Bobs Burgers / Tropes L to Z

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L-M

• Lady Drunk: Linda is implied to be a mild alcoholic, with her love of wine and often drunken demeanor.
• Large Ham: Tammy. She thinks she's popular, but she's really not. She themed her own Bat Mitzvah around herself, complete with a large hanging replica of her head and toothpicks with her face, which she scolds the Belchers for not using. Also, her audition for the school news:
  "WOW, it's Tammy with the news! Whoo! (singing voice) Neeew-eeew-ew-ew-ew-ews... (speaking voice) News."
• The Last DJ: "Long Time Listener, First Time Bob" offers a literal example. Bob is a long-time fan of local disk jockey Clem Clements, who was fired for talking too much, playing music he liked instead of what he was told to play, and generally being too proud to compromise with his bosses. When Bob and his kids discover that Clem has been reduced to working at a local bowling alley, they try to get him re-hired, but Hilarity Ensues when Clem basically hijacks the radio station.
• Laughing Mad: Louise in "Ear-sy Rider" when she's told that her bunny ears have been incinerated and it is too late to save them.
• Learning to Ride a Bike: The episode "As I Walk Through the Alley of the Shadow of Ramps" has Louise's family raise the question of whether Louise is getting too old for her beloved green tricycle, with Bob getting wistful at the notion of teaching another kid to ride a bike. Louise is initially adamant about giving up her "mean green machine," but when Alice the jerkass truck driver runs it over, Bob takes the opportunity to teach Louise to ride a two-wheeler.
• Left the Background Music On: In "Poops!... I Didn't Do It Again", Bob comments that the dramatic music playing when dropping off Louise (that the viewer assumes is a backing track) was pretty intense, as he thought that the classical channel he picked would have played more soothing tunes. A quick switch to a peppy pop song comes too little, too late.
  • Earlier, in "Lobsterfest", Ron tries to remind Hugo of Bob's selfless attempts to set Hugo up with Gretchen. The viewer is treated to a montage of these attempts, set to a slow song about being a wingman... that it turns out Ron was singing the whole time.
    Ron: "Wingmaaan... Wingmaaan... Wingmaaan..."
• Lethal Chef:
  • It's amazing Jimmy Pesto has more customers than Bob, as most people who eat his food complain about how bad it tastes (in contrast to Bob, who generally gets heaps of praise whenever someone eats his burgers). Mickey, when robbing a bank, demands a free meal. Jimmy takes delight at the free publicity when he delivers pizza, only to get humiliated when Mickey shoots the pizza boxes and loudly proclaims Pesto's food is the worst pizza he'd ever had. He once promised his customers a popular musical duo, only for them to bail when getting food poisoning from his scampi. He even tried to make his own burgers to spite Bob, only to cry when he realizes how horrible they taste. And when going head-to-head in a burger-making contest with Bob and a world-class chef, he gets dead last while Bob very nearly wins despite his competition being way out of his league.
  • Some episodes imply Bob is the only exception to this in their town. In "Moody Foodie", three restaurants were reviewed by the titular food critic, the Mexican restaurant shutting down from a bad review. Bob however suggests the Jerkass Has a Point about their food. The sandwich shop purposely uses day old bread, the Chinese restaurant reuses uneaten noodles and the Mexican restaurant, despite the owner himself being Mexican, used a different meat for carne asada and didn't know it was supposed to be beef. Assuming Bob is the only genuinely talented chef in town, it just adds insult to injury that he's the one who gets the least business.
• Lighter and Softer: After the first two seasons depicted the Belchers as a largely Dysfunctional Family, Season 3 onwards shows them as extremely quirky and prone to bickering but a primarily loving and wholesome family, which has only gotten more prevalent as the show continues. The show has also shied away from some of the edgier humor used in Seasons 1 and 2 (especially the former), with later seasons using biting and often adult-oriented humor but not outright dark humor.
