Michael J. Caboose

Private Michael J. Caboose is a main character in Rooster Teeth Productions' machinima series Red vs. Blue. Voiced by Joel Heyman, Caboose first appears in Episode 3 of Season 1 as a new recruit for the Blood Gulch Blue Team, a group of soldiers engaged in a futuristic civil war against the Red Team.

Caboose is portrayed as one of the most eccentric characters in the series. Consistently shown to be mentally abnormal, his behavior varies from merely somewhat dim-witted in Season 1 to almost completely divorced from reality in Season 3. His unusual behavior frequently earns him the scorn and disrespect of the series' other characters.

In part due to positive early fan reaction, Burnie Burns, the main writer for the series, focused the storyline on Caboose and Donut (Dan Godwin), the Red Team's rookie.

Role in the Plot
Prior to the series, Caboose was born and raised in a colony on the moon with 17 sisters. He joined the army after mistaking a recruiting center for college. Caboose first appears in Episode 3. Arriving with a tank named Sheila, he soon annoys the Blue Team's self-appointed leader, Church by calling his girlfriend a slut, and is consequently tasked with guarding the flag inside the team's base and waiting for a nonexistent general. Meanwhile, Simmons and Grif have sent their team's rookie, Donut, on a fool's errand for nonexistent supplies. In a mutual misunderstanding, Donut mistakes Caboose for a shopkeeper, and Caboose mistakes Donut for the "general" and allows him to take the flag. In the ensuing conflict, Caboose accidentally kills Church while using Sheila and narrowly escapes a bombing run that disables the tank. Caboose begins to show affection towards Sheila. Near the end of season 1, Caboose becomes possessed by O'Malley, an evil artificial intelligence (AI) who transmits himself to Caboose via radio before his original host, a mercenary named Tex, is killed.

Season 2 continues Caboose's character development. Episode 33 takes place inside Caboose's mind, which Church and Tex explore as ghosts in an attempt to kill O'Malley. There, they encounter Caboose's incorrect mental images of other characters. At the end of the season, Caboose becomes stranded with Sarge in an unknown location when a teleporter malfunctions. Caboose and Sarge escape from the Grunts, another set of respawning Red and Blue teams constantly fighting each other. After a bomb blasts most of the characters into the future, but Church into the past, Church learns of The Great Destroyer from Gary, a computer, who says that The Great Destroyer "will be known as the stupidest life form in the universe". Church assumes that this description refers to Caboose, but later events and the introduction of a new character, the Alien, cause the characters to suspect that the Great Destroyer is not Caboose. After the Blues encounter the Alien and learn of its quest, Caboose is sent along with Tucker; after the quest fails, they return to Blood Gulch. Caboose is later injured by 'donating' some blood to Tucker's Alien baby.

In Episode 89, Caboose is picked by his team to distract Sheila, while Tex shuts her down. They succeed, but Sheila is shut down just before she reveals the location of O'Malley to Caboose. He convinces his team of this, and they decided to place Sheila's AI into the newly arrived ship. Caboose stays behind to ensure the success of the transfer, and informs Tex by radio of the location of O'Malley, which was the leader of the blue team. Caboose reappears in the third episode of Reconstruction. Before being transferred out of Blood Gulch, Church told him to upgrade his armor to Mk. VI, but instead he downgraded to Mk. V. The reason he did this was because he thought it would be better since "on a Top 10 List, 5 is better than 6". It is also possible that Rooster Teeth did this to avoid confusion between Church and Caboose, as in Halo 3 the Cobalt armor color is a lot lighter than in Halo 2, so Church had to be made the Standard Issue Blue armor. Caboose has been stationed at Outpost 28-A "Rat's Nest" where he has been tied up and tossed in the brig for safe keeping. The Rat's Nest blue team's leader, Lieutenant Miller, clearly dislikes Caboose and is delighted at Washington's request to take Caboose away. In the next episode, Caboose is reunited with Church (to the latter's chagrin). Some time after acquiring Delta, he was seen knocked out by the Meta. Wash managed to nurse him back to life with his healing unit, but was unable to revive him. Because of this, Church had to go into Caboose's mind again, this time encountering the mental image of Washington, as well as a "memory" of Delta he had left behind bearing the important message "Memory is the key". He eventually wakes up, but not until halfway through Chapter 12.

Lack Of Intelligence
Rooster Teeth notes that originally, there was no plan for Caboose as a character; he started out simply as the Blue rookie counter to Donut. Geoff Ramsey states on the DVD Commentary that Caboose was initially "smarmy" and "a very different character", albeit rather dim-witted. After fans reacted well to his moments of stupidity, however, the crew later orchestrated a long decline in Caboose's intelligence, starting when Sheila is disabled for the first time in Episode 9. His mentality is again dealt a blow after O'Malley is forcibly ejected from his system, and he becomes fairly divorced from reality and prone to frequent non sequesters, going as far as to load his rifle with crayons and spelling his own name wrong. He has also forgotten how to use the sniper rifle. Shown in the first series to have the accuracy to get a headshot on a Church-possessed Sarge, he is quoted in saying he has no idea how to use the gun in Episode 82. Sarge notes in Episode 39 that it "sounds like O'Malley took some of the furniture when he left".

He occasionally asks questions about things the others take for granted, such as why a flag is so important, and often fails to grasp even basic concepts, such as the meaning of AI. The only human initially able to lift Andy, he is physically one of the strongest soldiers on either team; Church and Tucker think that it is "God's way of compensating" for his glaring mental deficiencies. He also is able to fly into a berserk state by thinking about something that makes him angry, namely "kittens with spikes" and "Milk". He seems to have an extremely low voice (like the voice he had when possessed by O'Malley) and no recollection of what he did during this state.

