile. His relationship with them gets better over the course of the series but still yells at them frequently in order to ensure that they do their jobs and clean up the chaos wrought by their misadventures.  In "Blind Trust", the three of them all admit they love each other during a near-death experience, and in "World's Best Boss", Rigby admits that while Benson often yells at him and Mordecai, it's usually their fault. In "Gamers Never Say Die", Benson chased them after they stole his car battery for their video game journey. Towards the end, he lists off all the interesting things he encountered during the chase, noticeably happy. Mordecai sees how Benson mainly just wanted to hang out with him and Rigby, to which, he uses their nature to his advantage in "Guitar of Rock".

Rigby and Benson getting along on "The Lunch Club".

Despite their love-hate relationship, he draws inspiration from the duo. For instance, they stand up and fight the criminal group to retrieve the items they stole, something which he was unable to do previously.

He does share some negative things with the two, such as with Mordecai of having broken up with his past girlfriends from Laundry Woes, Dumped At The Altar and Dumptown USA and with Rigby of to be humiliated on national television from Expert Or Liar and a tense relationship with authoritarian fathers revealed in The Lunch Club.

He also does make some important points with them, such as when Margaret was "engaged" and Mordecai was really depressed, he told Mordecai in a firm tone that he had no right to be depressed, especially since he never told Margaret how he really felt, but then kindly told him to confess his feelings just to get closure as revealed in Yes Dude Yes. In Expert or Liar he was also empathetic to Rigby when he was humiliated on a game show and provided care for him at his apartment and in "The Lunch Club", he empathizes on how it feels to have a tense relationship with their authoritarian fathers and to be rejected from College U from Regular Show: The Movie.

Pops

Pops and Benson, the park managers, seem to be very good friends. Still, Pops sometimes reprimands Benson for his yelling and short temper with Mordecai and Rigby, and, rarely, Benson scolds Pops for his childish attitude. Pops once even threatened to fire Benson for his anger issues before realizing it was the wrong thing to do, stating that he'll "leave the job of park managing to the park manager" as Benson represses his anger for so long that he almost explodes.

Skips

Skips and Benson are very good friends. Due to Skips' knowledge of the unknown, Benson will sometimes go to Skips for help. Since Skips doesn't slack off like Mordecai and Rigby, Benson has a lot of respect for him, never really yelling at him as he does to Mordecai and Rigby. Benson considers Skips to be very reliable and trustworthy.

Dave

In "Stick Hockey" Dave was Benson's student and was killed by Chong, who snapped his head off. Until then he was avenged by Benson after beating Chong in a Stick Hockey game.

Muscle Man and Hi Five Ghost

Muscle Man and Hi Five Ghost don't communicate with Benson much, but they usually have his trust and respect. Even though Muscle Man and Hi Five Ghost slack off more than Mordecai and Rigby, Benson doesn't seem to mind because unlike Mordecai and Rigby, they get their jobs done. However, in Season Three, he began to get annoyed by them. Benson seems to be annoyed with Muscle Man more than Hi Five Ghost, mainly because of his 'My Mom' jokes. In fact, Benson only showed negativity toward Hi Five Ghost when he threatened to be fired along with Muscle Man, but he still doesn't yell at him at all. He is not above getting angry with Muscle Man in the same fashion as he does with Mordecai and Rigby as he did in "Firework Run." In "The End of Muscle Man", he was sad that he thought Muscle Man was going to die, but then was furious to find out the whole thing was for his proposal to Starla and told him that "I leave this world tonight" is not a wedding metaphor. He then told Muscle Man that he owes him 12,000 dollars after he splurged most of his money on his bucket list.

Gene

Gene being a mischievous, silly guy in "Prankless".

Benson and Gene by the end of the show have gone from rivals to frenemies/friends.

Benson and Gene shaking hands in "The Christmas Special".

In "Prankless," it is revealed that Benson has an ongoing rivalry with the East Pines manager Gene. They reveal that they have had prank wars in the past and Muscle Man was the only one who could fend of Gene and his park with his master prankery. Why or how this prank war history is started is never explained, but it seems to continue repeatedly. Gene however, in "The Christmas Special," shows some trust to Benson and his crew after thinking about the importance of their mission to save Christmas and helped them destroy the evil present by fending off Quillgin. However, this doesn't end their rivalry. In Gene's next appearance, their teams face off in a dodge ball tournament in "Dodge This" (East Pines Vs. Benson's Ballerz). Furthermore, in "Thomas Fights Back", Gene partakes in his annual tomfoolery of stealing the statue of the founder of Benson's park. Benson ends up stealing it back using Thomas's help, which can be noted to impress Gene as their rivalry seems to end here. This could be the point in which Gene acknowledges Benson as "lodge material".

