[6.0/10] I feel like a broken record when revisiting these early episodes of Bob’s Burgers, but I forget how rough-around-the-edges and downright odd the show could be when it was still figuring out its tone. The subplot where Teddy is chill about a bunch of beetles crawling around his face and then has his face bumped up and swollen from their mating attempts is casually gross. The subplot about Linda discovering the houseguests’ BDSM kinks and trying to keep sex stuff from Gene is a weird mix between raunchy and sitcom-y. And Teddy going on a rampage against people in mascot costumes because he watched his wife sleep with a guy in a seal costume has some comic absurdity to it, but it’s also off-putting and more than a little strange.
Candidly, I feel sheepish leveling that criticism against Bob’s Burgers. One of the things I like about the series is that it’s kooky and more willing to explore the peculiarities of life and we oddballs who inhabit it. But this feels more like Adult Swim-style raunch for the sake of raunch and gross for the sake of gross rather than something integrated into more clever jokes or character beats. Showing my biases, but an episode like this one feels like it leans too far into the show’s Home Movies influences and not enough into its King of the Hill influences.
The characters are also just meaner to one another. Linda is pretty off the rails here, and not in an especially funny way. Bob is rightfully agitated about all of this, and kind of a jerk about it. And even Louise, who's mostly on-brand and vengeful here, is somewhat uncharacteristically cruel toward Teddy.
There’s a few bright spots. Teddy’s status as a “perfect guest” and brushing off atrocities is a solid running gag. Gene is still a fun one-liner machine. And I forgot that this was the origin of Tina’s night-thrashing! Plus, there’s some amusing material about Javed the entomologist calling Linda weird while he talks to his insects.
Overall, this is a tough watch for longtime fans of the show, realizing how off and odd the series seemed in its early days.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2023-02-19T17:11:38Z
[6.0/10] I feel like a broken record when revisiting these early episodes of Bob’s Burgers, but I forget how rough-around-the-edges and downright odd the show could be when it was still figuring out its tone. The subplot where Teddy is chill about a bunch of beetles crawling around his face and then has his face bumped up and swollen from their mating attempts is casually gross. The subplot about Linda discovering the houseguests’ BDSM kinks and trying to keep sex stuff from Gene is a weird mix between raunchy and sitcom-y. And Teddy going on a rampage against people in mascot costumes because he watched his wife sleep with a guy in a seal costume has some comic absurdity to it, but it’s also off-putting and more than a little strange.
Candidly, I feel sheepish leveling that criticism against Bob’s Burgers. One of the things I like about the series is that it’s kooky and more willing to explore the peculiarities of life and we oddballs who inhabit it. But this feels more like Adult Swim-style raunch for the sake of raunch and gross for the sake of gross rather than something integrated into more clever jokes or character beats. Showing my biases, but an episode like this one feels like it leans too far into the show’s Home Movies influences and not enough into its King of the Hill influences.
The characters are also just meaner to one another. Linda is pretty off the rails here, and not in an especially funny way. Bob is rightfully agitated about all of this, and kind of a jerk about it. And even Louise, who's mostly on-brand and vengeful here, is somewhat uncharacteristically cruel toward Teddy.
There’s a few bright spots. Teddy’s status as a “perfect guest” and brushing off atrocities is a solid running gag. Gene is still a fun one-liner machine. And I forgot that this was the origin of Tina’s night-thrashing! Plus, there’s some amusing material about Javed the entomologist calling Linda weird while he talks to his insects.
Overall, this is a tough watch for longtime fans of the show, realizing how off and odd the series seemed in its early days.