Bob's Burgers

While some TV show episodes drag into eternity, others are over all too quickly.  From Bob’s Burgers’ jaunty opening sequence to its production company’s endframe, every moment of viewing is just right.  I find myself sitting there expecting more quality entertainment, when all that follows are adverts or an awkward silence.

Whenever I meet someone else who watches Bob’s Burgers, I immediately try and launch into a conversation with them where we can compare our favourite quotations from the show.  But then I always get stuck on the fact I can’t remember any of them.  Yet, every time I watch it, I think to myself how clever and funny each line is.  But this might just be the beauty of the show.  Unlike a lot of animated series, it hasn’t had to rely on stock expressions to engage its audience.  Instead, it has built up individual characters over time.

As a fan of the Simpsons and Family Guy, it makes sense I would enjoy Bob’s Burgers, but I can’t remember at all how I first came across it.  As ever, it took a couple of series of dodgier animation and rougher voice recordings for it to find its feet, but now each episode is a mini masterpiece.  Most recently, it seemed to appear in my Sky Plus on Saturday mornings (assuming it’s getting recording late on Friday evenings) and it makes the perfect viewing accompaniment for me when I am eating porridge and scrambling eggs and drinking a mug of coffee after training.

Family is at the heart of the show, so I have ranked the Belcher family below in order of funniness, and, consequently, their place in my estimations.

Linda

She’s the matriarch of the brood, but probably the least sensible.  More easily swayed by doing what seems fun than by doing what seems important, it’s often her whims that launch the family into its adventures.  That said, she loves her ‘babies’ and her ‘Bobby’ almost as much as she loves dancing in front of an audience and drinking wine.  Everything she says is funny.

Tina

One of the perviest characters ever to grace animation, Tina is what my mum would call ‘boy mad’.  Unfortunate for her, then, that she is stuck in the awkwardness of pubescence.  Her romantic dreams are almost always hopeless, but we root for her because we have all been that weirdo teen.  Her strong moral compass is often at odds with Linda’s shenanigans, but Tina has incredible throwaway lines that pepper the show with an undercurrent of darkness.

Louise

An amazing character if only for the amazing voice of Kristen Schaal.  Louise never takes off her bunny ears (perhaps her one weakness) and takes a small-time gangster approach to most things.  Her cynicism and relentless drive give way only very rarely to the more tender feelings we would expect from a small girl.  Adults beware.  In fact, everyone beware.

Bob

Long-suffering, yes, but innocent, no.  Bob indulges just as much of his own childishness as any of the other Belchers.  The difference is that he is the slightly downtrodden father figure with a flair for fine burgers.  Voiced by H. Jon Benjamin (which will make Archer sound like Bob and Bob sound like Archer, depending on which show you start with), his voice of reason is easily ignored, which is great, as it would only get in the way of the comedy.

Gene

Is it wrong that I like Gene the least?  His voice is wild, his roll malleable.  He is the disgusting boy, but both his sisters can be more extreme without even trying.  Again, he is a champion of throwaway comments and the driving force behind the show’s semi-musical nature.

There’s also Aunt Gayle.  If I could add her into the main nuclear family, she’d be in third place.  This is not only because she is literally me in ten years’ time (lonely old cat lady) but also because her selfishness is exceeded only by her delusion – a recurring theme in many of my favourite comic characters (see Nighty Night).  In addition to both of these points, she is also voiced by Megan Mullally.  This lady could read out anything and it would sound funny.

As the show has grown, however, so has the cast of characters.  Indeed, their unnamed Long Island town is populated with a host of outlandish, yet strangely realistic, individuals: Marshmallow, the transgender sex worker, Speedo Guy, who skates around in a pink pair of pants and nothing else, Mr Ambrose, the sour librarian (also me now – see The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Jocelyn, the high school girl whose pronunciation is the most fun you can have with your mouth, or ears, or both.  I have to admit that I cannot abide Teddy.  His whole schtick is that he is desperate to be part of the family, but my skin just crawls each time he speaks, even though he is really a sweetheart.

Threaded through each episode is a touch of musicality, often driven by Gene’s attachment to his fart noise-producing keyboard.  Our closing credits are always accompanied by a reprise of whichever original song has been brought to life in the episode and a skit in the restaurant’s grill kitchen.  I’m always sad the episode is over.  But then, I can just watch another one.