Burnie Burns

Burnie Burns is a the real life staff member of Rooster Teeth Productions and a member of the Rooster Teeth Staff. He is the boss of RTP and doesn’t mind throwing his weight around. 
The real Burnie Burns wrote the foreword in the Year One Book. 

Year One

In the beginning Burnie condoned the creation of a comic to outline the day to day goings on of the RT company. On the one condition that Luke not draw him fat. 
Burnie and Geoff agree to play Dead Rising until they finish it and end up becoming so terrified that they build ridiculous zombie traps (as seen in the DR game) and inadvertently spring one on Gus. 
Along with Jason, Burnie switches Matt’s coffee to decaf just to find out what will happen. Matt dies. 
At the airport Burnie is singled out (suspected as a terrorist) and has to go through a very internal investigation.  
During the RT Prank War, Matt shoots Burnie full of poison darts. 

An avid gamer, Burnie leaves the babysitter with more instructions on how to care for Chuck in Dead Rising (in order to get an achievement) than he does for his own kid. 
Burnie is always trying to get the guys to keep things professional, but to no avail. 
Being utterly obsessed with video game achievements, Burnie receives support from his friends through a forced detox. During this process, however, Burnie becomes addicted to collecting sobriety tokens.  
Burnie is a compulsive liar.  
Geoff and Burnie enter into a contest to have the highest gamer score.  
Burnie eats the candy that Jason has been sneezing since he was infected by Lil’Vince. 
Both Matt and Burnie get down of Geoff for watching American Idol, but are revealed to be Desperate Housewives fans themselves. 

Burnie gets tired of Matt always mooching off of him, but can never seem to get Matt to pay for anything no matter how hard he tries. He even attempts to catch Matt “borrowing” company merchandise (namely shirts) by trapping him in a box. It doesn’t work. 
Burnie’s achievement addiction shows again when he begs his wife to let them have another kid in order to get a certain achievement. 
He later adopts another kid, Billy, but his wife is not pleased. 
Still trying to get Matt to quit stealing inventory Burnie spills a drink on his shirt, but Matt has another one underneath.  

When Burnie changes any small thing about himself he gets picked on. His level 5 tan is no exception. When he comes into the office literally glowing orange he becomes the butt end of more than just the regular fat jokes. 
  When Burnie grows a beard the rest of the guys (Matt) are convinced that it’s just for attention and decided not to mention it. 
It’s when Burnie is with his son that he has some pretty deep revelations.  
 

Year Two 

For Burnie Year Two begins with him on the wrong end of a portal (from the Portal games).  
It’s revealed that Burnie’s been keeping Luke and Griffon around for 200 comics by more than friendly persuasion.  
Matt makes the mistake of giving Burnie a coupon for a “Free Back rub from Matt”. The events that follow are uncomfortable for the entire office (Matt in particular). 
Burnie has an awkward moment with his son when trying to explain why dad’s always tend to be the bad guys. 
Burnie reveals he has no real talent for making a comic when the best punchline he can come up with is a flamethrower. 

While complaining about the fact that all Iron Man movie posters have the hero ground pounding (something he never did in the movie) Burnie himself is ground pounded. This becomes an ongoing gag. 
Every time Iron Man hears his name (even put together in different sentences) he slams Burnie’s head into the ground. Iron Man is drunk in one of his cameos.
Burnie becomes the last person in the office to be using Microsoft computers when Geoff converts to Mac. This turns into a fairly creepy storyline that ends with Burnie being stalked by glowing eyed coworkers holding their Macs. 
Burnie is revealed to be an illegal pinata farmer (Viva Pinata) and is arrested when a swat team breaks into his “pinata mill”. 
Finch becomes on creepy kitty after watching Ninja Cat on Youtube. Burnie is scared. 
 

Year Three 

Burnie has another disgusting intro into the the third RT year when his pleasant lunch is disrupted by Geoff and Gus dressed up as Castle Crashers characters. The result is not pleasant. 
Burnie goes over the pros and cons of Luke and Griffon’s comic. 
Cons: 

• Broke his computer
• Fat Jokes
• Spilled wine on his shirt
• Hits on his wife
• POOP COMIC (ie Castle Crashers comic)

Pros: 
None 

Burnie tries to capitalize on the cute cat picture part of the internet. Unfortunately Finch does not choose to cooperate. After his attempt to dress her up in a tutu Finch pretty much disowns Burnie. Cats can sense desperation, as Matt says. Eventually Burnie finds a way to get a LOL cat picture without the cat. He dresses Matt up in a cat costume instead. 
In a short arc where Burnie gets on a health kick, he ends up nearly killing himself by consuming way too much salt from eating bags and bags of pumpkin seeds.  
Burnie is not impressed by Jason’s nap initiative. 
When Griffon looks back through the guys’s history in an attempt to find some major dirt on them she uncovers that Burnie was once a big Tiffany fan. 
While playing Skate 2 with Geoff, Burnie’s character is a girl because he thought boobs were pecs. 
Geoff and Burnie have an uncomfortable time seeing Watchmen together. 
Jason and Burnie become obsessed with Peggle.  
Burnie is a “red shirt” in an RT Star Trek parody.  
Burnie tells Gus that he once wrote a script very similar to the Terminator movie, but never finished it as an actual Terminator came back to prevent it. He is almost terminated, but is saved by the Delete key. He and the Terminator part on good terms, Burnie even giving him the catch phrase “Hasta la vista.” 
Burnie sends Jason to RT north when swine flu hits. 
He is the only on to receive a Jason and the Pull Offs Shirt.  
Burnie gets in trouble with his wife for playing Saboteur.  

When Iron Man is showing War Machine the ropes for Iron Man 2, on the rules is to always to always ground pound Burnie, even though Iron Man can’t remember why anymore. 
Video game veterans, Geoff and Burnie are really burned up by the fact that they can no longer seem to play Halo. 
Burnie gets risque in the video game world yet again when he gets the Dastardly achievement in Red Dead Redemption. 
Recently Burnie has been trying to fend of zombies with plants (the XBox Live Arcade game Plants vs. Zombies parody). At his wife’s insistence, however, the plants are removed and the result is the zombie apocalypse. 
Matt and Burnie discuss the pros and cons of Star Wars 3D. 
In an Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood parody Burnie, as Ezio, had to explain the complexities of stealing money for courtesans from priests.

Running Gags

•  Burnie’s active addiction to video game achievements is a gag that follows through the entire series from Year One. His achievement race with Geoff, constant playing, and disregard for others when games are involved are always present.
• Iron Man ground pounding Burnie becomes a gag that is brought up several times throughout the strip.
• Finch, Burnie’s cat, is a cute little cat that hangs out at the office. She is often used as a prop.
• Little respected as a boss, Burnie sometimes has a hard time getting the guys to listen, but can always lay down the law.
• Parodies take place often in the RT strip, many of them involving video games. Like the rest of the staff Burnie is often placed in the game as a character.