• Like Parent, Like Child:
  • Louise has the same Companion Cube tendencies as her father, and employs them under the same circumstances (isolation or emotional distress), almost in spite of her infinitely more nurturing upbringing. Bob also notes that she gets her crazy side from Linda, something Linda acknowledges and validates... however, while Louise inherits her craziness from Linda, her sense of adventure comes from Bob, as seen when Bob helps her ditch a field trip in "Carpe Museum". Louise herself also believes her cunning mind comes from her father.
  • An invoked example in one episode has Gene dressing like and pretending to be Bob, with uncanny accuracy in appearance and behavior. He even drops his Large Ham tendencies and goes completely deadpan when acting as Bob.
  • Both Linda and Gene love attention and making music without any provocation.
  • Both Bob and Tina have No Social Skills and speak in a monotone. However, Tina seems to have inherited Linda's extroversion.
• Limited Wardrobe: The Belchers seem to always be wearing the same outfits...though Bob states in "World Wharf II: The Wharfening" that his usual white shirt is his favorite one (so he would wear it the most often).
• Line-of-Sight Name: In "Synchronized Swimming", Louise did this and somehow came up with Independent Study.
• Little Girls Kick Shins: In "Bob Day Afternoon", Louise does this to Sergeant Bosco when they're fighting over the phone. He kicks back.
  Bosco: Serves you right, kid.
• The Load: In "The Belchies," Louise declares that Tina and Gene are this when they explore an abandoned taffy factory.
  Louise: "You guys are a burden...you are dead weight!"
  • Subverted at the end of the episode, when Louise admits that they were useful and resourceful after all. That said, while she was wrong about her siblings, she arguably hit the nail on the head with Zeke and the Pestos, whose sole contribution throughout the entire episode is getting Louise out of a trap (after having to be freed from one themselves).
• Look Both Ways: Double subverted in "Sacred Cow". The cow is about to get hit by a van when Bob and Randy are arguing, but the van stops just short. Then the cow dies of a heart attack.
• Loose Tooth Episode: The subplot of "Sleeping with the Frenemy" sees Gene about to lose his last baby tooth, which Linda is eager to get because she's been collecting them. When it finally comes out, however, it falls on the beach and gets taken by a seagull. Bob and Gene go to Dr. Yap to try and get a replacement tooth to give Linda, but when the time comes to pretend to lose it Gene accidentally swallows the fake tooth. Linda, however, admits that it wasn't such a big deal, as she already misplaced a lot of the old teeth (much to Bob's annoyance, as the whole series of events could've been avoided had Linda been upfront about this). At the very end of the episode, while on a date, Tina witnesses the seagull vomit out the tooth.
• Lost Food Grievance: Happens with Teddy in multiple episodes. Any time he can't have his usual burger and/or fries, things get ugly.
  • In "Food Truckin'", the Belchers temporarily close the restaurant while they take their business on the road. One day, Teddy is so angry about it that he nearly tries to break into the restaurant by smashing the front window with a brick, but Mort stops him.
  • In "Friends with Burger-fits", Bob feels responsible for Teddy's poor health and refuses to serve him any more burgers. Teddy becomes enraged and threatens to murder Bob and Linda, then breaks down crying, then rips up a stool seat, then proclaims unwillingness to live. He tries to work around Bob's cutoff by paying a stranger $300 to buy him a burger, which he then stuffs in a briefcase and eats in the restaurant's bathroom.
  • In "Sexy Dance Healing", Bob stops thinking up Burgers of the Day as Jairo thinks it's causing him stress. Teddy is shocked at the sight of a blank chalkboard and goes off on Bob, shouting "It's the only constant in my life!" and demanding that the board no longer be blank the next day. He then goes on a rampage in the street trying to punch cars. The next day, Bob starts making Burgers of the Day again and Teddy is overjoyed to see that the board is no longer blank, even though he doesn't find the burger in question appetizing.
