Bob’s Burgers is one of those shows for me and my family that’s consistently on and consistently makes us happy.
Sometimes it achieves real greatness but mostly it’s comfort food.
Bob is a chef who consistently refuses to make comfort food in his pursuit of amazing, interesting burger of the day.
He’s played by H. Jon Benjamin who has the distinction of being the lead in two animated comedies. He’s also Archer on FX’s spy show. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say he’s one of best voice actors in the world. A comedian who can make you actually believe he’s a poor burger chef or a super spy.
Bob is the kind of guy who clearly could have chosen to be a high-end chef. But he’s searching for something else. The show consistently shows how Bob could be richer and much more successful if he would just give a little to the commercial side of his business.
His rival Jimmy Pesto has plenty of success but the food is bland and bad. People eat there but no one is ever surprised by the menu.
But Bob soldiers on searching, reaching for his art. He’s chasing his own muse.
The secret of the show is how Bob’s family supports his choices and how he supports their weird pursuits.
His wife, Linda, keeps his depression at bay and sings all day. She can’t sing well but she loves it and he never tells her to stop. Strong marriages are built this way.
They have three children in their adolescence.
Gene is a musician who is searching for his own path like his father but is much more his mother’s son.
Tina, the oldest is eaten up with hormones and writes erotic fiction about zombies and boys in their underwear. Of her siblings, Tina is the only one who understands rash actions could have consequences. She’s a bundle of middle-school girl anxiety.
According to interviews, someone pulled show creator Loren Bouchard aside and convinced him that the world didn’t need another sitcom with a boy Tina’s age and that he should create a different female character in that role. Absolutely correct.
Louise is the breakout. A 9-year-old in pink bunny ears who fears nothing and lives for revenge. Do not cross her. You will die with her teeth in your throat. Also, your death will probably be hilarious. She’s Bob’s child through and through. That’s an issue that causes problems between her and her mother in the series.
Kristin Schaal plays her like she’s the sarcastic lead in her own action movie. Which she sometimes is.
If there are any faults in this set-up it’s that the kids are occasionally too smart and aware for their ages. Sometimes their lines sound like they came fresh from the writer’s room and not from the mind of these particular children.
Mostly it makes me laugh but occasionally it pulls me out of the show.
Bob’s world is filled with low-rent criminals and workaday stiffs.
He has a best friend (Bob is reluctant to admit this) named Teddy who is kindhearted, works as a handyman, and eats a burger at Bob’s nearly every day for lunch.
Everyone at Bob’s restaurant is met with kindness. Everyone is shown empathy. Everyone is welcome no matter their particular passions, lifestyle, or choices.
One other character worth mentioning is Calvin Fishoeder, the man who owns the amusement park at the end of the wharf and is the landlord of, essentially, every business in Bob’s part of the world.
Kevin Kline plays him as an amoral, rascal who seems to be having an awful lot of fun being rich and semi-powerful. If Mr. Burns is the template for lawful evil then Calvin is almost always somewhere between chaotic evil and neutral evil.
The kind of guy who would serve you a sumptuous meal and then make a joke about how man is the tastiest animal of all. You would know it was a joke but when you left that night you’d think, ‘he didn’t actually mean it did he?’
And you would never be completely sure.
He’s maybe not quite Groucho Marx as your landlord but he’s close. The word that comes to mind when I think of him is giddy.
It’s fun being rich even if you occasionally have to demand rent payments from people you know can’t afford it.
The plot of The Bob’s Burgers movie gets moving when Mr. Fishoeder is arrested for the murder of a carney.
Now, it wouldn’t have been much of a movie if Mr. Fishoeder had actually done it, and the movie all but points and shouts at the real killer in an opening sequence.
But the mystery is a fun bit of plot that gets the children moving through the neighborhood and lets us hang out in some new spots with a few characters we remember and meet some new people.
Some of the characters who might be the subject of entire episodes get cameo appearances or less. Linda’s neurotic, cat-loving sister doesn’t get a line at all.
But the movie makes what is probably the right choice and narrows the focus to the family. Each member has their own little personal problem to overcome.
We’ll mostly, Linda and Gene get shortchanged a bit.
The movie really breaks through during the musical numbers.
I still remember, or think I remember, the first time someone on Bob’s Burgers broke out into a song. And not just a song but a full-blown Broadway-level musical event.
There are three or four of those here. The real villain gets a chance to lay out his master plan while dancing and singing away.
I especially enjoyed a large piece involving dozens of dancing carnies and the kids. The song includes Louise telling a bunch of people who are clearly on the losing end of society that if they think they have it rough they should try being nine.
The show was good from the first episode but the musicals, which began in season five according to the internet, took it to a better place.
It’s not perfect. Or that should probably be it’s not trying to be more than it is. If you like or love the show you will like or love this. You probably could walk into the movie and enjoy it even if you have only turned on the show in passing over the years. Perhaps you could even walk in cold.
It’s broad enough that most anyone should be able to follow along.
This gets to my complaint. Such as it is. I wish the movie had gone a little deeper into the rabbit hole of the show. We get cameos, we get the emotional punch behind the secret of why Louise always wears bunny ears.
We get stuff that’s just for every episode, every week fans. But I wanted more of that.
Of course, I wasn’t paying the bill for this meal and I’m guessing a show creator who says I’m gonna make a movie that only the hardcore fans will enjoy is probably going to find out that their flick is not on the menu.
I also suspect that nothing that happened in this movie will have any long-term impacts on the show. Unless there are massive changes when the series resumes in the fall Bob will still be pursuing his art. The kids will still be forever in the same grades.
Linda will sing in her own unique key.
This burger was tasty but tomorrow’s burger will be made the same way, with the same ingredients.
I’m sure I will enjoy it.
Dark Highways 