Gene pushing a chair under Benson as the crowd carries him in "Chili Cook Off".

The Galactic Park Rangers in Regular Show: The Movie.

In "Park Managers' Lunch" he takes Benson and two other park managers out to lunch and later in the episode adds him to his Park Manager's Lodge group. In "Chili Cook Off", Benson seeks recognition and respect from Gene and the others in the Lodge and joins the chili cook off in order to gain that respect and recognition. Gene, with his massive ego, doesn't believe Benson can beat his winning streak. However, when Benson does win the chili cook off after he adds hot wings to his chili, Gene congratulates him and even calls him "Dunwoody", his last name, which can be seen as the first form of respect. Their relationship unfortunately ends there and is not further developed as Gene makes no more appearances, but it can be read as friendship beyond this point.

Gene also fights as a Galactic Park Ranger against Mr. Ross in Regular Show: The Movie in the bad future timeline, allowing Benson and his crew from the present to join his forces to fight against the destruction of timelines. This is proof that in the event that the world is threatened, Gene would willingly fight by Benson and his crew, demonstrating that he doesn't have a bad heart, just a big ego.

Neutral

Mr. Maellard

Mr. Maellard strongly disproves and disgraces Benson. Just like how Benson threatens to fire Mordecai and Rigby, Mr. Maellard does the same to Benson. He calls him names such as "Bean Bag" and "Ball Bucket". He even blames Benson for everything Mordecai and Rigby do in the park. Though, in "Busted Cart," it is shown that Mr. Maellard began trusting Benson until Mordecai and Rigby crash the golf cart. Also, in "Benson Be Gone," even after his car being totaled and a former employee being killed, Mr. Maellard shows some happiness towards Benson. Maellard also recognizes his efforts in Pops' successful inauguration of a park statue in "Dizzy". At the end of the series since Pops' sacrifice to save the universe from his older twin brother, Anti-Pops, whereas Mr. Maellard passed away many years later, it is assumed that Benson succeeded as a new park owner.

Love Interest

Audrey

In "Weekend at Benson's," a woman named Audrey, who lives across the hall from Benson, appears to have a crush on him and was greatly disappointed that Benson would be unable to attend her party (having, unbeknownst to her, been knocked out by Mordecai and Rigby), as she wanted a chance to get to know him better. Mordecai and Rigby then took Benson to the party, hoping that Audrey's interest would keep Benson from getting mad at them when he woke up. When Audrey's ex-boyfriend Chuck wanted to see how manly Benson was, he challenged him to a hot food eating contest. When Benson woke up after his injury, he wanted to impress Audrey, so he continued the challenge, despite being subjected to the hallucinatory effects of Chuck's drink "The Mississippi Queen." At the end of the episode, after waking up from his hallucinations Benson discovered that he'd finally got Audrey's number. In "The Christmas Special," Audrey attends the Park's Christmas party and compliments Benson on his fearlessness for wearing the "worst sweater ever," unaware that Benson was not wearing it ironically.

In "Party Re-Pete," Benson has successfully asked Audrey out on a date and celebrates by impressing her with his party skills. At the end of the episode, after Benson has been rescued from Party Savers, he is seen partying with Audrey again.

In "Skips in the Saddle", Benson claims that he is taking Audrey to a jazz concert, possibly hinting that the two may be growing closer together.

However, in "Real Date", it is revealed Benson is apparently still single, meaning that they aren't dating yet, despite growing closer to one another.

In "The Real Thomas", he and Audrey broke up prior to the episode. He mentions being sad for months and virtually every park employee helping him get over it through such activities as training for a marathon, but no one can recall any of this happening.

Audrey is among the ex-girlfriends mentioned by Benson during his chicken-wing binge flashback visits to Dumptown in "Dumptown, USA."

Foes

Susan

Susan is the first foe in the series, who initially replaced him in the episode "Benson Be Gone" when Mr. Maellard appointed her as park manager. He gets demoted to a park worker and, as a result, he disobeys her orders and resigns from his occupation. He eventually ousts her and gets his job back.

Chong

Chong is Benson's second foe in the series who appeared in "Stick Hockey," He is responsible for using deadly cheat tricks to keep him from losing to his opponent, such as killing Benson's apprentice, Dave. Benson ultimately defeats Chong in the game and avenges his apprentice's death.

