You can trace the history of television comedy through its families: The Cleavers, the Kramdens, the Bunkers, the Evans, the Keatons, the Huxtables, the Tanners, the Bundys, the Winslows, the Simpsons, the Griffiths. And the Belchers of Bob’s Burgers have stealthily become one of those iconic clans.
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Over its four and a half seasons, the show has evolved into a true product of today, combining the heartwarming moments that were a hallmark of ABC's TGIF lineup 20 years ago with the eccentricity and deadpan tone that's more at home on Adult Swim (where the show fittingly re-airs). The Belchers---restaurant owners Bob and Linda and their three kids Tina, Gene and Louise---are real, comfortable oddballs, and the laughs come from a group just being themselves. No recycled, vulgar, referential, or cheap gags necessary.
Number of Seasons: 5 (73 episodes and counting)
Time Requirements: Behold the benefits of network comedy. At the crawl of two episodes per day, you can stretch your Belcher family pleasure for just over a month. But if you want to truly binge, four episodes per day (an hour and a half of your time) spans about two and a half weeks. Four episodes per day with a healthy weekend watchload---say 10 episodes with a break for brunch---speeds things up to less than a fortnight. Yes, fortnight.
Where to Get Your Fix: Amazon Prime, iTunes or Google Play. The first three seasons are available on Netflix and DVD, and the five most recent episodes are always streamable through Fox and Hulu.
Best Character to Follow: This is a star-studded voice cast with quiet comedy heavyweights like Eugene Mirman (Gene), Jon Benjamin (Bob), and Kristen Schaal (Louise). So while more than half the family has its own single phrase supercut (see Bob’s “Oh My God” or Linda’s “All Riiiight!”), Tina (and her moan) is the only answer. The oldest child’s journey over five seasons reads like New York’s hottest club, including everything from zombie erotic friend fiction to a Sixteen Candles-style first kiss, investigative poop journalism to vengeance at a Brony-con.
Tina’s arguably (and rightfully) the show’s most beloved cos-character because she’s so unashamed to be herself; she's an awkward teen who has some idea what she wants, but knows she’s still figuring it out. No matter if she’s trying capoeira or auditioning as a magician’s assistant, Tina remains confident and genuine. Imagine if she was "Daniel" as originally intended---an animated, one-note version of Michael Cera, right? Instead, Bob's Burgers gave us all an invaluable gift: the cartoon equivalent of Beyonce.
Seasons/Episodes You Can Skip:
Most of Season 1 (particularly the first half of the season) Certainly, the first season contains glimmers of what’s to come. Linda’s parents come to visit in the pilot "Crawl Space," and the episode launches long traditions like Bob hilariously reacting to family (and extended family) eccentricities or Tina obsessing over butts, zombies, and zombie butts. Later, the family comes together to plan Tina’s 13th birthday (and first kiss) in "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?," hinting at how absurd and wholesome things can be in the same episode (and how gloriously tortured the show's puns are). But in retrospect, even creator Loren Bouchard has said he’d go with a different pilot. And unless you’re a completist (mind you, there’s good reason to be), there are too many memorable, later episodes of all varieties---character-centric half hours, homages, unforgettable montages, and songs---to slog through the "B" episodes early on.
Season 3, Episode 3 “Bob Fires The Kids” Season 3 features a trio of "someone’s missing from the restaurant" capers. “Lindapendant Woman” has Linda asserting that she’s essential to the place and will be fine on her own, and “The Kids Run The Restaurant” has Bob on injured reserve after the sight of blood makes him queasy. But early in the season it’s the kids on the outside with “Bob Fires The Kids,” where Bob insists they should have a “fun” summer, yet the kids can’t seem to function without work. (“Ugh. Summer is awful,” Gene realizes. “There too much pressure to enjoy yourself.”) The weakest episodes of Bob’s Burgers tend to be where things are overtly surreal, as opposed to seemingly normal but ultimately insane (to wit: Tina falling in love with a puppet on a cruise ship in “Mutiny on the Windbreaker” one episode later). So as charming as Mickey the convict (Bill Hader) is as the kids’ replacement, the Belcher children accidentally falling into the weed business just isn’t as fun or compelling as their normal antics.
Season 4, Episode 8 “Christmas in the Car” No show currently on the air is better with holiday episodes, but this is merely the weakest of Bob’s Burgers’ Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas offerings. An homage to Steven Spielberg's relatively obscure ’70s feature debut The Duel (BB loves Spielberg—see E.T. and Warhorse nods, among others), it has a great looking chase scene but pales in comparison to its chaotic Christmas predecessor.
Seasons/Episodes You Can’t Skip:
Season 2, Episode 1 “The Belchies” Not sure what to think about Bob’s Burgers after its up-and-down first season? Care for a Goonies-homage where the kids sneak off to find treasure in an abandoned, soon-to-be demolished taffy factory while their parents try to rekindle a stale sex life? “The Belchies” sets off the "Tina Belcher, feminist icon" movement, and it’s also the precise moment when the show really hits its stride.
Season 2, Episode 4 “Burgerboss” If Tina Belcher is a modern-day Juliet, then the Montagues are the Pestos, owners of the Italian restaurant across the street and possessors of Tina’s heart (in the form of young dance enthusiast Jimmy Jr.). In “Burgerboss,” the two family patriarchs battle over the titular classic arcade game. Bob gets it because he thinks it’ll generate money for the restaurant, and unintentionally rekindles his childhood love for the game---only to watch in horror as Pesto takes the high score for “BOBSUX.” This is the rare instance where the even-keeled Bob goes utterly off the rails, falling into near depression while trying to retake the high score. He ends up on pills, training at a local arcade after Linda sells his cabinet. He meets gamer savant DRL (Aziz Ansari), and the two help each other deal with their longstanding enemies, resulting in a great pill-induced sequence where Bob dispatches young bullies like so many hallucinated Goombas.
