| "Starburns" | |
| Portrayed by Dino Stamatopoulos | |
 | |
| First seen | Spanish 101 |
| Occupation | Drug dealer, Student |
| Relationship | Single |
| Family members | Magda (ex-wife) Unnamed son |
"My name's Alex, dude."--Starburns
"Well then maybe you should spend five hours every morning carving that into your face."- Senor Chang
Alex Osbourne, more commonly known as "Starburns" (1972) was a middle-aged student at Greendale Community College known for his copious facial hair and sideburns shaped like stars. He was a member of the campus' "cool study group" as well as a drug dealer. He appeared to have gone from a user to a seller over the course of his three years at Greendale, first giving Pierce a hit in "Intro to Statistics" and later dropping out of the student body election for fear of it affecting his career as a drug dealer. In "Basic Lupine Urology" his car is rear-ended, causing the meth lab he had built in his trunk to explode and killing him. Although it turned out to be a hoax after all in "Introduction to Finality"!
Identity Beyond the Starburns
Though he enjoys the attention he receives with his sideburns, he craves an identity beyond them. Because of this, he begins insisting, "My name is Alex" when called Starburns. At the beginning of the second season, he attempts to draw attention away from them by a adding a top hat. As the third season begins, he adds a lizard to the ensemble, again to presumably draw attention away from the starburns.
On Valentine's Day, he carves his sideburns into hearts, thus becoming "Heartburns".
Relationship With Others
Starburns appears to have a strained relationship with the study group. He and Jeff Winger in particular appear to have some kind of rivalry, both describing the other as a "douchebag", likely due to his oggling of Annie Edison. In Anthropology class, Starburns reminisces about the time in which the study group went on a rafting trip, and how nice it was to have a class not about them. The study group ousts him from his job as a chicken fry-cook during "Contemporary American Poultry." In spite of all this, he and Pierce appear to be friends, trading drugs in "Intro to Statistics" and teaming up together during "Modern Warfare".
Ben Chang loves to mock him, drawing constant attention to the time it must take him to carve stars into his sideburns. After Chang becomes a student, an unspecified incident causes him to owe Chang a small frozen pizza.
Starburns has one son, who despite his father's laid back appearance, appears to be a successful business man. He was married to a woman named Magda, who he gave herpes. In his video will, he even mentioned "to my ex-wife, Magda, I leave herpes, but she knows that."
During the events surrounding the scandal of the biology class yam project, Starburns was killed when a minor traffic collision caused the meth lab in his trunk to explode. He left a video will to Abed, instructing the latter to make a video memoir of him, and provided Abed with tapes of himself clumsily acting out things in front of a greens screen. Abed used the footage to succesfully produce a vivid memoir.
Starburns is shown wearing a wig in the Season 3 finale. Starburns lives.
Trivia
- In the episode "Intro to Political Science" (2x17), Abed and Troy presented him on his information card as 46 years old (making him born in 1965), a supporter of legalization, of Cambodian ethnicity and with the DJ nickname Sparkles.
- In "Course Listing Unavailable", however, Abed made him a memorial (as was his death wish) that stated he was born in 1972, making him 41-40 years old, instead of 46.
- He is very prone to stealing backpacks that are left unguarded.
- He was an avid user of pills and marijuana.
- He is played by one the series' writers, Dino Stamatopoulos, who himself is of Greek ethnicity rather than Cambodian.
- He's part of the "cool studygroup", which includes Buddy and an Asian female.
- He had somewhat of a friendly relationship with Pierce, to the point where they slipped each other narcotics.
- He always wears the same vest, which was used by Abed to emphasize his newly adopted hero persona in the season 2 paintball finale.
- He used "some kind of crystal instead of deoderant" according to Abed in part 2 of the season 2 paintball finale.
Class history
| Semester | Course | Instructor | Classmates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2009 | Spanish 101 | Ben Chang | Abed, Annie, Britta, Buddy, Jeff, Pierce, Shirley, Troy |
| Spring 2010 | Sailing | Lee Slaughter | Britta, Pierce, Shirley, Troy |
| Spanish 102 | Ben Chang | Abed, Annie, Britta, Buddy, Jeff, Pierce, Shirley, Troy | |
| Fall 2010 | Anthropology 101 | June Bauer; Ian Duncan | Abed, Annie, Britta, Chang, Jeff, Pierce, Shirley, Troy |
| Economics | unknown | unknown | |
| Spring 2011 | Anthropology 102 | Ian Duncan | Abed, Annie, Britta, Chang, Fat Neil, Jeff, Pierce, Rich, Shirley, Troy, Vicky |
| Fall 2011 | Biology 101 - kicked out of class | Marshall Kane | Abed, Annie, Britta, Magnitude, Pierce, Shirley, Todd, Troy, Vicky |