Making Bob's Burgers Is Like Therapy For The Creative Team [Exclusive]
If you've been using "Bob's Burgers" as your own personal form of therapy, you're not alone. The weird, wacky, and truly wonderful TV show (which is switching gears with a brand new movie) walks the tightrope between being funny, heartwarming, offputting, and reassuring oh so well. It doesn't hurt that the series has always centered around an incredibly strong, if unconventional family unit. Sure, you might not know how an episode of "Bob's Burgers" is going to resolve itself specifically, but you can always count on the family coming together to support each other, and it's nice to sit down, watch a half an hour of TV, and know everything is going to be alright.
In an exclusive /Film interview, we talked with co-writer of the series Nora Smith about the magic behind "Bob's Burgers," and the way the writer's are able to capture that sweet and surprising lightening in a bottle. Turns out, if you're going to write about a family with three kids, it helps if you have actually have family:
I mean, we all have kids and we take the stories from trying to be good parents. And our parents — we bring a lot of our real life to a lot of these episodes and the movie. And I think we just want to protect our little, special, unique children and how they're just weirdos. And I think we want Bob and Linda to be that way too, because they have a lot in common with them as well. Linda was very weird when she was younger in a wonderful way.
Therapy with a fry cook
While the Belcher family is certainly adept at worming their way into some buck wild situations, it's not surprising to hear that the show is inspired by real-life families. You know that feeling you get when you think you've finally had a wholly unique experience? "Bob's Burgers" captures every weird quirk and strange childhood fever dream that I thought was unique to me and my family, and that's not a bad thing. It's fun to learn that these things carry over, that siblings fight the same way and dad's all have the same weird hyper fixation, and mom's kind of all have the same hobby. It makes turning on "Bob's Burgers" feel like spending time with your own family ... or like spending time with a therapist. Thankfully you're really not alone here, because Smith seems to agree:
It's a supportive family, and that's just what we want. We want to see that. We want to be around that. We want to work in that world. So I think it was easy. And also, we strive for that in our real life. So I think it's like, there's a lot of therapy going on in the show. Like, what parents do we want to be? What struggles are we going through that we want to see? What are our kids going through? What did we go through as kids? So it's really just processing our lives on screen.
Of course, therapy can be life changing and absolutely vital, but sometimes you don't need a co-payment and a diagnosis, you need a swift 30 minutes with "Bob's Burgers." The cost is much cheaper, but weirdly, you still cry the same amount.
"The Bob's Burgers Movie" sizzles into theaters on May 27, 2022.