  • In "The Horse Rider-er", the restaurant's deep fryer is broken. Linda and the family convince Bob to use their repair funds to send Tina to horse camp, meaning the restaurant stops serving fries until further notice. Teddy is so distraught at Bob's decision that he returns to the restaurant a mere two hours later to angrily ask if the fryer is fixed yet. He copes by buying fries from Jimmy Pesto's Pizzeria, then tries to fix the fryer himself simply by shaking it and exorcising it to no avail. Teddy later calms down and suggests chips as an alternative, but gets mad at Bob again when he says that he doesn't serve chips either.
  • In "They Serve Horses, Don't They?", Teddy taste-tests a burger using meat from a new supplier recommended by Jimmy Pesto. Although the Belchers are appalled at the revelation that their new meat is horse, Teddy becomes accustomed to the new meat and breaks down when Bob tells him that they stopped serving horse burgers.
• Love Triangle: Averted, surprisingly. Any other show would have had Tammy compete with Tina over Jimmy Jr. but, refreshingly, Tammy and Jimmy Jr. have never shown any romantic affection for each other even while working together in "Presto Tina-O"
• Make-Out Point: In "Seaplane!", "Upskirt Kurt" takes Linda to an island frequently used for making out, earning it the nickname "Quickie Kiss-it Island".
• Manchild: Jimmy Pesto's insults towards Bob are first grade level (in fact, most first graders could more than likely think up more mature insults than him).
• Mandatory Line: Since Larry Murphy's promotion to main cast, Teddy has appeared in almost every episode, although many of his appearances are brief, usually sitting in the restaurant as Bob and Linda explain what they'll be doing for the day and not appearing again. Since Teddy almost-always appears in at least one restaurant scene per episode, most of the episodes he does not appear in are ones that have no restaurant scenes at all (such as "It Snakes a Village" and "Work Hard or Die Trying, Girl"), although he sometimes doesn't appear in episodes with restaurant scenes (such as "Hawk & Chick"). In the few episodes where he doesn't appear, Murphy usually voices someone else, but will sometimes still be credited "as Teddy".
  • In "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled", Teddy is out of town during Thanksgiving, but still briefly appears when Bob calls him asking him to pick him and Gayle up in his truck, only for him to reveal that he and his mother are on a singles' cruise.
  • In "Li'l Hard Dad", he literally appears in the last five seconds of the episode. He even asks if he missed everything.
• May–December Romance:
  • Felix Fischoeder's girlfriend Fanny, who appears in the Season 4 finale, is 29, in contrast to Felix being in his late 50's/early 60's. She's clearly just with him for the money.
  • The late Larry Goodwin had graying hair, while his widow Helen appears to be in her late 20's/early 30's. See also: Meal Ticket and Black Widow.
• Metaphorgotten: Louise has gotten a couple in so far.
  • She says she's "...just gonna make like a tree and go to my room" in "Slumber Party".
  • "Tina flew too close to the floor... and hit her face on it."
• Mini-Golf Episode: "Putts-giving" features the Belchers going to a mini-golf course on Thanksgiving morning. It technically doubles as a Thanksgiving Episode, though the holiday is only a minor plot point.
• Missing Mom: Bob's mother Lily died of unknown causes when Bob was around 12-13 years old, and he doesn't remember much about her.
• Mistaken for Gay: In "Turkey in a Can", the clerk at the supermarket thinks Bob is trying to ask him out after Bob is forced to return to the store twice. While Bob insists he just wants a turkey, the clerk says he's in a relationship, but flattered. The clerk later turns the tables on Bob's last visit, and starts flirting with Bob instead as he reveals that his relationship with a man named Tony isn't going so well. Bob turns him down because he's already married, but he encourages the clerk to fix things with Tony and even implies that if he were single, he might have been more receptive.
• Mistaken for Santa: In "Christmas in the Car", Teddy ends up getting his hand stuck in the Belchers' fridge (it's a booby trap set up by Louise). When the Belchers return home, Louise thinks her trap worked and that Santa is actually trapped under there, even after she hears Teddy's voice.
• Mr. Exposition: Episodes tend to start with the family, usually Linda, explaining what and why the other characters are going to be doing that day even though they probably already know.
