Bob's Burgers
An animated sitcom about a family-run burger joint.
Bob's Burgers is an animated sitcom from America, created by Loren Bouchard and airing on Fox. The show follows the Belcher family—Bob, Linda, and their kids Tina, Gene, and Louise—who run a burger joint in New Jersey and embark on various adventures. It first aired on January 9, 2011. Bouchard came up with the idea after working on Home Movies. The series is produced by Wilo Productions and Buck & Millie Productions alongside 20th Television Animation, with animation by Bento Box Entertainment. In April 2025, a "mega deal" with Disney Television Studios renewed the show for four more seasons, extending it through the 2028–29 TV season.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Adult animation; Animated sitcom
- Creator
- Loren Bouchard
- Developer
- Loren Bouchard; Jim Dauterive
- Showrunner
- Loren Bouchard
- Jim Dauterive (seasons 1–10)
- Nora Smith (season 11–present)
- Holly Schlesinger (season 15–present)
- Voices
- H. Jon Benjamin
- Dan Mintz
- Eugene Mirman
- Larry Murphy
- John Roberts
- Kristen Schaal
- Opening theme
- "Bob's Burgers Theme"
- Composer
- John Dylan Keith
- Loren Bouchard
- Elegant Too
- Country
- United States
Facts from the source article.
Characters
The Belcher family runs "Bob's Burgers," a hamburger restaurant. Despite routinely cycling through seasons and holidays, the characters remain perpetually the same age. Bob Belcher (H. Jon Benjamin) is the owner of Bob's Burgers. He is Linda's husband and Tina, Gene, and Louise's father. He is 46 years old and has black hair with male pattern baldness and a thick mustache. Bob's youth mostly consisted of working in his father's diner after his mother died, before he left to start Bob's Burgers against his father's wishes. Bob typically serves as the straight man to the antics of his family and friends, though he is also quite stubborn and is prone to being very petty and competitive, especially against people he dislikes. Despite his pessimistic personality, Bob loves and cares for his family and his restaurant, and tries to do what is best for them. He enjoys cooking, restaurant appliances, foreign films, and Thanksgiving. In the restaurant, Bob is the cook. Linda Belcher (John Roberts) is Bob's wife and Tina, Gene, and Louise's mother. She is 44 years old, always wears her signature red glasses, and speaks with a thick, heavily-pronounced New Jersey/New York accent. Linda is quirky, happy-go-lucky, and enthusiastic in whatever she does, to the point of sometimes bursting into made-up songs about everyday things, serving as a foil to Bob. She is very supportive of her family and her children's schemes, and provides advice or assistance where she can, though she can be strict as well, showing less leniency when Louise does not listen to her. Linda frequently winds up in comedic situations trying to prove herself to be a loving wife and mother. In the restaurant, Linda is the cashier and clerk. Tina Belcher (Dan Mintz) is the eldest of the Belcher children, at 13 years old. She has myopia and relies on her distinctive large glasses for sight. Tina is socially awkward, insecure, easily influenced by peer pressure, and tends to freeze up and produce a long groaning sound when faced with decisions or conflict, but she is also capable of showing courage and taking responsibility when she has to. She is often assigned caretaker for Gene and Louise when they are home alone, though they frequently take advantage of her naivety to bring her along in their plans. Tina is going through puberty and has many crushes on many boys, primarily Jimmy Jr., one of her classmates and the son of Bob's rival Jimmy Pesto. She has some sort of fetish for butts and zombies, reflected in the fan fiction and "erotic friend-fiction" she tends to write. Tina obsesses over what others think of her and struggles to fit in with her friend group at school, consisting of Jimmy Jr., Zeke, Tammy, and Jocelyn. She is interested in horses, the fictional tv show The Equestranauts, and the popular boy band Boyz4Now. In the restaurant, Tina is a server, but is not good with customers. Gene Belcher (Eugene Mirman) is the middle child and only son of the Belcher family, at 11 years old. Gene is confident, laid-back, enthusiastic, and loud, like Linda, though he also resembles Bob when he was young. In many cases Gene serves as comic relief, often by making double entendres or cultural references. He is the least mature out of his siblings, being distracted often (called "Gene-ing out" within the family), exhibiting poor hygiene, and playing make believe often, though he can also show resolve and do what is right. He regularly expresses oedipal tendencies. He is open to conversation and has many friends in school, including Alex, Courtney, Lenny, and Peter. Gene is an aspiring musician and often plays with his sampling keyboard and megaphone while dabbling in writing songs and musicals on various topics. Besides music, he also enjoys fashion in which he occasionally cross-dresses without judgment from his family or neighbors. In the restaurant, Gene advertises out front in a burger costume, but often also works as a server. Louise Belcher (Kristen Schaal) is the youngest of the Belcher children, at 9 years old. She always wears a distinctive pink hat with long bunny ears that she has had since preschool. She is a mischievous schemer with an egotistical and cynical personality who is experienced in manipulating others to get her way, but in many cases her conscience intervenes and she becomes a reluctant antihero who ultimately does what is right, though she tries to hide her honest feelings. Amongst the siblings, she takes leadership and authority, and often challenges traditional gender roles with her assertive, intense nature.