Family

Benson's Family are the people who encouraged Benson to yell to get what he wants - which is why he yells at Mordecai and Rigby and has a short temper. In "Think Positive," it is shown his family was always arguing, as young Benson just sat and watched. When he wanted salt, his father encouraged him to yell if he wanted it.

Towards the end of "Journey to the Bottom of the Crash Pit", Mordecai, Hi Five Ghost, Rigby, & Muscle Man come out of the car and give him the camera. Benson looks at them funny, asking why they risked their lives for the camera, and Mordecai says it was park property and they could not replace it, causing Rigby to add on that it was his for his family's reunion. Benson looks at them thoughtfully, telling them "thank you", before looking up and wondering aloud, "Maybe now my Dad will stop yelling at me," revealing that even though he is an adult, he is still yelled at by his elders.

In The Lunch Club, Benson has some strained relationship with his father. When he was younger and was in Heir To The Throne, his father would always tell him he doesn't have any talent and get a real job. Toward the end of the episode, after Benson got in the car with his father, he tells him they should talk more.

Benson-Themed Content

• Benson's Apartment (Some episodes)
• Benson's Drum Set ("This Is My Jam")
• Benson's Family ("Think Positive")
• Benson's House Rules ("House Rules")
• Benson's Pets ("Cat Videos" and "Benson's Pig")
• Benson's Office (Some episodes)
• Benson's Outfit
• Benson's Car ("Party Pete," "Over the Top," "Skips Strikes," "Fortune Cookie," "Picking Up Margaret" and "Benson's Car")
• "Benson Be Gone" (Episode that focuses around Benson and Susan)
• Benson's 150 Piece Kit Drum set ("150 Piece Kit")

