The cinematic Easter eggs hidden in Bob’s Burgers
I’ve recently discovered the animated comedy Bob’s Burgers and it’s definitely a show you should be watching. Bob (voiced by the marvellous H. Jon Benjamin) is the head chef and proprietor of the titular burger shack and members of his immediate family (wife Linda son Gene and daughters Tina and Louise) are his only employees. It’s a setup we’ve seen many times in real life but seldom in a TV show. (Have you ever had a neighbourhood pizzeria staffed by one family who never seemed to take a day off? Wasn’t the food great?)
The humour is largely character-based so it’s a good thing that this sitcom’s standard 2.4 children are actually funny for a change. Eldest daughter Tina is all adolescent awkwardness with a shy exterior a bewildering new libido and an almost disturbingly deep voice (the voice of Dan Mintz in fact.) Middle child Gene (Eugene Mirman) is so eager to be acknowledged that he’ll pounce on any opportunity to do something helpful no matter how odd the request. (When Tina says “Gene! Hide my legs!” her brother yells “I’m on it!” and instantly wraps around Tina’s knees like a sarong. Response time is 0.4 seconds; this guy never needs an explanation.) Best of all is youngest daughter Louise (Kristen Schaal) an unpredictable maverick who always wears a pair of pink bunny ears and revels in her uncanny ability to control her parents and siblings.
The characters and scripts are certainly decent enough to make Bob’s Burgers worthy of this Video Vulture’s attention but the multiple hidden film references really seal the deal. Y’see many episodes (perhaps all of them? I’m kind of late arriving at this party) will include one big scene that pays homage to a notable film of some kind. Not just subtle nods but full-on shot-for-shot re-creations of classic scenes. Here’s a few of the ones I’ve spotted so far:
• “Mother Daughter Laser Razor” (Season 3 Episode 10) contains a dream sequence straight out of Terminator 2 (1991). Remember Sarah Connor’s nightmare sequence where she’s frantically shaking a chain-link fence fruitlessly trying to warn some oblivious children in a playground while Skynet nukes the world? Yeah so do the animators of Bob’s Burgers . Tina grabs some fence and does her best Linda Hamilton impression.
• “Moody Foody” (Season 2 Episode 7) finds Bob at the mercy of an unimpressed restaurant critic (voiced by Patton Oswalt). Bob’s attempt to visit the critic at home and make him a better meal turns into a hostage situation. A few of Bob’s fellow disgruntled restaurateurs show up to torment the captive taped-to-a-chair journalist before cooler heads prevail and the intruders finally go home. But not before one of the bitter cooks administers a “wet willy” in the same style as the ear-cutting scene from Reservoir Dogs (1992) dancing around and licking his finger to a tune that sounds suspiciously like “Stuck in the Middle With You” (but is different enough to avoid copyright issues).
• “Bad Tina” (Season 2 Episode 8) has another dream sequence that strongly resembles at least three different film adaptations of George Orwell’s 1984 . The image of Big Brother on the telescreens looks like the version of the film from 1984 but the black-and-white cinematography recalls the 1956 iteration. Oh and Tina runs through the apathetic citizenry like the hammer-thrower from that Ridley Scott-directed Apple commercial but she’s wearing a leotard and leg warmers. (Hey you can’t get much more ’80s than that!)
• “Nude Beach” (Season 3 Episode 11) is a self-explanatory episode which shows two naked men wrestling much like Oliver Reed and Alan Bates in the film Women in Love (1969). I think. (I wasn’t sufficiently devoted to researching this column to actually do a side-by-side comparison.)
• “The Deepening” (Season 3 Episode 6). You’d expect an episode about an out-of-control robot shark to have plenty of references to Jaws (1975) and hoo boy does it ever. Not only does Teddy attempt to do the Robert Shaw blackboard scratch but the film’s finale is hectically re-created with the deadly robot chomping down on primary characters in the middle of the restaurant. As a bonus we get a quick dream sequence of the shark leaping over Tina to freedom à la Free Willy (1993).
• “An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal” (Season 3 Episode 5) might not land with everyone. If you’ve never seen the fanciful Japanese film My Neighbor Totoro (1988) you’ll probably find the absinthe-fuelled fantasy sequence of Bob and family flying away on a giant stuffed turkey a bit odd. Anime fans on the other hand will be howling.
