(DEBUNKED BY CHRISTMAS SPECIAL)
So the request was to answer why Bo Hweemuth (a clever pun on Boheemuth )keeps his eyes covered all the time and - a design trope meant to symbolize feeling socially isolated after being treated like a bully for so long, even after being befriended, the effects of that isolation either still linger or he just geniunely likes the hairstyle. Either way, the eyes covered/ closed trope is incredibly common.
The hard part here is answering what happened to his parents, as neither of them show up at Parent Day when they were in camp. I have two main ideas here and both are pure speculation, and I really don’t like basing my ideas on pure speculation because then they strictly evidence based. But I found this an interesting idea and weird that there’s never an explanation for it in the show.
So my first idea is that they were simply no-shows - possibly neglectful or work addicted parents who don’t have time for their son. This would be especially sad considering Melvin’s parents showed up, and they (in the books at least) are canonically neglectful.
My second idea- which I favor- is that Bo’s an orphan. As to how his parents died is something way out of my grasp given that there’s already so little to go off of, but having a character with this backstory makes sense in more than one way.
Narratively, it makes sense because each, okay well some, of the students represent different family dynamics with Harold’s parents being divorced being just one example. But not every kid gets to have parents. It’s possible that Bo lives in an orphanage and may not have a good relationship with the other kids there and his caretakers. Thus why flat out no one shows up at parents day. There are times when a kids parents die in some accident and their may not even be a means of calling the police or getting other people involved. Especially if he lived in a situation where his parents where cut off from other family members.
Most insanely, Bo may even be homeless along with living alone.And, hey, this could actually explain why his hair is so shaggy and his clothes seem so tattered. He doesn’t have anyone to cut his hair or buy him clothes. There are times when a kids parents die in some accident and their may not even be a means of calling the police or getting other people involved. Especially if he lived in a situation where his parents where cut off from other family members. That could end up with the child raising themselves and scared to get other adults involved, and maybe that’s another part of the reason why he isolates himself so much, he didn’t want to get close to anyone in fear they would find out about his situation and take him away.
For all we know, he could be very similar to a character of my own in my own works, where he was abandoned somewhere and left for dead, yet somehow managed to survive on his own.
All that is super dark and certainly not something that belongs in a show like this, and I’m almost certain none of that was the writers intent. Nonetheless that’s my interpretation. I do like to say that the most simple option is the most likely, so it really does fall between his parents just being no-shows or Bo being raised in a shitty orphanage, until I considered how the abandoned art room in the school seems to be his home. Sure, he hides in there during the day to create art and not scare other kids (which he fails at that tbh) but what if he sneaks and stays in there after school hours too? After all, none of the teachers even knew anyone was in there at all and the room was (in a way the show was finally paralleling the movie) completely locked up with Bo having to sneak in a different way.
TL; DR : This side character to a spin-off children’s show may secretly have one of the most tragic childhoods of all the characters and needs help!
Kinda Bonus: Again, I do like how the side characters in this show weren’t all just there for jokes or to fill space but, love or hate them, ways for the writers to portray different family situations and neuro-divergence. Even with Gooch, he’s more or less dead weight but it’s commonly thought he has some type of brain damage that impacts his cognitive abilities, especially since he seems to have genuine memory problems and dyscalcula ( the math version of dyslexia). When we get to see his contribution to the potato story (which, let’s face it, was a means for the creators to show the minds of their characters) he reveals he doesn’t even like slapstick but his thought process seems to work in a slap-stick type manner. I don’t know if I’m saying all this in the right way but it really does seem like a metaphor for brain damage, it seems like a birth defect to me. I can’t remember if I’ve posted this idea or not though since it’s been in my mind for a while.
It’s mainly because of Gooch that I speculate about if George and Harold’s class isn’t actually a Special Education class of sorts. I already did a video on that in my mini theories