| Introduction |
| “ | The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead. | ” |
—Mr. Peanutbutter, Later | ||
| “ | Doggy Doggy what now!? | ” |
—Mr. Peanutbutter’s catchphrase | ||
Mr. Peanutbutter, the star of Mr. Peanutbutter's House, is an anthropomorphic yellow Labrador Retriever who is BoJack Horseman's friend and former sitcom rival and a main character in BoJack Horseman. He dates and later marries Diane Nguyen, although the two divorce in Season 5.
Design
Mr. Peanutbutter is a male Labradore Retriever. He is likely around BoJack's age, despite looking much younger. He has yellow fur, a brown nose, a slim and muscular build, and according to model sheets he is 6 ft. tall.
He always wears a grey V-neck t-shirt and aviator sunglasses, usually propped up on his head, with light blue pants with white lines going down the sides, orange high-top sneakers, and two wristbands, a brown one and a neon green one, on his left wrist.
On Mr. Peanutbutter's House, he had a tuft of wavy hair, and he wore a blue shirt with a 90s-esque pattern on it, light blue jeans, and white sneakers.
History
Background
Mr. Peanutbutter was in born on the Labrador Peninsulain rural Canada in 1968. He attended Northwestern University.
He first moved to Los Angeles in the late 80s or early 90s,where he ended up co-piloting the plane that brought him to California, which happened purely because he walked into a room without looking. Around this time, he was married to a cold woman named Katrina, although the two eventually divorced.
He was recruited onto Mr. Peanutbutter's House in 1992 with no previous acting experience, having wowed the show's director David Chase and the audience when he inadvertently barged in on the pilot's live taping. The show's working title was Untitled Horsin' Around Knockoff, and BoJack Horseman was resentful of the show because he rightly assumed it was a knockoff.
Mr. Peanutbutter took a long list of low-level acting gigs during the 2000s decade, where he was married to actress Jessica Biel, although in 2007 they divorced, as Jessica was tired of him taking job offers that were beneath him, and she started dating Justin Timberlake immediately after she broke up with him.
However, that same evening Jessica dumped him, Mr. Peanutbutter met Diane Nguyen, who was a part-time caterer at the time and was catering for the event he was at, and who he met earlier at a Starbucks that Diane also worked at. The two eventually started dating.
Season 1
In the first episode, which takes place in 2014, Diane is hired to ghostwrite BoJack's autobiography. The two hit it off when they meet at a party arranged by Todd, BoJack, in particular, seems to be attracted to Diane, although to his envy and disgust, as he throws up after discovering this, she is dating Mr. Peanutbutter.
In BoJack Hates the Troops he briefly filmed for a reality show titled Peanutbutter and Jelly.
In Zoës and Zeldas, Diane's ex-boyfriend Wayne follows Mr. Peanutbutter as he claims he is writing a Buzzfeed article on him. However, Diane realizes that the notes he took were all gibberish, and he admits that he wanted to get back together with her. When and tells her she and Mr. Peanutbutter aren’t right for each other, using the Zoë and Zelda comparison (Zelda was a happy extrovert and Zoë was a cynical introvert) He tells her Mr. Peanutbutter is a Zelda, and he and Diane are Zoës, and that when she realizes that to call him. He leaves, and it’s revealed Mr. Peanutbutter heard the whole thing. He cheerfully says "I like that guy!".
In Our A-Story is a "D" Story, he seems to be jealous/concerned of BoJack and Diane bonding, the former of whom denies he has anything to worry about. Mr. Peanutbutter believes him, although the two eventually engaged in a competition of one-upmanship to see who can impress Diane more. After Mr. Peanutbutter takes Diane home, BoJack gets drunk and steals the "D" from the Hollywood sign to impress Diane.
He realizes this the next morning after seeing the "D" on his deck. Mr. Peanutbutter arrives to confirm his suspicions of BoJack having feelings for Diane by stealing the D, but offers to help BoJack return the D secretly under the condition BoJack stops pursuing Diane romantically. BoJack agrees. Mr. Peanutbutter and BoJack concoct a plan to distract the public while the D is hauled away by Mr. Peanutbutter's helicopter.
However, BoJack is double-crossed when Mr. Peanutbutter has the D delivered to his house instead and falsely confessed to stealing it as a romantic gesture for Diane. When Diane returns home later that night, Mr. Peanutbutter talks to Diane to apologize for his grand gestures and explains how much he loves her despite having different personalities. He proposes to Diane, and she accepts.