  Linda: "Oh yeah, your big prize for selling the most candy bars in that school thing"
• Momma's Boy: Gene is a rare example that isn't played for laughs. His relationship with Linda is strong enough that he "claims her" when he and Louise are debating who gets which parent if they get divorced, but their relationship doesn't often follow any of the stereotypes usually associated with this trope.
• Money Dumb: Linda zigzags this trope. On one hand, she is the one to actually manage the expenses of the restaurant, she has an extremely complex system through which she controls bounces with the bank and manages to keep their heads above the water. However, whenever something she, or someone she likes, really wants shows up, she has a terrible time controlling herself with what little money her family has. This is best exemplified in "The Unnatural", where she pawns off Bob's espresso machine to pay for baseball lessons for Gene that everyone warns her to be an obvious scam, and "Yurty Rotten Scoundrels", where she freely loans Gayle money to rent a yurt and make an art workshop, even though she is a terrible artist and even Linda herself admits that it's unlikely they'll ever see a return on that money; Bob even says that this is a recurring occurrence when Gayle is involved.
• Mood Whiplash: A lot of the time, but especially the ending of "Hawk & Chick". As the Belchers are forced to dub a "Hawk and Chick" film live in the theater, Bob's acting quickly descends into hilarious, downright hammy territory. What is this juxtaposed with? The decidedly not-hilarious scenes of Yuki nearly leaving in frustration, Louise confessing her fear that Bob will abandon her, and Bob reassuring Louise that they will always remain close. The switch from hilarious to tearjerking/heartwarming is almost at a breakneck speed.
• Mooning:
  • Bob at Hugo and Ron as petty payback for forcing Lobsterfest on his restaurant. Normally childish for Bob, but it IS Lobsterfest...
  • Bob gets mooned by a random, mean bike owner when the bike owner thinks that Bob is stealing his bike.
  • While Gene and Louise are riding in Mort's hearse, a police officer passes by (as Mort is currently doing a funeral procession). Gene responds by mooning the police officer.
    Louise: Take that, po-po!
• Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls: Tina writes a lot of it, more specifically "Erotic Friend Fiction", mostly involving Jimmy Jr. as her love interest. However, she started writing those because she had already written erotic fanfiction of every TV show, movie and book series she could think of. ^note (For those who want to know what shows and movies she's "perved" up, they are: Twilight, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Cinderella, The Simpsons, Gossip Girl, Sesame Street, ER, Bones, Law & Order, 60 Minutes, Garfield, Beverly Hills, 90210, The Good Wife, and The Muppets.
• Motivated by Fear: Louise's actions in "Hawk & Chick" are underscored by her fear that she and Bob will meet the same fate as Koji and Yuki (namely, that they'll grow apart and not talk for 30 years). It's not entirely obvious at first (it initially seems like she just wants to reunite her and Bob's heroes), but when it comes to light at the end Bob has to step in to personally reassure her that her fear will never come true.
• Motive Decay: In Season 1, Hugo started out jealous that Bob married Linda and is living the life Hugo believes he should have gotten, with his hatred of Bob motivated by his unresolved feelings of resentment. Nowadays, he's since devolved into just tormenting Bob for the hell of it, sometimes barely even acknowledging Linda's presence.
• Motor Mouth: Harley, a guest of Louise's (mom) in "Slumber Party". She just will not shut up.
• MST: Bob and Louise apparently do this regularly and call themselves "The Burn Unit", with the implication that it's been going on for months if not years.
  • Earlier in the series, Bob and the kids do this with the art in "Art Crawl".
• Mundane Horror: Billy Bandana from the subplot of "Video Killed the Gene-io Star". On the surface, he's just a man in a suit with a briefcase full of walnuts that he accidentally leaves behind and comes back for the next day. But he manages to be genuinely unnerving, both because of his Creepy Monotone and the fact that next-to-nothing is revealed around him (even for a show that's not averse to using The Unreveal), including why he has a briefcase of walnuts in the first place. Linda and Teddy think he's a Serial Killer, and by the end of the episode Bob is so creeped out that he agrees with them, with the three also agreeing that they're better off not knowing anything about Billy.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Pretty much the entire series revolves around the mundane activities of life (from sleepovers to science fairs to visiting a farmer's market) and how the Belchers manage to turn them into a grand adventure.
