Bob’s Burgers
Created by: Loren Bouchard
Starring: H. Jon Benjamin, John Roberts, Kristen Schaal
Fox
Sunday 8:30/7:30c
Fox has long relied on animated shows to fill their Sunday night line-up, and apparently Seth MacFarlane can’t be the only source for them, so the network has turned to Loren Bouchard (Home Movies, Dr. Katz) to come up with a new creation. What he has given us is Bob’s Burgers, a slice of life comedy is more King of the Hill than it is Family Guy, but are audiences interested in this style of comedy? Hopefully so, because it’s a show that has a lot of humor, at least judging from the first episode.
Bob’s Burgers centers on Bob Belcher (H. Jon Benjamin) and his family as they try to operate a burger joint and keep it afloat. The first episode deals with Bob having to juggle his restaurant’s re-re-re-opening, a health inspector that wants to ruin his business, and his wedding anniversary. The humor comes from some wild situations (the store being closed due to allegations the burgers are made of people) but it also stems from the relationships between the characters.
There are absurd and crude jokes at times, but the creators have made sure to focus on the characters and how they interact. The comedy comes from the heart in the family’s relationship, and it’s this kind of comedy that caused people to connect with The Simpsons and King of the Hill. Don’t be confused, this is not The Simpsons, but it does share a lot in common with it, while having its own dry, sardonic style.
Those that are tired of the more random jokes and referential humor of Seth MacFarlane’s stable of shows may find this to be a breath of fresh air. I have to admit that part of my enjoyment of the first episode stems from an enjoyment of Bouchard’s earlier shows and the voice actors that have been cast. If you are a fan of Dr. Katz and Home Movies, I have no doubt that you are the target audience for this show and that you’ll enjoy it. It’s got a lot of the same kind of humor and you’ll jump right into this one. Unfortunately, I know that those shows have their fans but there may not be enough to make the show popular. I hope that people will give this a shot but I can understand if they don’t like it. Humor can be very subjective, and I can also see the simplified art style turning some people off as well.
I don’t know if the show will be a classic, but I enjoyed the first episode enough to want to see the second one, and I hope that it at least sticks around for the rest of the season. I know that I was laughing and that’s good enough for me.
*NOTE* Since writing this, the second episode of Bob’s Burgers has aired. I won’t review the whole episode, but for all the same reasons mentioned above it was very entertaining. Again, this might not become a classic, but for fans of animated series you should really check it out!
I’m giving the first two episode of Bob’s Burgers a 4 out of 5.
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Leave a comment