At the end of The Telescope, BoJack kisses Diane, leaving things awkward for the two in the following episode, Horse Majeure. The next day she tells BoJack she has enough information to finish the book, in order to indirectly avoid him.
Mr. Peanutbutter in the meanwhile gets his driver's license suspended for chasing after mailmen. Diane suggests he hire a personal driver, and he shortly thereafter catches Todd in the act of planting unspecified incriminating evidence in his computer as part of BoJack's plan. Mr. Peanutbutter naively believes Todd is actually there to apply to be his personal driver and hires Todd after an impromptu interview.
Diane's stress with the wedding and her situation with BoJack culminates while shopping for wedding registry ideas with Mr. Peanutbutter, to which they ultimately decide to move the wedding up within the month and to hold a smaller celebration. Upon learning of this, BoJack decides to hire Character Actress Margo Martindale to stage a bank robbery to steal Diane's engagement ring when she and Mr. Peanutbutter are set to go to the bank, hoping to cause a rift between them by taking away a symbol of their relationship. BoJack's plan goes awry, however, when the robbery instead helps Diane reaffirm her love for Mr. Peanutbutter, and they push the wedding to happen within the week.
The wedding is then decided to be held at the restaurant BoJack owns on BoJack's suggestion so he has a better vantage to sabotage the wedding. Todd then learns from a personal conversation with Mr. Peanutbutter that he has doubts about his marriage to Diane, and remarks he sometimes feels relief when he dreams that Diane disappeared from his life. Todd is conflicted about whether to tell BoJack this, however, he decides against it when he realizes BoJack caused him to sabotage his rock opera.
The afternoon before the wedding, BoJack gets stuck in jury duty, leaving him unable to come up with any plans to sabotage the wedding. Spurred on by Margo Martindale at the courthouse to tell Diane his feelings for her, BoJack rushes to the wedding, only to be stopped by an angry Todd telling him to stop intruding in other people's lives. He attends the wedding without incident, and Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane get married after seven years of dating. During the after-party, Mr. Peanutbutter hires Todd as his assistant for his new company "PB Livin".
The "D" incident inspired the film Mr. Peanutbutter's Hollywoo Heist, directed by Quentin Tarantulino. BoJack was cast as Mr. Peanutbutter and Naomi Watts was cast as Diane. However, Todd begins to suggest ideas to Quentin Tarantulino, and is reciprocated due to Tarantulino's eccentricity. This causes major changes to the script and film and begins to downplay BoJack's screentime and involvement.
BoJack suspects this is the direct result of Todd enacting revenge for BoJack's sabotage of Todd's rock opera. The changes to the film become increasingly drastic until the film is canceled altogether when Quentin and Todd decide the story should be told as a "bi-monthly curated box of snacks".
Later shows Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter continue to work on business ventures for PB Livin they brainstorm on the fly. Todd is continually making new ideas up with his love of wordplay, while Mr. Peanutbutter is continually entertained by Todd's ideas and has the capital to start them despite never following through with them. After abandoning their first idea of a Halloween store during January, Mr. Peanutbutter throws a large launch party for "Smoodies" (a mood you can drink) at his house without an actual product behind the idea.
Meanwhile Diane is offered by celebrity Sebastian St. Clair to come to war-torn Cordovia with him to write a memoir for him similar to what she did for BoJack. At the same time, she is contacted by the producers of the Secretariat film to be a character consultant, and she is stuck with choosing between the two options. Mr. Peanutbutter convinces her to stay home for the time being.
Season 2
Mr. Peanutbutter begins Season 2 by wearing a dog cone after having to get stitches in his arm after punching a mirror while he was drunk, as he thought his reflection another dog. He has it removed in the following episode, Yesterdayland, where he also wants to get involved with Todd’s Disneyland because he built it while working for PB Living and Todd, who wanted it to be his own thing, reluctantly agrees.
Mr. Peanutbutter calls a lawyer to make sure Disneyland is legal. The lawyer informs Todd that it isn’t legal and that he’ll see him in court. Todd bypasses the lawsuit because Walt Disney accidentally wrote down the wrong name for trademark, Diisneyland. Todd celebrates his legal victory with a party at BoJack's house. He angrily tells Mr. Peanutbutter that he did all the work, and kicks him out of the theme park. However, he goes there the following day and apologizes to Todd. He accepts and Mr. Peanutbutter rescues him when the park begins to crumble and burn down.
He attended Herb Kazzaz's funeral in Still Broken, although he didn’t know Herb and only went to the funeral to schmooze.