Relationship With Other Characters
Caboose's relationships with the other characters is unique in that a few episodes depicted the interior of his mind, where the incorrect mental projections of the other characters appeared (with the exceptions of Tex, Lopez, Doc and Sheila). In his mind, Caboose believes himself to be intelligent, Church his foul-mouthed best friend, Tucker stupid, Grif yellow-armored, Donut female, and that Sarge speaks in what is actually a pirate accent. Additionally, in Episode 54, he refers to Simmons as "Simmon", Grif as "Gruf", and the Warthog as the "Boss Hogg" - though in Episode 82 he is able correctly name both Grif and Simmons. He still suffers from incorrect mental images with at least Church and Tucker, as in Episode 97, he refers to Tucker as his sidekick whom he dislikes, and believes Church to be calling to ask Caboose to be his best friend. In Reconstruction Chapter 11, it is revealed his mental image of Washington refers to himself as "Washingtub", is obsessed with secrecy, likes to scare people that are "just trying to help him", and claims to fight aliens and robots from the future with his "Freelancer Powers". Church comments that the description isn't far off from reality. Church and Caboose are also panicked when South is executed. Caboose thinks her execution was due to her problems walking, which causes him to announce he has no problems walking. The following episode, Church and Caboose are concerned that Wash will do the same with them.

Caboose's most prominent relationship is his remarkable admiration of Church. After dealing him several initial misfortunes, Caboose was eager to make amends and become Church's friend; his attempts to do so inevitably failed. The issue was complicated when O'Malley shot and killed Caboose's mental image of Church, immediately causing Caboose not to recognize the real Church, and all his memories of him were lost. However, by the end of season 2, Caboose resumes communication with Church as before, and references the events he had previously forgotten. The Rooster Teeth crew notes that it was just too complicated to keep up. As late as Reconstruction Episode 11, Caboose has referred to Church as his best friend. (This is in spite of the fact that Church had tried to kill him several times earlier in the series.) For his part, Church puts up with Caboose, but often loses his temper at him. However, in Episode 76, Caboose implied that he didn't know how pregnancy occurred, and Church promised to read a book with him.

Caboose is also infatuated with Sheila. He expresses much grief when Sheila is bombed out of commission in Episode 9, calling Sheila his "friend". He later refers to her as his "girlfriend". When she expresses interest in Lopez in Episode 30, what Tucker calls "a weird, horribly disgusting love triangle" begins to form. In Episodes 89-90, the relationship is touched on again, when Caboose is enlisted to reboot Sheila after she begins acting aggressively, though he seems hesitant to talk to her because they have a 'history' and could have an argument much like Tex and Church "except more getting shot by tanks".

Reception
Caboose has become one of the more popular characters in the series, and in 2005, Caboose was selected as the Best Male Performance in the 3rd Annual Rockets on Prisoner Awards, which are intended to recognize exemplary work in Halo machinima. In his acceptance speech, Joel Heyman acted in-character.

Quotes

 * "I am Caboose, the Vehicle Destroyer!" - Mistakenly thinking that he is invincible.
 * "My name is Michael J. Caboose, and I hate babies!" - just before he goes on a homicidal killing spree against the zealots of Battle Creek.
 * "That's not a target. That's Church." - Shortly before Caboose kills Church with Sheila.
 * "That was you?! I thought the tooth fairy was mad at me!" - Upon discovering that Tex is the one who had been punching him in the head while he was asleep.
 * "I like me." - After Tucker says that nobody likes him.
 * "My toes are getting pruny!" When he and Sarge are in the river of Battle Creek.
 * "Oh man, that’s not good. Oh my god that jeep has a really big gun!" - While looking through the sniper rifle at Grif and Simmons shooting at Church and Tucker with the Warthog, and repeated when the Red Team is being attacked after attempting to steal another jeep.
 * "Come back to me Sheila! I made you a muffin!" - After Sheila takes an interest in Lopez.
 * "Your toast has been burned, and no amount of scraping will remove the black parts!" - After killing the Battle Creek Zealots.
 * "Not my fault...someone put a wall in my way." - After throwing a spike grenade that sticks right in front of Washington and himself.
 * "Bleep Bloop" - Stated to imitate the sound of an Achievement during the 2nd Reconstruction PSA, Small Rewards.
 * "You wanted to see me Principal Miller"- When Miller summons him from the brig.
 * Caboose: "We have a lot in common Agent Washington."
 * Washington: "No we don't. And don't ever say that again."
 * -Caboose referencing they both had A.I.'s they couldn't control (Omega and Epsilon respectively)

Trivia

 * Caboose has at least 9 toes, as one fell off after Church shot him in the foot as an excuse to get Doc over to him.
 * Hilariously, it seems Caboose's claims of being a 'vehicle destroyer' are actually true, as seen in his initial appearance in Reconstruction. He had literally totaled every single one of Blue team's vehicles on his own.
 * Recovery Command has a shortcut on their keyboard for the sole purpose of recording Caboose's team kills: Ctrl + F + U
 * When Washington scans Caboose with a "BioCam" Caboose's Brain Activity is listed as "UNK" (unknown).
 * Caboose is one of 4 known characters in reconstruction to not carry a battle rifle, but instead an assault rifle, he is seen with it at all times despite all normal Reds, Blues, and Recovery Agents, as well as most of the main characters, utilize battle rifles. This puts Caboose in a group, all the members carry specific weapons throughout the course of Red vs. Blue. Other members of the group include Church, Sarge, and The Meta.
 * In steed of saying red vs blue like everyone eles caboose seems to always say blue vs read.