Bob’s Burgers Is at Its Best When It Talks About Money
Photo Courtesy of Fox
Over the past nine seasons of Bob’s Burgers, Bob Belcher has been trying, and mostly failing, to get something nice for his wife, Linda. That’s nine seasons of last-minute scrambling on birthdays and Valentine’s Days to go on a quest, sometimes with his children, to try to get Linda a gift she deserves. Even in the pilot episode, Bob forgets that it’s their anniversary and has nothing to give her, emphasizing to her that he doesn’t have a present while Linda assumes he’s feigning ignorance to set up a surprise.
In the Season 10 premiere, Bob has actually remembered his anniversary was coming. But per usual, the problem is that Bob has hardly any money. He gets Linda an engagement ring—one that he couldn’t afford to buy her when, or since, he proposed. The ring has a teeny, tiny diamond. (“It wasn’t big,” Bob says. “It was very small.”) And it cost him $329, which he will pay in $15 installments over 24 months. With interest.
And then his children lose it.
Bob’s Burgers is a show about a working class family, addressing modern workday problems like burnout and unpaid internships, and it’s at its best when it’s transparent and specific about money. This episode shows why.
Losing the engagement ring at a water park where the kids are spending the day at is an effective storyline because for years Bob hasn’t been able to come up with a good present, and he finally has one. It also hits extra hard because in past seasons Bob has struggled to pay hundreds of dollars when it’s needed. The fact that Bob mentions the ring was $329, and that he has to pay it over months, makes it extra devastating when it’s gone because you know exactly how much it cost him, and how long he’ll be paying it off.
In a Valentine’s Day episode in Season Three, Bob forgoes buying Linda a $250 porcelain figurine she wants because it’s too expensive, only to end up spending $500 on a sentimental gift from what he thought was one of their first dates—when it was actually a date with another woman. It’s another example of Bob spending money that’s technically in his account but that he knows he can’t really afford to try to make up for years of subpar presents and celebrations.
The amounts of money that cause the Belchers pain aren’t astronomical, and the family isn’t so poor that they don’t have food to eat or a place to live. Instead, they are often late with rent money and bounce a few checks when paying their bills. It’s usually a few hundred dollars that can trip them up—like when Bob wanted to buy a new chef’s knife in Season Five that was $300, and Linda asked the salesperson to spread it out over several credit cards.