Mr. Peanutbutter celebrates Diane's thirty-fifth birthday with her in After the Party. However, to her displeasure, as she hates big gestures, he threw her a surprise birthday party. The two got in a huge argument on whether Tony Curtis was dead, as BoJack's girlfriend Wanda had asked, thus ending the party early after Duane freaked out as she angrily insisted he’s dead. As Diane angrily cleans up, Mr. Peanutbutter asks if she wants to talk about it. Diane angrily tells him he didn’t trust that she knew something, and he says he just wanted to double check anyways.
Mr. Peanutbutter asks for credit for the surprise party, in which Diane says she didn’t want it and that’s just what he would have wanted, and he threw the party for himself. Mr. Peanutbutter counters this and tells her the whole day was spent doing things she wanted to do.
Diane goes in Mr. Peanutbutter's office, which is filled with ball-pit balls, which Mr. Peanutbutter explains is because he recalled her wishing she had a ballroom as a child (although she tries to correct him, he jumps in before she can finish). Diane continues to explain she didn’t like parties and big gestures and has told him countless times before.
The next room she goes into is themed after Starbucks in the Season 3 episode The BoJack Horseman Show that is where the two met. Diane does admit that he went all out. He recalls her not loving Starbucks, but loving the independent coffee place, although Starbucks is more convenient, showing Diane he does listen.
The two lay out on the pool, as it is filled with green Jell-O. Mr. Peanutbutter says he wants every day to be a happy one because they don’t have many days left. Diane realizes he doesn’t want her to go to Cordovia. He admits she’s right because he doesn’t want her to go on a six-month trip to a war-torn country with a billionaire who's also a handsome, eligible bachelor.
Diane says she isn’t happy and that helping people and making a difference with Sebastian St. Claire could give her a reason to get out of bed. He says if she told her that, he would have listened. She says she doesn’t want to be in a routine as an old couple. They go into their living room and he says he waits all day for her to come home. She says that he won’t always be her only priority. He agrees, and she asks for no more surprise parties.
In Higher Love, Mr. Peanutbutter's frustrated account Oxnard tells him PB Livin' is bankrupt due to him and Todd going through with terrible business ideas. He angrily tells Mr. Peanutbutter to get a job. Mr. Peanutbutter goes to see his agent, Ronnie Bonito, although after waiting outside all day he goes into his office to find Ronnie has accidentally died from autoerotic asphyxiation.
Mr. Peanutbutter decided to wander around LA in the hope that nap opportunity will be handed to him (as most things in his life were in fact handed to him while he did little to no work). This somehow works, and he ends up working at a Lady FootLocker, until he is approached by Princess Carolyn gets him a job for author J.D. Salinger.
Salinger pitches and idea for a game show to Wanda as MSNBSea, where Hollywoo stars and celebrities answer questions and the audience finds out what they know and if they know things. Wanda greenlits the show, Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let's Find Out!, and Mr. Peanutbutter is hired as the host as his comeback role.
However, this role was almost jeopardized in "Hank After Dark" when Diane, while on a book tour with BoJack promoting the paperback version of BoJack's book, brought up dark allegations made towards veteran MSNBSea talk show host Hank Hippopopalous from eight of his former assistants. Diane gained massive backlash over bringing up these details, despite the fact they had been public for years, as Hank is beloved and as a result, no one wants to believe he is capable of doing bad things.
This almost jeopardized Mr. Peanutbutter's job, as he and Hank both work at MSNBSea, he even looked up to Hank growing up, and he started receiving death threats for Diane. After a confrontation with Hank in a parking garage, where he told her she won’t win because he’s beloved and the media will move on to some other irrelevant story, which in fact actually happens, Diane suggests to Mr. Peanutbutter maybe she should go to Cordovia.
Mr. Peanutbutter tells her she should, so that she can feel good about herself and because some space may be good for them at the moment. When Diane asks if he really wants her to go, he somberly says "Why does it suddenly matter what I want?".
BoJack competes on Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let's Find Out! in the following episode against Daniel Radcliffe for charity which BoJack thinks is Daniel's stripper girlfriend or something-as in Charity (female name) instead of charity (like donating money). BoJack is annoyed Daniel keeps getting easy questions and the game is essentially set up in his favor, and thinks Mr. Peanutbutter is being a "dick".
After Princess Carolyn tells him Mr. Peanutbutter perks his ears up when he says the correct answer, he begins to win. He is eventually forced by Wanda to answer a question wrong (when did Secretariat win the Triple Crown), which Mr. Peanutbutter laughs at him for, as BoJack at the time was filming the Secretariat movie and was playing Secretariat.
