In an interview, when asked, "Did you ever think that Burt would become part of a franchise?" Gross replied, "I knew it was an intriguing character." The actor goes on to assert, "Well, I love Burt. You know, there's a little scene in the third movie that is quintessential Burt. Burt is so fear-driven that he's a paranoid, ultimately, but a comic paranoid. And there's a scene in which he goes up to his house to punch in his keycode on his pad. But before he does, he takes a good look around and stands in front of the pad - there's nobody there for miles! - but he blocks the keypad with his body. Because Burt would rightly assume that there's somebody in the hills with a high-powered telescope who wants his keypad information, wants the code. Now that's the level of paranoia. Does it get funny? Yeah, because it's just so over the top. I love that. I love that about him. It's inherent in the fact that he has no sense of humor. It's because he doesn't consider life funny that we find him funny and his extremes which are so marvelous in human behavior....And one of the great things I love about Burt and what the writers do with him is he will prepare himself in certain ways and then we find out that, once again, he's not prepared because the animals have mutated in such a way that they've found a way to get around his best defenses. He couldn't possibly plan for every contingency and he thinks he has."
Although very little is known about Burt's past, it has been hinted that he might've been involved in the military, and at the very least possesses extensive knowledge of military history, tactics, and protocol. Burt has also had an affection for guns since middle-school, evidenced by his telling Desert Jack that he "converted [his] BB gun to automatic by the eighth-grade." While he is very fond of his firearms, he is also strict about personal safety and care in the handling of firearms.
Burt settled in the town of Perfection with his wife, Heather (Reba McEntire), sometime before Tremors 1, a site they chose tactically due to its geographic isolation. It was later revealed in Tremors 4, however, that his ancestor Hiram Gummer (again played by Gross) inherited a silver mine in the town (which was named "Rejection" at the time), and went on to marry the local town-mistress. Stampede Entertainment's official website states that Hiram and his wife left in 1902 for San Francisco after a disagreement with Nevada bureaucrats over the date of the town's founding, and never returned (which may hint at the origins of Burt's anti-government sentiments). It may also simply be that Burt inherited the land, and given the choice, Burt & Heather located themselves in Perfection for the "geographic isolation".
Whether there is any direct connection between these events and Burt's choice to move to Perfection is unknown, but prior to the events of Tremors 3, Burt did possess an inheritance of silver bars from Hiram's ownership of the mine (as referenced in Tremors the Series). This massive inheritance also explains Burt's extensive weaponry and supplies, though some of the weapons may have been inherited as well, as Hiram developed a fondness for firearms over the course of Tremors 4.
In the first film, Burt was shown to be paranoid about surviving "World-War III", and his main cause as a survivalist. He had spent all of his years preparing for the possibility, building a stock of several years' worth of food and provisions in his home's underground bomb shelter. After the Graboid attacks of Tremors 1, Burt instead begins to worry less about World War III (possibly owing to the collapse of Soviet Russia, after which he sank into a deep depression as seen in Tremors 2), and becomes obsessed instead with Graboids, growing more obsessed with each new installment of the series, even having a massive underground concrete wall built to protect his compound. These obsessions and possibly the fear of the Graboids eventually cause his wife to divorce him sometime shortly before Tremors 2.
His regard to the final surviving albino Graboid from the end of Tremors 3 and the subsequent TV series, El Blanco, who is protected by his endangered species status (and inability to spawn the far more dangerous Shriekers, making him the only stable Graboid specimen ever found), is as something of a nemesis (their relationship was once compared to be somewhat like Captain Ahab & Moby-Dick), as Burt must balance his survival tactics with efforts to intentionally avoid harming the Graboid. Despite his animosity towards El Blanco, Burt has saved the Graboid's life on a few occasions, in the series premiere even begging the driven insane Graboid not to make him kill it, before destroying the machine driving it nuts. El Blanco also, if inadvertently, saved his life from an Ass Blaster when Desert Jack tricked it into eating the creature as it was about to kill Burt.
One controversy is how he gets his weapons and ammo, despite all of his guns being legal (except an SMG he is seen to own, though it may be a National Firearms Act registered weapon, and therefore lawful), the bullets for the Grizzly Big Boar and Barrett M82 .50 caliber BMG sniper rifle he wields are a topic that could be debated. How he obtained a minigun legally is also questionable. While it is possible he obtained them illegally, his repeated interactions with Department of the Interior official W.D. Twitchell in Tremors the Series made implications that Twitchell kept a close eye on all activity in Perfection valley, making it less likely that Burt accomplished illegal imports unnoticed. It is also possible that he undertook a special NFA process to purchase completely legal transferable title II weapons, which would include any of an array of sub-machine guns or even his minigun.
Burt has had many firsts and unique experiences with Graboids, having been the first to directly kill one via weaponry (the first was killed when it accidentally collided with a concrete wall at high speed), as well as being the only person to ever survive being eaten by a Graboid, having been eaten while inside a barrel; the Graboid was subsequently killed and cut open, allowing Burt to escape and survive. Burt has also probably killed more Graboids and their offspring than any other person, having taken out one in the first film, many of them with explosives in Tremors 2, having defeated an entire group of shriekers by himself during Tremors 2, another group of Shriekers at the start of Tremors 3, a number of the ass-blasters in Tremors 3, and a number of Shriekers in Tremors the Series. Recognized for his skill and expertise in the matter, W.D. Twitchell of the Department of the Interior often enlists Burt to deal with Graboid hatchlings in various populated areas of the United States when they occur.