• Musical Episode: This show's getting more and more of these.
• Musicalis Interruptus: Tina in "Topsy"—twice. She only gets one line in before Gene cuts her off the third time.
  Gene: Ok, here's a funny story, you cannot sing.
• Must Not Die a Virgin: From "Food Truckin'":
  Tina: I don't wanna die a virgin!
  Randy: Me neither!
  Tina: Wait, that gives me an idea!
  Bob: No! No!
• My Beloved Smother: Linda has a tendency to go a bit overboard when trying to bond with Louise, and as a result Louise quickly grows tired of Linda's company (especially in the first few seasons). Louise's clear preference of Bob doesn't help matters.
  • In "Motor, She Boat", Gene gets dragged into it as well when Linda takes him and Louise to a fire station open house. Considering how much Gene loves his mother, the fact that he eventually gets sick of it shows just how hard this trope is in play.
  • Overall, Linda does this regarding all of her kids, with Gene taking the least offense to it and Louise taking the most. The end result is that while she's the more loose and fun parent overall, the kids actually consider Bob to be the "cool" parent because he doesn't try to force them into activities only he considers fun (at least, he doesn't nearly as often as Linda).
• My Little Phony: The titular Show Within a Show in "The Equestranauts". It even has a large adult male fanbase.
• Narm: All in-universe.
  • Tina's erotic friend fiction is (obviously, given the name) meant to be sexy and romantic. Tammy instead finds it hilarious, much to Tina's dismay. When Tina reads it out loud to the entire school, it garners a similar response.
  • Linda treats the phrase "crap attack" as if it's an offensive insult. The rest of the Belchers just laugh at the sheer absurdity of the phrase, with all of them wondering what it's even supposed to mean.
• Nature Versus Nurture: "Poops... I Didn't Do It Again!" suggests that at least some of the habits Louise shares with Bob were behaviors she learned directly from him rather than behaviors she just inherited—after all, when someone looks up to another person the way Louise looks up to Bob, they tend to copy their habits. While it's only specifically discussed in regards to one habit (their dislike of public bathrooms), it would explain several of their habits, namely why Louise invokes Companion Cube despite being in significantly different circumstances from the ones Bob was in when he started invoking it.
• Negative Continuity: While the show actually retains a noticeable degree of Continuity, there's no explanation given for how there can be multiple holiday episodes (most prominently Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and to a lesser extent Valentine's Day) with none of the cast having aged between them. Most glaringly, Season 11 depicts two previous Halloweens as flashbacks within its Halloween Episode—not only are these different Halloweens from the supposed "previous" years^note the kids have different costumes and Tina is with them despite skipping trick-or-treating in the previous Halloween episode—literally the only Halloween episode they could've corresponded with is "The Hauntening" given it takes place on October 30 and not Halloween itself, but even that covers just one of the two flashbacks, and not only do the kids look as old as they do now, but Bob is absent, whereas "Full Bars" indicated that up until the current "year" Bob always took them trick-or-treating. This means that, in addition to all the previous Halloweens crammed into one year, there were two more that were depicted off-screen (and meaning that technically, two more years have passed within the "single" year the show takes place in).
  • Birthdays suffer from this as well. While most characters have had only one birthday (such as Tina's 13th in Season 1 and either Linda's 44th or 45th in Season 5), Bob has had two—in consecutive seasons, no less (Seasons 7 and 8)—meanwhile, the rest of the cast hasn't aged at all since their birthday episodes (or, in Gene and Louise's case, they haven't aged at all). This means, assuming Linda's birthday was her 45th, that Bob went from being a year younger than Linda (as he was 44 prior to his first birthday episode, and Linda's came before his) to a year older than her (as he would be 46 after his second birthday episode).