BoJack gets angry at his mockery and tells him Diane went to Cordovia to get away from her failing marriage. This angers Mr. Peanutbutter and he interrupts the show to have BoJack sit across from him as he confronts him about kissing Diane (he reveals Diane told him), and BoJack in general being mean to him despite him just wanting to be his friend, showing he isn’t oblivious to how BoJack treats him, and he questions why he doesn’t like him. BoJack admits its because he’s jealous that he feels good about himself, and BoJack doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to do that.
Mr. Peanutbutter storms off during the commercial break, unsure as to the whether he should forgive BoJack. Wanda tells him in a threatening tone it’s network television, so all their show's problems must be wrapped up in under half an hour, and the people want resolution. Mr. Peanutbutter announces to the audience after the break that he forgives BoJack, and then Daniel Radcliffe makes them kiss.
He assists BoJack with his scheme to film a crucial scene for Secretariat that was written out of the film by the executives where Secretariat convinces Nixon to send his brother to Vietnam in his place, and he later learns he died in. In The Shot, as he agrees to play Nixon's dog Checkers. After this, he calls Diane and tells her he’s really proud of her that she's in Cordovia doing great things.
Unbeknownst to him, while Diane was talking to him she had just returned to LA and was at the airport, as she couldn’t handle the realities of war torn Cordovia or Sebastian’s ego. Feeling like a failure and not wanting to face her husband because of it, she stays with BoJack and sleeps on his deck for a few months, as Mr. Peanutbutter continues to host Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let's Find Out!.
Diane pretends to still be in Cordovia whenever she calls him. At the end of Yes And , she tells Mr. Peanutbutter that it’s too hard to talk to him on the phone all the time, and they shouldn’t call each other for a while because she misses him too much. Mr. Peanutbutter reluctantly agrees as the two say they love each other.
In the Season 2 finale Out to Sea, Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane are shown to be lonely without each other. After Princess Carolyn gets her out of her funk and hires her at her new agency for a Celebrity Tweet ghostwriter, Diane goes to Restaurant Elephanté to meet with Sextina Aquafina, one of her new clients. After this, she and Mr. Peanutbutter, who is at the same restaurant, notice each other from across the room, to their shock.
Mr. Peanutbutter calls Diane and, still acting like she’s in Cordovia, tells her he can’t find the batteries, and she should come home and help him. Diane plays along and says she can make it home that night. The two say they love each other, and afterward Mr. Peanutbutter tells Diane there’s a woman in the restaurant he’s at that looks just like her, which makes her laugh, although it is unknown if Mr. Peanutbutter was joking or if he was actually being serious.
Season 3
Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter discovered the former was pregnant at the end of Love And/Or Marriage, but they got an abortion in the following episode
Season 4
In 2017 his ex-wife Katrina convinced him to run for Governor of California, during an effort to recall incumbent Governor Woodchuck Coodchuck-Berkowitz. Mr. Peanutbutter did so mostly out of vanity, even though he actually liked Coodchuck's policies, but eventually dropped out and endorsed Coodchuck. Katrina replaced him as a candidate with Jessica Biel (his other ex-wife), who went on to lose to Coodchuck.
Season 5
Personality
Mr. Peanutbutter's demeanor is constantly energetic, nice, cheerful, kind, and playful. In short, he is a dog seen from the point of view of a cat person. Not only is he constantly positive, he is also a bonehead who has difficulty understanding metaphors or puns. This causes him to crack jokes that instead of being funny, just make people scratch their heads. This causes BoJack to testily try and tell him why his jokes fail, and how to improve them.
Despite their rivalry, he cares a great deal about BoJack's opinion and admires him for his work on Horsin' Around, and it always trying to reach out to BoJack and be his friend. BoJack finds this annoying and always shoots Mr. Peanutbutter down, although that never stops the latter from trying and being nice to him.
However, he is not as dumb as he might be letting on - as stupidity is part of his persona, and he can at times show hidden depth. In Let's Find Out, Mr. Peanutbutter reveals to BoJack he knows he’s mean to him and doesn’t like him, and tells him "all I ever wanted was to be your friend, and you treat me like a big joke".
A life of success, wealth, and fame have meant he has never faced any real challenges or have to make difficult decisions. He also dislikes changes He also struggles to see that Diane is coming on to BoJack. True to his breed, he loves tennis balls and has a trunk stuffed full of them, that he presumably finds in parks and hoards. It is also important to note that Mr. Peanutbutter is a very good boy.
