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Bigtop Burger Staff
General
The workers of the food truck, Bigtop Burger.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: While Steve's actions are more harmlessly strange than horrifying, it still applies, as the other workers have very muted reactions to him. Even Billie, who seems more reactive, doesn't get too worked up.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble:
- Penny: Sanguine
- Billie: Melancholic
- Tim: Phlegmatic
- Steve: Choleric
- Gender-Equal Ensemble: The team consists of two guys and two girls.
- Nice Guy: All four of them are very polite and friendly.
- Non-Ironic Clown: The four of them wear clown makeup and clown noses as part of their food truck's circus theme, and they're well adjusted and polite, if weird, people. Even Steve, who's practically a Reality Warper and may actually be a "real" clown, unlike the others, is still quite benign.
- Shout-Out Theme Naming: Each of them have a name that relates to It, another clown-based franchise:
- Steve's name is a reference to Stephen King, who wrote the original novel.
- Penny references Pennywise, the Monster Clown who is the main antagonist of It.
- Tim and Billie reference the two actors to play Pennywise on the screen—Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgård, respectively.
Penny
Click here to see her without her clown makeup on
- Played by: Lindsay Small-Butera
Mayb- Maybe they're having Brunch for Lunch!
An employee at Bigtop Burger who is usually by the counter to greet potential customers.
- Fiery Redhead: Downplayed. She's not particularly feisty but is far more upbeat and energetic than her co-workers (sans maybe Steve).
- Good Parents: Implied. She states that she's great with kids, and combined with her cheery disposition and the fact that she has a daughter, it's safe to assume that she's this.
- Nice Girl: She's a pleasant and polite person.
- Older Than They Look: Despite being the shortest of the main cast and looking fairly young, Ian revealed in a Tumblr post that she's in her early 30s
, making her one of the oldest of the four. The extended credits for Season One also reveal that she has a daughter. - The Pollyanna: She remains cheerful and optimistic even though she's regularly exposed to bizarre events.
- Stepford Smiler: Implied. Despite her constantly positive attitude, there are moments where she's very clearly nervous or even downright terrified. Of particular note is the moment in KID where she asks if they still sell burgers "despite it all" with a tone and inflection of someone whose entire worldview is breaking down.
- Youthful Freckles: She has these underneath her makeup as revealed in GREASEPAINT, although it's zigzagged. While she does have the disposition of someone being the youngest of the group, she's also the oldest and already has a daughter of her own.
Tim
Click here to see him without his clown makeup on
- Played by: Tim Batt
Steve, man, the stove's not even plugged into anything!
Another employee at Bigtop Burger, who prepares the burgers.
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Tim fits this role a bit more than everyone else, since he tends to point out problems in Steve's logic (not to any truly meaningful extent).
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: While this is applicable to the whole group, Tim seems to embody this the most. He's amused at best and annoyed at every single thing that happens, no matter how wild. It's implied that he's worked for Steve the longest. In fact, he was the first person Steve interacted with when he finally rose out of the earth.
- Deadpan Snarker: Has shades of this.
- Nice Guy: He's a pretty friendly and upstanding guy. His first act upon seeing the risen Steve in an alleyway (from his perspective, a strange man dressed as a clown, who he seems to assume is homeless) is to ask if he's okay, immediately give him some money, and direct him to a place where he can get food.
- Only Sane Man: He's usually the first to realize things or call out on weird events (see his quote above), though he's more perplexed than actually surprised by Steve's antics.
- Incredibly Lame Fun: Tim is absolutely thrilled by the backpack and lunchbox gifted to Steve at FTX. Out of everyone he's the only that isn't really impressed by the big Stetson that Cesare pulls out.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: He's the most level-headed employee and takes charge in Steve's place, and is the only worker to wear glasses.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: He was the first person to interact with Steve after he rose up out of the earth in the present day, and wasn't particularly thrown off by seeing a clown in pajamas coughing up rocks next to a hole in the ground, treating him like a regular homeless person and only idly saying "what a strange little man" to himself after Steve hobbles away.
Billie
Click here to see her without her clown makeup on
- Played by: Olivia Craighead
Is this... normal food truck stuff?
Bigtop Burger's newest recruit, Billie is not quite used to the strangeness of the job as Penny or Tim are.
- Ambiguously Brown: When the gang remove their face paint in GREASEPAINT, Billie is revealed to be quite a bit darker than Tim or Penny.
- Deadpan Snarker: She speaks with a consistently dry tone even when she regularly witnesses Steve's weirdness.
- Dull Surprise: Her deadpan doesn't stop when she's shocked or surprised, such as seeing a smaller version of Steve shrink even more into nothingness.
