Uncle Burton is Gus's uncle and Winnie Guster's brother. He is the person Gus's mother named him after and therefore very displeased with Gus's choice to go by the name 'Gus' rather than 'Burton'. Due to a misunderstanding Gus had with his great aunt, Uncle Burton thinks that Gus is a psychic and Shawn his assistant. He is not a great fan of the latter either, wondering aloud why his nephew even works with an assistant who brings absolutely nothing to the table and is too lazy even to keep the office clean. According to Gus, however, he's mean to everybody and very hard to please in general, claiming that he didn't even thank his own son when he took him to the Superbowl in a helicopter. He is an avid watcher of detective shows and is therefore very excited to tag along on a real case, which Gus knows might get him on his uncle's good side if he succeeds in solving it using his supposed psychic abilities. This is exactly what happens, and Uncle Burton is so proud to have a detective nephew that he no longer cares about Gus's decision not to go by 'Burton', even calling him 'Gus' himself.
Trivia[]
- He is from New Jersey, which is a reference to actor John Amos being from Newark, NJ.
- The detective shows he references are Hill Street Blues, Diagnosis: Murder, Ghost Whisperer, The Rockford Files, and Matlock. These references cause Shawn to call him a "crazy, tank-shaped encyclopedia of detective shows" and makes him believe he has probably even seen Manimal, a notoriously bad show that was cancelled after eight episodes.