Despite his overall positive nature, he does have an impatient and no-nonsense side to his personality. This can be seen in arguments with his wife Diane Nguyen when they are arguing over gun regulations on the news or getting irritated with BoJack Horseman when BoJack rejects his gestures of friendship because he finds Mr. Peanutbutter's happy-go-lucky persona irritating.
He can be very headstrong and heavily opinionated at times especially in a heated argument to the point of being borderline defensive. Despite Diane constantly voicing her dislike of them, Mr. Peanutbutter constantly tries to impress her with big gestures because he’s scared she’ll get bored of him and leave like his previous wives. There are also traces of nihilism in him.
Relationships
- Katrina Peanutbutter (1st ex-wife)
- Jessica Biel (2nd ex-wife)
- Diane Nguyen (3rd ex-wife; still Good Friend)
- Pickles Aplenty (Fiancée)
- Bojack Horseman (Friend (usually one sided))
- Todd Chavez (Best Friend)
- Princess Carolyn (Friend/Manager)
Filmography
Television:
- Mr. Peanutbutter's House
- Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let's Find Out!
Trivia
Mr Peanutbutter model sheet
Young Mr Peanutbutter model sheet
Model sheet for Mr. Peanutbutter in his game show suit for Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let's Find Out!
- Mr. Peanutbutter was originally going to be BoJack's agent with a Shaft-like personality; being cool, smooth-talking, and easygoing. A horse named Honeybucket would have filled his current role of a 90s TV actor and Diane's boyfriend.[1]
- He drives a Maserati Quattroporte.
- His licence plate is "Good Boy" (stylized as G00D B0Y).
- One quote from Season 1 suggests Mr Peanutbutter suffers from nihilism, - The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning; it's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense and eventually, you'll be dead.
- Mr Peanutbutter loves honeydew, while BoJack hates it.
- Mr. Peanutbutter wears red boxer-briefs with hotdog print (BoJack Kills)
- He has one brother, Captain Peanutbutter, who is five minutes older.
- Beside his love for tennis balls, he hates the game tennis because he gets angry how nobody ever catches the ball.
- Like real life dogs, he can’t eat chocolate (it’s poisonous to them), watch fireworks or listen to loud noises (dogs have sensitive ears). He also doesn’t like baths and gets scared when there are strangers in his yard.
- Mr. Peanutbutter is Canadian.
- In BoJack Kills, Mr. Peanutbutter says he and Diane “are like five big fights away from a divorce". The two do indeed have five arguments up until What Time Is It Right Now.
- In Old Acquaintance, Mr. Peanutbutter gets angry at Diane when she insists he talks to Captain Peanutbutter, due to him acting weird, questioning if she thinks she knows his brother better than him and just because she has a bad family doesn’t mean everyone else does.
- In Commence Fracking, Mr. Peanutbutter confronts Diane due to the latter publishing GurlCroosh articles against Mr. Peanutbutter being pro-fracking for his governor campaign, as Diane is anti-fracking. Diane says she won’t publish it if he drops out of the race, and when he refuses, saying publishing the article will embarrass them and she always has to air her “dirty laundry” when someone disagrees with her.
- She states she doesn’t want Mr. Peanutbutter to be governor, because she thinks he would be bad at it. She then publishes her article, which leads to the two throwing and breaking their computers and a coffee mugs, and Mr Peanutbutter pins Diane to the wall as the two struggle against one another. The two then engage in passionate “angry sex”.
- In Thoughts and Prayers, the two argue on MSNBSea about gun control, and in the next scene they can be heard having “angry sex” again behind a closed door.
- In Underground", Diane gets angry at Mr. Peanutbutter due to his fracking causing their home to collapse into a sinkhole.
- Finally, in What Time Is It Right Now, Diane gets upset when Mr. Peanutbutter builds her Belle-Room (a giant room filled with books like the library the Beast gave Belle in Beauty and the Beast) that’s she dreamed of having as a little girl, claiming that it was her own fantasy and she hates big gestures (as also seen in After the Party). Mr. Peanutbutter in return gets angry for trying to do something nice for her and claims he does big gestures because he’s scared she’ll get bored of him and leave like his previous wives, Katrina and Jessica.
- After they calm down, Diane says she thinks their marriage is like a magic eye poster, as at first glance, it’s messy and doesn’t make sense, but if you squint hard enough, everything lines up. However, Diane says she so tired of squinting, and breaks down crying, as Mr. Peanutbutter looks upset, as an implication their marriage has failed.
Mr. Peanutbutter's underwear