Tremors (1990)
[Burt Gummer, with his wife Heather at his side, berates the dead monster fought off with their "family arsinal"]
Burt Gummer: Broke into the wrong God damn rec room, didn't ya you bastard!
[Burt Gummer looks at his bomb shelter for perhaps the last time]
Burt Gummer: Food for five years, a thousand gallons of gas, air filtration, water filtration, Geiger counter. Bomb shelter! Underground... God damn monsters.
Burt Gummer: No tracks, no sign, no spoor... you'd think after eating all those sheep they'd have to take a dump *some*place
Valentine McKee: Come on you two, let's go, we're headed for the mountains!
Burt Gummer: [Hefts bag of weapons] If that's how we're doin it, we're going prepared!
Valentine McKee: We can't hold still long! These things are damn smart! They're getting smarter by the minute!
Burt Gummer: That's fine!
[Holds up a stick of dynamite]
Burt Gummer: We got some new things to teach 'em!
[Burt cuts off a piece of fuse for a bomb for Earl]
Earl Bassett: What kind of fuse is that?
Burt Gummer: Cannon fuse
Earl Bassett: What the hell do you use it for?
Burt Gummer: My cannon!
Valentine McKee: What the hell's in those things, Burt?
Burt Gummer: A few household chemicals in the proper proportions.
Burt Gummer: [handing out weapons and refusing to give Melvin one] I wouldn't give you a gun if it were World War 3.
Valentine McKee: [speaking to Burt over a radio and is trying to tell him about the monsters] Burt, it's under the ground! It's an underground monster!
Burt Gummer: [over the radio, as a monster comes through his rec room wall] Jesus Chri...!
[transmission turns to static]
Tremors II: Aftershocks (1996)
Grady: [it's night, Grady and Earl are waiting on top of their stranded truck for Pedro to arrive, an explosion sounds in the distance]
[referring to Burt]
Grady: Jesus! He got another one.
Earl Bassett: That man never sleeps.
[two more explosions sound in the distance]
Burt Gummer: [over radio] Guys, Burt here. Doing a little night fishing. Got three of 'em on a cluster chare. I'd say we're about even now. Over.
Earl Bassett: Come on, Burt. This isn't a competition.
Burt Gummer: [over radio] Well, who's competing? I'm just saying the score is tied, that's all. Over.
Grady: Well, 'son', no it isn't, cuz we just caught a live one. How 'bout that.
Burt Gummer: [over radio] A live one? How in the hell...
Grady: Well, that's our little secret. Happy hunting, Burt.
[turns radio off]
Earl Bassett: [laughing] I'll bet that burned his skinny ass!
Burt Gummer: I am COMPLETELY out of ammo. That's never happened to me before.
[Burt has just blown up a Graboid]
Burt: Memo: 4 pounds of C-4 may be a bit -
[pebbles rain down onto his helmet]
Burt: excessive.
Burt Gummer: I feel I was denied critical need-to-know information.
[Upon being introduced to Burt's anti-tank rifle]
Earl Bassett: Man Burt, you put a whole new shine on the word 'overkill'.
Burt Gummer: When you need it, and don't have it... you sing a different tune.
Burt Gummer: I didn't know... how could I have known? I wanted maximum penetration!
Earl Bassett: [Looks at destroyed engine] Well, you got it.
Burt: It's gonna be big!
Grady: But is it gonna be today!
[hiding from the Shriekers, Earl, Grady, and Kate are on top of some containers, Burt is inside the scoop of a bulldozer]
Grady: Burt are you *sure* you don't have any more bullets? Did you check *all* your pockets?
Burt Gummer: You know, as I lie here, I can't help but notice... the reason I am out of nine millimeter rounds is that I was not properly briefed. And the reason for that is that this mission was not properly researched. If certain people had bothered to gather intelligence on the creatures before bumbling into the situation...
Earl Bassett: Burt, knock it off!
Burt Gummer: ...We wouldn't be down here with single-shot big bores when we should be packing full auto, preferably belt-fed!
[a Shrieker near Burt grunts loudly]
Burt Gummer: [to the Shrieker] Shut up!
Earl Bassett: Jesus, Burt! You smoked his ass!
Burt: Just doing what I can with what I got.
Burt Gummer: [Earl has set a bomb to blow up a garage containing the Shriekers] Earl! Earl, the bomb, how long did you set it for?
Earl Bassett: Oh, I... I don't know, I just punched in some numbers and threw it in the back of your truck!
Burt Gummer: [horrified] You WHAT? That's 2,5 tons of high explosives, Earl!
Earl Bassett: You mean that's not enough?
[panicking]
Earl Bassett: Oh Burt, don't tell me it's not enough!
Burt Gummer: Not enou... Never mind, just run! Run!
Burt Gummer: I feel I was denied critical NEED TO KNOW information.
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