Season 3, Episode 9 “God Rest Ye’ Merry Mannequins”
The show with great holiday episodes took it to whole new level for Christmas 2013. In an inherited storage unit, the family discovers Chet (Zach Galifianakis), a man who believes he was once a mannequin but is now downtrodden because his mannequin lover is gone. Linda, a woman whose insanity is only rivaled by her love of romance, can’t help but invite Chet in for the holidays. It’s a strange journey involving sex shops, macabre seasonal window displays, and the heartwarming all-for-one nature of the Belchers at its best.
Season 3, Episode 10 “Mother Daughter Razor Laser” Any show with a healthy ensemble mixes and matches duos order to spotlight different tandems, and this episode gives Louise and Linda a rare shared showcase. Linda thinks Louise hates her after watching her bond with Bob, so she seeks professional intervention and whisks Louise off to an eight-hour mommy-daughter seminar led by a self-proclaimed male “estrogenius.” Through a series of escalating breakthroughs, Louise and another captive kid manage to escape while momentarily incapacitating the adults… but they all eventually head to a nearby lasertag facility for the ultimate showdown. All the while, Tina is back home trying to deal with newfound leg hair and has only the woefully underinformed Bob around for help.
Season 3, Episode 15 “O.T.: The Outside Toilet” Jon Hamm as a talking toilet. JON. HAMM. AS. A. TALKING. TOILET. The show gets famous voices that span pop culture (Tim Meadows, Samantha Bee, Kevin Kline), but Hamm’s robotic deadpan is perhaps the most memorable. Bonus points for Louise’s diss of Bob’s suit (“Looks like Don Draper got fat this season”), but this E.T. homage involves a red sweatshirt-wearing Gene and his budding friendship with a lost smart appliance. The episode would stand alone even if it wasn’t Hamm delivering lines like “nuclear wiener.”
Season 3, Episode 16 “Topsy” The original music of Bob’s Burgers has its own fan club that includes major acts like The National, Stephin Merritt, and St. Vincent, who have each covered singles from the show. The show’s debut album is even on its way. The debate over the best musical moment may never be settled, but “Electric Love” from Topsy is near the top. When a substitute teacher won’t accept her volcano science project, Louise sets out to crush the Edison-loving suit by creating a musical homage to the experiment that electrocuted an elephant. She enlists composition savant Gene, and the result is beautiful---as beautiful as a pantomime with your siblings dressed as Edison and an elephant, sung by your aunt and the landlord, can be.
Season 4, Episode 7 “Bob and Deliver” The not-so-secret sauce on Bob’s Burgers is that Bob is actually a talented burger cook. In numerous episodes, he’s thiiiiis close to breaking through and garnering serious exposure before something goes wrong; now, finally, his talent is finally appreciated, albeit not for much profit. The school's home-ec teacher is out due to drug addiction, and Bob steps up to sub. When he learns the previous regime was nothing more than Ice-Making 101, he passionately dedicates himself Dead Poet’s Society-style to teaching these kids the joys of cooking… and restauranting. Their Home Ec-staurant takes the school by storm and ends up crossing the lunchlady union, leading to a mad dash to serve one final meal before Bob’s talent loses out again (this time, as he’s fired for too much competence). Also a standout episode for Jimmy Jr.'s friend Zeke, whose alpha-male abandon is leavened by an almost bizarre (but always funny) self-awareness.
Season 4, Episode 12 “The Frond Files” Unlike its Fox animation peers, Bob’s Burgers often shies away from unbelievable circumstances. The exception is whenever the Belchers’ imagination take center stage. In “Frond Files,” Bob and Linda come to a school project show night only to find their kids’ work isn’t publicly available. Sweater-clad school councilor Mr. Frond brings the family into his office to explain, and the episode turns into three vignettes that act out the bizarre essays each kid wrote about the school and Mr. Frond. Louise has to save the school from a time-traveling Terminator-like Frond-bot; Gene’s got a Footloose battle against the oppressive Frond who wants no music, dancing or farts at Wagstaff Elementary; and Tina saves the school from a zombie apocalypse when only her charm is able to pacify the mob. Of any single episode, this is the quickest way to get a sense for who these Belcher kids are.
Best Scene: Non-Canonical from "The Equestranauts"
There were a handful of universally beloved episodes with great scenes we simply didn’t have room to list—Tina getting a little driver’s ed in Tina-rannosaurus Wrecks,” Bob and Linda explaining swingers to the kids in “It Snakes A Village,” erotic friend fiction in “Bad Tina,” the end credits to the family’s camping adventures in “A River Runs Through Bob.” But the best comes from the Belchers’ brush with Bronies in “The Equestranauts.” After a swindling Equesticle (this universe’s Brony) tricks Tina out of her extremely rare horse figure, the family’s only plan is to have Bob don a Linda-stitched Equestranaut suit, infiltrate the convention, gain the trust of the Equesticles and rescue the horse. One problem: He’s got a lot to learn about Equestranauts and, well, some fan fiction slipped into the homework (via tvgrrrl on tumblr):
The Takeaway:
To err is cumin; to binge on Belchers, divine.
If You Liked Bob's Burgers You’ll Love:
Classic Simpsons seems like an obvious parallel, but King of the Hill may be a better Fox animated family comparison (fewer kids, more similar humor). However, Bob’s Burgers closest sitcom sibling may be Community---an evolving group of unique individuals who love each other within a show that has a penchant for homage, song, and puns. And if Tina and the disorienting nature of youth is your favorite Bob’s Burgers flavor, Bouchard’s other show (Home Movies) will also make you cringe, cry, and chuckle.