Production
Creator Loren Bouchard said Bob's Burgers came about because Fox's animation brand centers on family, but he also wanted to include workplace comedy. His original concept made the family cannibals, but Fox executives convinced him to drop that aspect, though the idea was referenced in the pilot when Louise spreads a rumor that the burgers are made of humans. Marci Proietto, President of 20th Television Animation, said Bouchard created a show that was funny but had heart, with likeable characters contributing to its success. The series is generally viewed as a spiritual successor to King of the Hill, and executive producer Jim Dauterive worked on King of the Hill for nearly its entire run. Before the series aired, a proof of concept was created so Fox knew what to expect. Bouchard, living in San Francisco's Mission District at the time, hired local artists including character designer Jay Howell and background designer Sirron Norris. The test animation featured Bob forgetting his wedding anniversary while grinding human meat. Fox later made a pilot after removing the cannibal idea, which had the same synopsis as the official first episode but with a different art style and Tina Belcher replacing Daniel Belcher. The original pilot is on the DVD release of the first season, released on April 17, 2012. Bob's Burgers first appeared on Fox's development slate on August 6, 2009, and on December 1, 2009, Fox ordered 13 episodes for the first season. On May 17, 2010, the series was placed on the primetime slate for the 2010–11 television season, with a special preview airing on Thanksgiving, November 25, 2010.
Hallmarks
The opening credits begin with hamburger ingredients assembling on a white screen, then Bob’s hands appear to hold the burger. His family joins him one by one: Linda first, then Louise last. Linda wraps an arm around Bob, Tina stands with a blank expression, Gene plays a keyboard sound effect, and Louise strikes a pose. The restaurant forms behind them, neighboring businesses slide into place (a funeral parlor on the left), and the street appears in front. The family stands before the restaurant as a “Grand Opening” banner goes up, followed by three disasters: a fire, a vermin infestation, and a car knocking down a utility pole that smashes the front window. After each mishap, a new banner appears: “Grand Re-Opening,” “Grand Re-Re-Opening,” and finally “Grand Re-Re-Re-Opening.” The camera zooms in on the cheese on Bob’s burger (and the restaurant sign in the first two seasons), then fades into the episode. Like other Fox animated shows, the credits feature a running gag where the store next door has a different, humorously named occupant every episode—sometimes appearing in the story, like a gym owner offering passes in “A Fish Called Tina.” Starting in Season 2, the pest control van also changes names each episode; in Season 1 it always read “Rat’s all Folks! Exterminators.” Special episodes may alter an element, such as a flash frame reading “HAPPY HALLOWEEN” during “Fort Night.” Creator and theme composer Loren Bouchard noted that the ukulele track is an edited version of his first recording from 2008, and that removing the EQ filter reveals noise from the nightclub below his apartment at the time.
Other appearances
On January 6, 2011, some Fatburger locations were re-branded as Bob's Burgers for the day as a promotion, offering a free burger giveaway and a limited-time "The Thanks a Brunch Burger" until February 2011. Four locations were re-branded across the US: in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Illinois. The season 4 premiere of Archer features a crossover where the Belcher family appears, but Bob is revealed to be Sterling Archer in a fugue state, with Archer taking Bob's place and Bob missing. In the Futurama episode "The Impossible Stream," a parody called "Blob's Burgers" is briefly seen as a thumbnail. The Simpsons has featured several crossovers: the season 25 premiere "Homerland" includes a couch gag with the Belcher family skinned yellow; Bob appears in a picture in "The Girl Code" explaining a boycott by short people; a season 30 couch gag in "My Way or the Highway to Heaven" has Homer stuck in the restaurant; Louise appears on a poster in "Bart vs. Itchy & Scratchy"; Linda appears in "Treehouse of Horror XXXIII" with John Roberts reprising his role; and Linda and the children appear in the short film May the 12th Be with You at a Mother's Day party.
Premise
Bob's Burgers centers around the Belcher family, a blue-collar family consisting of Bob Belcher, his wife Linda, and their three children, Tina, Gene, and Louise. The Belchers run the titular hamburger restaurant in the fictional shore town of Seymour's Bay, New Jersey. The restaurant is located on Ocean Avenue in a slightly neon-green, two-story building sandwiched between two other commercial buildings, one of which houses a funeral home and crematorium whose owner, Mort, is one of the restaurant's regulars. Their other most loyal customer, Teddy, is a sweet-natured but somewhat dense handyman who considers Bob and Linda his closest friends. Bob's business and personal rival is Jimmy Pesto, who runs Jimmy Pesto's Pizzeria, an Italian restaurant located directly across the street. The building to the right of the restaurant is typically vacant, though the opening credits depict a different, wittily named business inhabiting the space in every episode. On very few occasions, the store has stayed part of the episode. All three Belcher children work part-time in the restaurant – unpaid – and attend Wagstaff School, run by Principal Spoors. Episodes typically follow the family's experiences running the restaurant and interacting with the eccentric members of their community, though some episodes feature them outside of their usual setting of the restaurant. Many episodes contain musical numbers, either in fantasy sequences, as diegetic music, or over the episode's closing credits.
Broadcast and reception
While reviews for the first season were mixed, feedback for subsequent seasons has been more positive. The series premiere, "Human Flesh", drew in 9.39 million viewers, making it the highest-rated series premiere of the season and finishing ninth in the ratings for the week it aired. Since then, the series has grown to be a critical and cultural success. In 2013, TV Guide ranked Bob's Burgers as one of the 60 Greatest TV Cartoons of All Time. The series has been nominated for several awards, including the Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program fifteen consecutive times (2012–2026), winning in 2014 and 2017. Reruns began airing on Cartoon Network's programming blocks Adult Swim in June 2013, and ACME Night from 2021 to 2023, and began airing in syndication on local stations in September 2015.
Other media
A feature film was released in theaters in May 2022. A comic book series based on the series, published by Dynamite Entertainment, began in September 2014. A soundtrack album was released on Sub Pop Records in May 2017, with a second volume released in August 2021.
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