• Never Had Toys: As shown in "Bob Fires the Kids", Bob never had toys growing up (or any real friends, for that matter) due to his father Big Bob always making him work the grill at his restaurant and never allowing him to go out and do anything else. As such, the closest things he had to toys or companions were Mr. Brilly the scouring pad, a spatula, and Mr. Doglovich the dog-shaped bar of soap. In fact, he still talks to inanimate objects now, though usually when he's high or dealing with extremely negative moods, and only when he thinks nobody's watching.
• Never Wake Up a Sleepwalker: Teddy believes in this trope, and goes so far as to restrain Bob when he wakes up anyway, interpreting Bob's complete confusion as him being in a blind rage.
• Never the Obvious Suspect: Parodied in "Hamburger Dinner Theater". When Linda performs a stage play in the restaurant, Louise plays a butler who reacts dismissive to the murders and loudly remarks that the murder weapon is hers. This is intended as a (lazy) Red Herring, with Linda actually being the killer. When the true killer is revealed, the audience becomes angry since clearly The Butler Did It and there were no clues pointing to Linda.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The promotional images for "The Kids Run Away" made it look like Dr. Yap was going to be an antagonist again. He technically is, but only from Louise's perspective, and even then he's more of a Hero Antagonist given he's actually got good intentions the entire time.
• Nice Guy: Skip Marooch, the professional chef Bob competes with in "Best Burger". Though he and Bob are in a competition, Skip is nothing but friendly (especially compared to Jimmy and Chuck Charles within the same episode), he's a graceful winner, and he even shows up at the restaurant to try Bob's black garlic burger because he thought it looked good. "Glued, Where's My Bob?" shows this wasn't a one-time thing; he genuinely likes Bob, considers his food the best he's ever had, and wants to see him succeed as a restaurateur, to the point that he sets up a magazine interview believing Bob will knock it out of the park and even warns Bob in advance when he learns the interviewers are jerkasses. There's no ulterior motive to any of it, there's no dark secret of his, there's not even a mild crack in his demeanor—he's just that nice.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Linda spends all of "Housetrap" believing Helen is a Black Widow. However, she ends up hurting Bob while trying to prove it to him, forcing Bob to take painkillers (something he has a past history of getting absolutely shitfaced on). What this means is that when Bob finds actual evidence that Helen is a Black Widow, he's too woozy to connect the dots. Had Linda just left Bob alone after telling him instead of trying so hard to prove it, her suspicions would have been validated.
• Nightmare Fuel: An In-Universe example in "Hamburger Dinner Theater", where Mort's gory death scene put some people into shock.
  • Another in-universe example in "Sliding Bobs", where Tina's story about Linda marrying Hugo quite understandably freaks out every single member of her family. Louise outright calls Tina a monster.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Gene's picture in "Art Crawl" is described as a ninja robot fighting a vampire tape recorder at Stonehenge. Featuring Ken, his albino friend who does improvised hip-hop.
• Nipple and Dimed: Invoked In-Universe during "Beefsquatch" when Linda gets a live show cancelled by flashing her breasts for two minutes straight.
• Noodle Incident:
  • "The Tickle Boat that killed that guy?"
  • Mr. Fischoeder is a goldmine for these.
    • He was apparently married for a week. No details are given other than it teaching him a lesson about walking away from things.
    • Similarly, he once lost $30,000 on a horse. Not as in betting on horse racing, though, as in he literally placed $30,000 on a horse that promptly ran away with the money.
    • He lost the year 1996 to schnapps. He still doesn't know what the Macarena is, though he's adamant that he'll figure it out on his own.
  • Bob once drank from a spit bucket on a dare from Linda.
  • Bob once pooped out dice.
  • Nat Kinkle once lived in a lake. Not by the lake, in it.
  • Linda remarks that she once gave Gene a fish to prove he was responsible enough to get a dog.
  Gene: I was not.
  Linda:(with Thousand-Yard Stare) That poor fish.