- Perpetual Frowner: She's not particularly sad or serious, but mostly gives off a tired vibe.
- Naïve Newcomer: Downplayed. She's the one the most put off by Steve's behavior, but is still pretty blasé about it. It's also vaguely implied that this is because she's new.
Steve
- Played by: Ian Worthington
What a wonderful little boy!
The crew's... odd manager, who drives the food truck.
- Accidental Misnaming: Frequently calls his employees by similar sounding names, like calling Penny "Peggy" or Tim "Tom" or "Toby." As of the first episode of Season 2, he's only ever gotten Billie's name correct on screen. Judging by how they don't seem to be offended by it, they're either used to it or accept it as part of his eccentricities.
- Ambiguously Human: He's very clearly not a normal human being with his constant Reality Warping, though the rest of the staff shrug it off for the most part. In a Tumblr post discussing the various characters' ages, Ian stops ominously short at "Steve is". It's implied that he's a "real" clown, unlike the other workers who just wear clown makeup and fake noses, which is eventually made explicit in UP.
- Benevolent Boss: He treats his employees and customers very amicably, even if it's in his own weird way.
- Character as Himself: Neither his name nor his voice actor is listed in the opening credits.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Possible superpowers aside, virtually everything he says is strange or is made strange given context.
- The Exile: Steve was born and raised in a faraway planet of clowns, but was banished to space thanks to failing his role as Old Deuteronomy, before eventually crashing into Earth.
- Expy: He has a lot in common with Ronald McDonald, being a red-haired clown associated with fast food who is nice to almost everyone he comes near, capable of doing impossible things and heavily implied to not wear makeup and actually have a natural clown-like appearance. About the only significant differences are that Steve has decidedly less colorful clothing and is completely out of his gourd.
- Extreme Omnivore: Apparently before Tim mentions it, Steve did not know one is not meant to eat a guitar.
- Hidden Depths: His flashback in KID and the Season 1 Theme "Up" reveal he used to be an actor, having played the part of Old Deuteronomy in Cats for a time.
- Inexplicably Awesome: No explanation is given for his reality warping abilities, and everything about him in general is a mystery, yet he just wants to serve burgers to people.
- Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: He once hit the ground so hard that he caused the Late Devonian Extinction 372 million years ago. It wasn't really his fault, though — he was shot out of an interstellar cannon as a punishment.
- Nice Guy: While it's hard to tell, Steve is kind of this. He never harms anyone with his actions, seems to treat the employees respectfully, and all of the strange things he does are weird, but ultimately harmless. The only time he intentionally hurts anyone is when the Zomburger crew attacks the food truck, so it was technically self-defense.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Steve can bounce back from literally anything thrown at him. Like any other "genuine clown", he can only die of old age once he eventually reaches one billion years old.
- Offscreen Teleportation: He often pops into different areas between camera shots. Never mind that he also does on-screen teleportation too.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: His mother (and sometimes Cesare) calls him "Stephen", but everyone else mostly just refers to him as "Steve".
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Upon seeing the Zomburger food truck pull up alongside his, Steve immediately goes on the offensive and slams his vehicle into it, prompting a battle between the two franchises.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Steve's voice goes back and forth on a sliding scale between a whimsical, posh Englishman and a gravelly, shady-sounding American.
- Our Cryptids Are More Mysterious: Being a "real" clown, he's apparently regarded as some kind of modern cryptid, and Cesare's goal is to capture him and other assorted freaks and weirdos for his unknown employer. In the credits of the SEASON TWO compilation, one piece of art depicts him alongside The Mothman, The Flatwoods Monster, and the bogeyman.
- Performance Anxiety: It's implied he struggles with stage fright. He's usually confident in his own strange way, but gets nervous at the prospect of going to FTX, and turns into a stuttering mess when the mascot greets him, only regaining his composure when he learns Zomburger is also there. "Up", a song often thought to be about Steve, depicts a theater actor throwing up before a performance and losing his role. This performance anxiety is the reason he was exiled from his home planet, as performing the role of Old Deuteronomy is a sacred act to the clowns, and freezing as Steve did is punishable by being fired out of a cannon into space.
- Reality Warper: Steve displays reality-warping abilities multiple times in the series, whether it be teleporting from one part of the truck to the other or shapeshifting into a small kid. This is due to him being a "real" clown, unlike the rest of the Bigtop Burger crew.
- Really 700 Years Old: Although his age was kept vague before (a Tumblr post stating the Bigtop Burger staff's ages ends with a simple "steve is" for Steve), his flashback in UP reveals that he is at least over 600 million years old.