Trivia

• Benson has the second most number of appearances out of the Park Workers, trailing Mordecai and Rigby.
• Bensons car is a maroon 1982-1988 Oldsmobile cutlass Cierra station wagon. Or as he describes it “the old kind of station wagon”.
• The cell phone benson uses throughout the series is a Motorola StarTAC flip phone model released in 1996. The only difference is the screen placement.
• Benson is the only character for which Sam Marin uses his natural speaking voice, as opposed to the voice changes when he voices Pops and Muscle Man.
  • Additionally, when asked, Sam Marin picked Benson as his favorite character. His favorite character used to be Pops.
• Benson is spoofed in one episode of the TV show, MAD. In the episode, Benson appeared in a snippet called "Celebrities Without Their Make-Up" and said that actor Zack Galifianakis "looked like a regular guy" without make-up, and a make-up brush paints Benson's face of Galifianakis' face.
• In "Rage Against the TV," Benson 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.
• Whenever his car was busted, he blamed it at Mordecai and Rigby, even though it was not their fault at all. However, in "Regular Show: The Movie" and "Dumped at the Altar", Muscle Man can clearly see to destroy his car, but he didn't yell at him.
• In "Think Positive", Pops is Benson's boss whenever Mr. Maellard is not around.
• In both "Dizzy" and "Benson Be Gone", Mr. Maellard says Benson's name as "Beanbag", "Bean Teen", "Beanton", "Beanson", and "Ball Bucket".
  • However, in "Busted Cart" and "Men in Uniform", Mr. Maellard gets his name correctly.
• He was based on a convenience store clerk, named Sam after his voice actor, in J.G. Quintel's short film, "2 in the AM PM", who briefly turns into a gumball machine.
• 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 (who looks nothing like Benson from Regular Show), 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 kept to his threats, despite it being taken back after Pops explains the truth.
• 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 businessman. Due to him being a hippie, it was also implied that he was in a band. Which is confirmed in "150 Piece Kit" when he meets up with his old band members. In which he was previously the drummer for their band, Hair to the Throne.
• 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 lawnmower. The second instance was in "The Unicorns Have Got to Go" when the unicorn punks took two gumballs from Benson (and ate them without any adverse effects) while he was tied up to a door. The third and fourth were in "In the House", where he vomited up his gumballs and when he was flushed down the toilet.
• Benson's stick hockey nickname is "Death Dragon".
• Benson has fired employees ten (technically nine) times in the series so far, in "Don", "Benson Be Gone", "Really Real Wrestling", "Under the Hood", "Weekend at Benson's", "Replaced", "Muscle Mentor", "Terror Tales of the Park II", "Firework Run", and "Regular Show: The Movie". Most of these times, it was Rigby (along with Mordecai) that was fired.
  • It didn't count in "Terror Tales of the Park II" because everyone was dead before it could be official.
• Benson is one of five Park Employees to get fired and then rehired. The other four being Muscle Man, Mordecai, Rigby, and Hi Five Ghost. Out of all of them, it only happened to Benson once where he was fired by Susan but was about happen a second time when he was almost fired by Pops for his anger.
  • Pops and Skips are the only ones who were never fired (Skips is reliable and helps out Benson a lot, and Pops is the other Park manager).
• Benson knew about "the coffee girl" in "Yes Dude Yes," even though he hasn't seen Margaret face-to-face.
  • Though it is possible that Mordecai and/or Rigby told him about her off-screen.
• In "Out of Commission" and "Blind Trust", 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.
• In "Busted Cart", when he finds that Mordecai and Rigby have been wasting time at a video game arcade, he ends up breaking down in front of them. This is probably the only time we've seen this vulnerable, and utterly broken side to Benson. As he says that his job is all he has.
• Benson can be crabby around kids revealed in "Fuzzy Dice", and (possibly) "Just Set Up the Chairs".
• Benson genuinely enjoys working at the park, even turning down the opportunity to reunite with Hair to the Throne to keep working there.
• In "TGI Tuesday", he met Eileen for the first time, but he already knew her name. This could be because Eileen was shown in "One Pull Up" and off-screen, she could have talked to Benson, but this is unconfirmed.
• Benson is shown to be left-handed. You can tell in "Just Set Up the Chairs" if you look closely during the first part. In "House Rules", he is seen writing something down with his right hand. Either he may be ambidextrous, or this could be an error on the storyboard artist's part.
• Benson has had three jobs so far: a champion stick hockey player, a very skilled pro drummer for Hair to The Throne, and a park manager.
• In "Busted Cart", Benson reveals that he doesn't hate Mordecai and Rigby, he just hates the things they do.
• Benson's gumballs do not move realistically when inside his head, most clearly shown in "Pie Contest" when Benson is thrown by Promise Pie and his gumballs do not move at all.
  • They can be heard rattling in his head on several occasions, however.
  • However, in "Skips' Stress," when he was getting swung around by the Stress Monster, his gumballs briefly followed the laws of physics.
• Benson looks a bit different when he first appears in "Starter Pack" in his office (his headpiece/hat is positioned and shaped a bit differently, his body and arms seem fatter, and his eyes seem bigger). However, he appears a second later in the living room looking normal.
• In "World's Best Boss", Pops reveals that Benson has worked at The Park for 10 years.
• In "Guitar of Rock", it is revealed that Benson is a huge Bruce Rock fan. Even following him on tours for weeks at a time.
• Benson, Muscle Man, Starla, and Reginald are the only characters who seem to have anger issues.
• Several things were revealed about Benson in the episode "Expert or Liar":
  • He appeared on an old game show called "Say That Word!"
  • He used to have a full head of hair, and he used to wear glasses.
    • This fact also proves that Benson is bald.
    • And he looks like his voice actor.
• As revealed in Expert or Liar
  • If Benson won the game, he was going to quit his job at The Park, which reveals he's been working there for years at that point.
  • When he lost in the game show, he lost all of his hair, and he was humiliated, and people mocked him by calling him "banana" for years after.
• In "Gold Watch", it is revealed that Benson likes to "play it safe". He even admits to setting three alarms every night and eating stale toast when he wakes up so that he isn't late for work.
  • It is also revealed in Gold Watch that Benson loves wings, although they seem to put him in a drunken state every time he eats them, which is also revealed in the episode "Dodge This".
• In "Format Wars II", he was the fifth DiscMaster.
• He's the third Park worker to have broken up with their own first girlfriend after Muscle Man (who later did get back with his) and Mordecai.
• He is also the first character to have most exes, second being Mordecai and Margaret.
• Benson's last name was revealed to be Dunwoody, as revealed in the episode "The Dome Experiment" and "Hello China".
• In "Cat Videos", he got a pet cat name McFluffin.
• It is likely Benson is now the owner of the park by the final episode. Although this is not officially confirmed.
• A post from the official Cartoon Network Twitter account suggests that Benson could be 30 years old, although this is not confirmed or officially canon.

Appearances

For a list of Benson's appearances, click here.

Gallery

The gallery for Benson can be viewed here.

References

Main Characters of Regular Show Mordecai Rigby Benson Pops Skips Muscle Man Hi Five Ghost