Bob’s Burgers Review: Burger Time

Cartoon food turns my eyeballs into dollar signs. I can’t help myself. Ever since I first saw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles chomp down a beautifully drawn, cheese dripping pizza, I’ve had an increasing appetite for any show that involves delicious looking eats. So, naturally, when I first learned of Fox’s new animated show Bob’s Burgers, which revolves around the Belcher family and their burger joint, my stomach rumbled and my mouth dripped with drool. With three episodes down in season one, I’m taking a closer look to see if these burgers taste as good as they smell and look.

For any sitcom to succeed, it must have great characters. Not just good, but great. South Park has Cartman and friends, Family Guy has Stewie and Peter Griffin and The Simpsons just has too many to list. The situations are less important because what we like to see, as an audience, is how these memorable characters react to the things happening around them. This begs the question: does Bob’s Burgers have characters that could turn into people that we root for on a weekly basis? Yes and no. The title character of Bob, voiced by H. Jon Benjamin (Archer, Family Guy), loves his burgers and his family, but he is almost always on the verge of a mental breakdown. His eccentric family is constantly pushing him to the edge, and how he snaps back at them, sometimes with a simple “shut up” or “what is wrong with you?”, often results in a good laugh because you can see yourself reacting the same way. Bob is a well done character. His humor doesn’t try to knock you over the head, like other people in his family, and as an audience member, you can see that he is the most normal of the family. Simply put, Bob is a man struggling to grasp the ridiculousness that is constantly going on around him.

To me, the star of the show is the youngest daughter Louise, voiced by Kristen Schaal. I feel like everyone has met a child like Louise before. She behaves in ways much older than her age dictates, often playing practical jokes on the people around her. For example, when left alone behind the counter of the restaurant, Louise renames the burger of the day “The Child Molester,” a dish that comes with candy. Gene, voiced by Eugene Mirman, is the middle child of the family, whose humor sometimes falls flat. Gene has what I like to call “Family Guy jokes,” which are gags that go on for an uncomfortable amount of time and end up being less funny because of it. Just to give you an idea about Gene, he walks around with a megaphone that makes fart noises. The final of the three children is the oldest Tina, voiced by Dan Mintz. Tina is useless. She is hands down the worst voiced character on the show. Aside from her monotonous voice, what makes Tina so disappointing is that the outline for a unique character is there, but the creators of the show have failed (so far) to capitalize. Tina was at her best in episode one “Human Flesh,” when it was alluded to that she was autistic, and she couldn’t count three toothpicks that were on the floor. That is really the only time, in three episodes, that Tina’s disability has been touched upon. Even though it may not be “politically correct,” I think Tina could be a much funnier, well-developed character if her autism became more of a focal point. Finally, there is the wife Linda, voiced by John Roberts, who epitomizes obnoxiousness. I honestly don’t think I have laughed once at anything she has said. Overall, as far as characters go, Bob’s Burgers is split pretty much down the middle. Bob and Louise are off to a great start, Tina and Linda are worse than the progressive girl from those idiotic insurance commercials and Gene has his moments, both good and bad.

You got to love a show that has its first episode “Human Flesh” revolve around cannibalism. Pretty great. And although episode two’s “Crawl Space” storyline about the in-laws visiting is played out, it does have certain scenes that make up for it. For example, a character having a wet dream involving zombies or someone hallucinating about a walking, talking night light are not the typical situations you find when channel surfing through the endless amount of regurgitated scenarios on your television. The off-beat humor that Bob’s presents could be its most promising feature. The show has already touched upon topics such as handicaps, puberty and animal cruelty within the first three episodes. These are things you may not see in an entire season of a show. How can you not respect a show that pushes the envelope of originality with its content?

What does the future hold for Bob and his delicious looking burgers? Right now, it is hard to tell. The ratings for the premiere were outstanding but only because there was a large carryover from the NFL playoffs. Weeks two and three saw Bob’s Burgers having much fewer customers. It may be that the humor, at times no better than a dick and fart joke, and at other times subtly brilliant, just doesn’t have a permanent audience out there. Realistically, how many people are going to tune back into a show that has an autistic girl having sexual encounters in her dreams with the undead? I think it’s funny, but for some reason, I don’t think I am with the majority on that one. If you have yet to check it out, I say give it a chance. The characters show some promise, and the adventures that they go on are far from normal. At the very least, Bob’s Burgers differentiates itself from a lot of the other garbage that is on nowadays, so try a bite and see if you like the taste Sundays.

Bob’s Burgers returns Sunday, February 13th at 8:30/9:30c on FOX.

Images courtesy of FOX.

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