- Sad Clown: Despite his Cloudcuckoolander tendencies and cheerful exterior, he had a tragic past of being banished from his home world for fumbling his role in a play, and he sometimes tearfully reminisces about it.
Zomburger Staff
General
The staff of Zomburger, Bigtop Burger's rival food truck.
- Bile Fascination: In-Universe, this is how they market their food, which works well enough that they're more successful than Bigtop Burger.
- Breakout Character: They only had one episode dedicated to them in Season 1. The second season gives more focus to them.
- Everyone Has Standards: Frances, Doctor and Conrad are noticeably shocked when Cesare traps and apparently kills Steve in DOWN. Doctor even lets out a shocked "B-boss?" before it happens.
- Foil: To Bigtop Burger. While the workers of Bigtop are a little silly, they're rather passive, harmless workers trying to do their job, with their boss being the only one who's truly bizarre. Cesare is a weird person, but rather than acting as contrast, the Zomburger employees actively go along with what he says and go out of their way to attack the competition. Even their chugging guitar theme is named "DOWN" on the soundtrack album - and its lyrics are decidedly less open to debate than those of UP...
- Lethal Eatery: Cesare states that they "practically sell charcoal on a bun" and that people can't even digest what they make. According to Doctor, they do this on purpose to attract social media posters who buy their food to make humorous Instagram posts about it.
- Monster Mash: They seem to have this motif, with Conrad resembling Frankenstein's Monster, Doctor being a Mad Scientist, 3 out of the 4 members sporting Scary Stitches, and Cesare having pale blue skin.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Discussed and played for laughs in BACKPACK. The Zomburger staff are friendly and approachable in their day-to-day lives — and also don't see anything wrong with Cesare ordering them to kill Steve and his employees, because it's just a fun part of the job to them. This does not exactly put Billie at ease.Billie: So you're just... normal... people.
Frances: Simply doing a job, my dear clown!
Billie: But you shot a CANNON at us...
Doctor: A little workplace rivalry!
Billie: I could swear you said something about it being "the day I DIED".
Frances: [Chuckling] Oh my god... Yeah, I was in chaaaaracter, HELLO!
Conrad: Boss says we gotta act "evil and wicked" when we're on the clock.- To a degree, even Cesare is this. Once Steve has been imprisoned and his thousand year stint of acting as The Watcher is over, Cesare is more than excited to take his retirement to Tampa. No longer caring about Steve once he's behind bars and no longer his problem.
- Shout-Out Theme Naming: While not as blatant as the ones for Bigtop Burger, the employees of Zomburger seem to follow the pattern of having names related to a certain movie, that movie being the 1920s silent film, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari:
- Cesare himself has his design inspired by the character of the same name from the film.
- Conrad may be named after Conrad Veidt, Cesare's actor.
- Doctor is a reference to Dr. Caligari.
- In BACKPACK, Frances reveals that his real name is actually Allen. Likely in reference to the best friend/love rival of the film's protagonist being "Alan".
- Frances is likely named after Francis, the name of the main character.
Cesare
- Played by: Chris Fleming
You want to take some sucker shots at my banana cage, Bilbo!? Well, let's TANGO!
Zomburger's manager and driver.
- Ambiguously Human: Many fans have speculated that Cesare is actually a real zombie in the same way that Steve is implied to be a "real" clown. The fact that he is not pictured in the end credits sequence of SEASON ONE despite the rest of his group being shown without makeup and costume has only added fuel to this theory. The beginning of season 2 further hints at this, as he demands his crew to look like zombies or else he'll stick out like a sore thumb (even using the word "cover" to imply he's hiding his true nature), and he impatiently tells Frances that he doesn't eat food. In the second episode, when Conrad asks him how old he is, he responds with "Never... Never ask me that" with barely restrained anger. This is further hinted at by the fact that the Season 2 theme, "Friends in Low Places", which is paired with a picture of Cesare and his employees on Worthikids' music channel tells the story of a puppet seller from Venice who is murdered, makes "friends" in the afterlife, and resurrected to serve as a "watcher" of some kind in the living world — implicitly, this is Cesare. While what he may be is up for debate, he's revealed to be very obviously non-human in DOWN, as he's the first person in-universe to unambiguously use magic.
- Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: The guy's much wealthier than you'd think — or, rather, has access to much more money than you'd think. Frances reveals that part of the reason they stay with Zomburger is that Cesare pays them thousands of dollars per hour, and Conrad has seen him pulling a massive pile of cash out of a hole in the ground, which apparently he does every single day.