• "No Peeking!" Request: In "Boyz 4 Now", Tina and Louise sneak on the Boyz 4 Now's tour bus. When they're found out, Boo Boo is humiliated now that they've seen him in a booster seat and yells at them not to look at him.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: In-universe; Linda says this trope verbatim upon seeing the many more customers they were receiving thanks to Moolissa standing outside next to the restaurant, who was due to be slaughtered by a documentarian. She calls it the best free publicity the restaurant's ever gotten.
• Not-So-Phony Psychic: Linda in "I Get Psychic Out Of You". After hitting her head and making a few coincidental predictions, she thinks she's gotten psychic powers, and Sergeant Bosco asks her to help him catch a burglar. Eventually, Linda discovers that she wasn't psychic after all when many of the people she made predictions to come back disappointed, but she does help in the capture of the burglar in a roundabout way; he's discovered by Bob when he goes to pick up the kids from the racetrack, where they were going to bet on a horse Linda predicted would win.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Loren Bouchard mentioned in a 2013 interview that Bob's Burgers invokes this.
  Bouchard: We knew we wanted to do that 13th birthday party for Tina in Season 1, and then we swore to ourselves and to anyone who cared to listen that we won't age anybody else. That said, it's really fun to tell coming-of-age milestone stories. Your first Halloween trick-or-treating by yourself just seemed like such a nice one to do. Such a natural and interesting thing to think about for our characters - but from that point on, you can't do that story again. You can't reset the clock. In that respect, they'll age, but it's going to be subtle. In a way, you have to live in this ever-present now for animation. It's tough. But the alternative is worse. What are we going to do? Draw them older and older and have them grow up before your eyes? It seems like not what animation wants to be.
• Now What?: Louise and Tina spend the entire subplot of "Ready Player Gene" trying to build a menu tower that touches the restaurant ceiling. When they actually succeed, they quickly get bored and question what to do with it now. They ultimately settle on ramming into the tower and toppling it, much to the dismay of Teddy and Linda (who'd gotten invested in the tower's construction).
• No, You:
  Bob: Duval, these oysters are spoiled.
  Duval: You're spoiled.

O-T

• Obnoxious In-Laws: Bob can't stand Linda's parents. While originally he seems to just be overplaying their minor flaws, Season 10 and especially Season 11 reveal that Bob has good reason to want to avoid them—they take advantage of Linda regularly and invoke Never My Fault to a degree that would disgust Louise, and Gloria especially is teetering very close to being a borderline abusive parent.
• Occidental Otaku: Both Bob and Louise have expressed interest in Japanese media, primarily the Hawk and Chick film series, which they watch together. Louise also has a stack of manga in her room, and her Kuchi Kopi nightlight is of Japanese origin.
• Odd Friendship: Linda and Tammy's dad, funnily enough, share something of a friendship in "P.T.A. It Ain't So" with Mr. Larsen showing excitement for Linda's party idea and her win for P.T.A. treasurer.
• Odd Name Out: Of the three known males born into the Belcher family, all of them are named Robert—all except for Gene, whose name is unique^note before him comes his father, Bob/Robert Jr., and his grandfather, Big Bob/Robert Sr..
• Old Money: The Fischoeders inherited their wealth from their late father, and in Calvin's case he also inherited Wonder Wharf. This trope is a sore spot for Calvin's employees, who dislike him for not having to work a day in his life while they're busting their backs just to make ends meet.
• One of the Boys: Louise eventually learns to bond with Linda and Tina, but even after that she openly admits she prefers the company of Bob and Gene.
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Downplayed with Henry Haber (a recurring classmate of the Belcher kids) and Henry (a regular customer at Big Bob's who only appears in "Father of the Bob").
  • Also Rudy's (the restaurant Bob enjoys eating at in "Seaplane!"), Pocket-Sized Rudy (real name unknown), and Regular-Sized Rudy (real name Rudolph Stieblitz). Though even then it's still downplayed (the restaurant appears in just one episode, and Pocket-Sized Rudy is mentioned maybe once every other season if that, meaning Regular-Sized Rudy is the only consistently-recurring Rudy of note throughout the series).
