Buster is the main antagonist of Disney's 2001 direct-to-video film Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure, the sequel to the 1955 animated feature film Lady and the Tramp.
Background[]
Personality[]
Buster is the leader of the junkyard dogs. He is very interested in Angel and calls her "his girl", even though she clearly is not interested in him and repeatedly emphasizes that she is not his girl. He pretends to be nice to Scamp when he tried to make him a junkyard dog. But in reality, Buster is a selfish, jealous, and arrogant jerk who uses Scamp to get revenge on Tramp for choosing Lady over him, even though he should have been supportive of Tramp for finding love. For Buster, what makes a dog a dog is living free, doing whatever they want, and not having owners.
Role in the film[]
Buster is first seen throwing the Dogcatcher's hat; later on, when he discovers Scamp, he decides that before he can make him a "junkyard dog", he'll give him a "test" to show that he's brave enough to become an official junkyard dog. The test is to retrieve a can from Reggie's alley. However, Scamp ended up getting Reggie sent to the dog pound (in addition to saving Angel) after a big chase, which makes the junkyard dogs look up to him and made Buster, who tries to convince Scamp that a junkyard dog is only supposed to help itself and not help others, jealous. Later that day, the junkyard dogs reveal to Scamp that Tramp (Scamp's father) and Buster were once best friends, and Buster, who is fed up with Sparky's false tale of Tramp's fate, reveals the real version of why Tramp left the junkyard dogs: He fell in love with Lady, which Buster considers a betrayal to their friendship. He stresses how angry he was that Tramp didn't follow the rules.
The next day, on the Fourth of July celebration, Buster is seen watching Scamp's family from the bushes and realizes the relationship between Tramp and Scamp by seeing that they scratch in the same manner. He then tells Scamp that for his "final test" he wants him to wreck their picnic and steal their chicken. Scamp does so to prove that he isn't a house dog. Buster then leads the junkyard dogs to wreak havoc on the celebrations and then meets up with Scamp (and Tramp) in a dead-end alley where he convinces Scamp to abandon his father, which Scamp does, leaving poor Tramp depressed. Buster then officially lets Scamp join by removing his collar.
Later, when Angel confronts Scamp on choosing to be a junkyard dog instead of returning to his family, Scamp accidentally reveals Angel's secret wish to have a family, and Buster kicks her out of the junkyard. When Scamp looks for Angel, Buster thinks Scamp wants to become a house dog and uses one of his members as bait to have Scamp captured by the dogcatcher and finally achieve his revenge against Tramp. When Scamp gets caught while running from the dogcatcher, he sees Buster and thinks he will rescue him. Buster refuses and leaves, ignoring him. Scamp suddenly discovers that Buster was actually doing all this for revenge, and finally realizes that a family is more than rules.
After escaping the dog pound, Scamp, Tramp, Jock, and Trusty go back to the junkyard, where Scamp returns for his collar and Buster is waiting. Buster tries to defend himself by saying he didn't help Scamp because he was following the rules, though Scamp doesn't buy that and gets revenge on Buster by trapping him underneath an enormous pile of junk. The other junkyard dogs, who had grown tired of Buster and decide to help honor Scamp's revenge, ditch Buster to find families of their own, leaving him alone and stranded. Buster calls for them to come back and get him out of the junk, possibly even trying to convince them that he promises to help other junkyard dogs.
It is unknown what happened to Buster afterwards.
Trivia[]
- Buster is the only junkyard dog to have his singing voice dubbed by a different voice actor; the other junkyard dogs' voice artists did their own singing. Buster's singing voice was provided by Jess Harnell.
- Buster makes the rules for his new family at the junkyard and learned the first rule about being a junkyard dog a long time ago.
- Buster is the first main antagonist to ever be shunned.
- He shares a similarity to Riley and Shere Khan in that Riley was abandoned as a puppy by his potential owner, and Shere Khan just hates humans in general, so they have always had a hatred for humans, also known as misanthropy.
- He is also similar to Stinky Pete, Waternoose, Lotso, and King Candy, as all five started out friendly at first, but later revealed their true evil colors.
- Buster is one of the few main villains to not die; however, his fate was unseen and is instead left to the imagination of the viewers.
- He bears a similarity to Roscoe and DeSoto. They are all the same breed, except that Buster is unlikely a purebred Doberman and could possibly be a Doberman/Rottweiler mixed breed, also called a "Rotterman".
- Buster's rules are:
- No one is ever adopted.
- Stay away from other house dogs.
- House dogs are enemies to strays.
- No human loves.
- Humans ruin everyone else's life.
- Hide somewhere to avoid dogcatchers.
- No collars.
- No house dogs allowed.
- No pet adoptions.
- Must obey or you'll be exiled.
- Buster's trouble is Buster's trouble.
- Nobody joins the junkyard dogs unless Buster says so.
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Miscellaneous[]