- Beneath the Earth: While everyone else in the Season 2 intro is shown in normal apartments and homes (save Steve, who sleeps in the Bigtop Burger truck), Cesare is staggering down a long staircase in some kind of cavern or tunnel, with the implication that this is where he lives.
- Dissonant Serenity: His reaction to Steve running alongside his moving food truck and pulling out a sword is mild annoyance at "typical Steve." He also says that he isn't at all surprised to see this and even claims that he knew it would happen. Considering that he's apparently been hunting down "freaks" like Steve for a thousand years, it makes sense why he'd be used to stuff like this by now.
- Head Desk: Puts his head through the passenger window of his own truck when frustrated by his crew in EXPO. He briefly keeps telling them off with glass shards sticking out of his face before they vanish in between shots.
- Humongous-Headed Hammer: Cesare's skull hammer, emerging from a telescoping pole, has a head twice as large as his entire body, and a haft three times as tall. It's heavy enough to send Steve through the ground and into the underworld, its impact causing lightning and a shockwave that blows the surrounding trucks onto their sides.
- Ink-Suit Actor: His facial features greatly resemble those of his voice actor.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: In season 2, Cesare gifts Steve with an incredibly heavy backpack, lunchbox and hat, which are revealed to be magic kettlebells designed to trap him so that Cesare could capture him. Also, he (at least seemingly) never cared for the Zomburger employees either, taunting them with "I'm gonna miss you all so much... not." before departing.
- Knight of Cerebus: He isn’t as imposing or threatening as most examples of this trope, and still keeps with the comedy of the series, but in Season 2 he introduces a more serialized story whereas Season 1 was more episodic. He also ends off Season 2 by revealing he was an agent of the Underworld and by trapping Steve in said Underworld.
- Large Ham: Chris Fleming somehow manages to take his already-large hamminess to new heights, constantly shouting ridiculous Non Sequiturs at the top of his lungs.
- Looks Like Cesare: A very blatant example; not only does he have the looks (pale skin, black hair and hollow eyes), but he's deliberately named after Cesare from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Of course, this show's Cesare has a completely different voice and personality.
- Mean Boss: He's not impossible to work for, but Zomburger's employees seem to have learned to take his rants, irritability, and bad temper in stride by this point.
- The Needless: Apparently Cesare doesn't eat food, and gets angry when offered it.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: While he's introduced as a Laughably Evil rival food-truck owner for Steve and the Bigtop Burger crew, DOWN and UP have him successfully outsmart and imprison Steve, while also revealing that he never really cared about the food truck business and that he's apparently been hunting down "real" clowns like Steve for quite a long time.
- Precision F-Strike: Introduces actual swearing into the show. According to some of the unused audio Worthington animated for a blooper reel, it was originally going to be either even harsher ("bullshit") or even more nonsensical ("horse ASS").Cesare: (after Steve pulls out a large katana) Oh you would pull some horsepiss like this.
- Rambunctious Italian: He's from Venice, and is an incredibly hammy man who is quite emotional and easily gets worked up.
- Resurrected for a Job: If "Friends in Low Places" is indeed about him, then he was brought back as a Revenant Zombie in order to watch over...something. UP reveals that he was to watch over and capture "menace(s)", as he calls it.
- Really 700 Years Old: Explicitly confirmed to be at least 1000 years old in UP.
- Revenant Zombie: Implicitly what Cesare actually is, hiding himself as a human in zombie makeup.
- Sissy Villain: Has shades of this, such as when he refers to a truck as a "butch mechanism", describes himself as "an old hag", or calls Steve "one tricky bitch". He also calls Steve "baby" at one point.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: He's the owner of another food truck and apparently has a long-standing rivalry with Steve, with the two of them locking eyes being enough to rile both of them up. Their relationship is very much Played for Laughs until "DOWN" that is, where Cesare decides to get serious and actually imprisons Steve deep beneath the Earth.
- Token Evil Teammate: While BACKPACK reveals that the rest of Zomburger are just punch clock villains who only act evil by Cesare's rule, it's revealed in DOWN that Cesare has specifically been looking for a chance to catch Steve and boot him down to the underworld for a while now.
- Undeathly Pallor: His skin is a pale, bluish color, making him look like a zombie, true to his food truck's namesake.
- Unexplained Accent: Per "Friends in Low Places", he's originally from Venice (even giving his hometown's name in Italian in the lyrics — Venezia), but he doesn't speak with any Italian accent in the series itself.
- Vague Age: When Conrad, feeling a little curious, attempts to ask what his boss's age really is, Cesare shuts him down with barely restrained anger in his voice. "Down" states he's from "Old Venezia," and his statement that he's retiring after 1000 years of work implies he was born sometime in the early days of the Venetian Empire.
Doctor
Click here to see him without his zombie makeup on
- Played by: SungWon Cho
Our burgers make yours look like beef wellington. Like the apple Eve gave unto Adam!
An employee at Zomburger.
- Cold Ham: His tone remains very even and serious, even when he's saying something completely ridiculous (see the quote above). He seems to think he's doing a "character voice" on the job, but he sounds exactly the same when off the job.
- Crazy-Prepared: When Cesare orders him to steal some of the other food trucks' food in EXPO, Doctor reveals to Cesare's shock that he already has a pocketful.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Downplayed. It is a themed restaurant, after all.
- Given Name Reveal: BACKPACK shows that Frances refers to him as Allen off the clock.
- Lethal Chef: He's seen experimenting with new bad food recipes even in his off hours.
- Mad Doctor: Only as part of his work persona, as he's otherwise a regular guy, albeit a Cold Ham one.
- Mad Scientist: He certainly looks the part, what with the lab coat, head mirror, disheveled hair and all. Also, it's his job to gather samples from other food trucks (to help Cesare come up with more ideas for bad food).
- Morality Pet: Downplayed. Cesare seems to be slightly fonder of Doctor than of Frances or Conrad (He looks impressed at Doctor's initiative in collecting food samples, shows apparent concern when he is encumbered by said samples, and generally is less abrasive with him, talking to him more like one would with a peer.), but still snaps at him for suggesting they be less stringent with their costuming, and includes him in general statements about how the Zomburger employees "don't know shit" and he (Cesare) will not miss them. Given Cesare's hamminess, it's up in the air how sincere his attitudes toward Doctor are.
- Not So Stoic: While it's easy to miss, he does show genuine shock when Steve pulls out an oversized blade.
- Perpetual Frowner: Cesare is practically always smiling, and when off the clock and out of makeup Frances and Conrad look pretty laid back, but Doctor is almost never seen smiling or happy.
Conrad
Click here to see him without his zombie makeup on
- Played by: Alex Small-Butera
The boss says we've gotta act evil and wicked when we're on the clock.
Another employee at Zomburger. Mans the cannon.
- BFG: In the debut episode of the Zomburger crew, he attacks the Bigtop Burger food truck with a large handheld cannon that he uses like a bazooka.
- The Big Guy: Substantially taller and more muscular than the rest of the main cast, and the season 2 intro shows him weightlifting.
- The Brute: He does a lot of the physical work for his job, and happily lets Doctor and Frances pour Gatorade on him.
- Dumb Blonde: He's got yellow hair and seems to be less bright than his coworkers. (Though how much less is debatable- See below.)
- Dumb Muscle: He is clearly the strength of the group, but as indicated by season 2, he might not be very bright; when told to find a parking space, he points to a large hole by the side of the road (unless it's the contacts he's wearing that's messing up his vision), and in BACKPACK he doesn't quite understand the meaning of the word "rue".
- Minion with an F in Evil: While none of Zomburger's staff (besides maybe Cesare) is actually malicious, Conrad shows the least interest in staying in character and isn't as good at intimidation as Doctor and Frances are.
- No-Sell: The shockwave of Cesare's hammer blow knocks every single employee of both food trucks down - except for Conrad, who just stands there completely unmoved.
- Phrase Catcher: "ConRAD!", used by Cesare to precede an order. (Typically one with a military flavor, like readying a cannon or assisting a "man down".)
- Prophet Eyes: He has them, but he's certainly not blind. The credits of SEASON ONE show him out of costume with normal eyes, and EXPO reveals that he wears milky blue contact lenses while in-character because he "[has] to look dead". Although they can be itchy and he wishes he could take them off.
Frances
Click here to see her without her zombie makeup on
- Played by: Ayo Edebiri
This is the day you DIE, Bigtop Burger!
Yet another Zomburger employee, and the sole female member.
- Axe-Crazy: Possibly, given that the first thing she says to Bigtop Burger is a death threat. BACKPACK implies it's just a character she puts on.
- Bizarre Taste in Food: She sounds very pleased with some gross falafel she tried at another food truck, offering some to Cesare for him to try.Boss, you gotta try this falafel, it's pretty BAD!
- Hidden Depths: In a scene showing her downtime, she's reading and sipping tea in an armchair, with a whole, stocked bookshelf in the background.
- Twofer Token Minority: Is Zomburger's sole female employee. She's also the only black member of Zomburger. On top of that, she's the only one who has a disability that isn't part of her job's zombie aesthetic, which in her case is her missing left eye.