  • To differentiate between Bob Belcher Jr. and his father Bob Belcher Sr., the latter gets called Big Bob.
  • The show has had four different 'characters' called Gary - the driver of the candy cane truck in "Christmas in the Car", Sgt. Bosco's brother mentioned in "Stuck in the Kitchen with You," Bob's hemorrhoid in "The Pickle-orette," and Little King Trashmouth's raccoon husband.
• Only Known by Their Nickname:
  • Regular-Sized Rudy's full name is revealed in his debut episode to be Rudolph Stieblitz. While his surname is mentioned once more in "Teen-a-Witch", his full name of Rudolph is never brought up again; he's exclusively called Rudy or Regular-Sized Rudy for the rest of the series.
  • Bob's real name is Robert Jr., but he's only called Robert by three different characters (Randy, Louise, and Nat, with Nat being the only one to call him such more than once)—and Bob's father is the only one to ever call him by the "Junior" at the end.
  • Bob's father's real name is Robert Sr., but he goes exclusively by "Big Bob" or variations of "Dad" and "Grandpa" (most often "Pop" and "Pop-Pop").
  • "My Fuzzy Valentine" has Louise confirm that Gene's full name is Eugene (it was already easily inferred, but this episode cements it in stone). However, aside from the line confirming such he's never called Eugene anywhere else.
  • Pretty much the entire Pesto family, even if one were to ignore how their real surname isn't Pesto, but rather Poplopovich (revealed by Mort in "Burger Wars"). Jimmy Sr. and Jimmy Jr. are both named James, Andy's name is traditionally short for Andrew, and Ollie's name is traditionally short for Oliver—but while Zeke calls Jimmy Jr. "James" in "Presto Tina-o", the other three Pestos are never directly called by their real names^note Jimmy Sr.'s real name can be inferred by his son's, but nothing in-series hints at Andy and Ollie's real names besides what those two names are traditionally short for.
  • Nat Kinkle's full first name is Natalie, which she's only sparingly called by Bob. Ironically, when referring to anyone else she Prefers Proper Names.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You:
  • Hugo in "Nude Beach" with Bob. The instant he learns that Tommy (the replacement health inspector) has sabotaged the restaurant in order to get it shut down, Hugo re-opens it and vows to shut it down himself—and unlike Tommy, he vows to do it legitimately (well, as legitimately as "nitpicking over minor things because of a petty grudge" can mean).
  • Tina suggests in "Slumber Party" that they could just get their parents to send Jessica home... but Louise refuses the easy way out and tries to force Jessica out on her own. While Louise at the least has a reason for not wanting to bring Linda into it (she caused the entire mess), she doesn't give a reason as to why she doesn't just get Bob, especially when Bob himself implies he'd be fine just taking Jessica home because he's already taking the others home.
• Only One Name: Even when his name is written on lists that have other characters' full names (such as those who made the cut of the school news team or a field trip buddy list), Zeke is never given a surname. Downplayed in that he has a middle name (Anthony), but still no surname.
• Only Sane Man: Bob is often this to his family, friends and customers.
  • "Sane" is a stretch when it comes to her, but Louise is often the only one on-task when it comes to adventures focusing on the kids. On occasion she'll even overlap with Bob, and the two will point out something odd together (like Linda feeding Gene his food airplane-style).
• Out of Focus: Mort's appearances have been heavily reduced in recent seasons, despite starting out being almost as prominent as Teddy, who continues to appear in almost every episode. Sometimes, he still appears in the restaurant with Teddy but without any lines. In Season 7, Mort only had speaking roles in two episodes (plus a brief, non-speaking cameo in "Paraders of the Lost Float").
• Overly Long Gag: Whether it's threatening to punch Jocelyn over and over for ten seconds, or making her trademark moan for thirty seconds, Tina has proven to be the queen of this in the series.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: The episode "Hawk & Chick" describes the titular movie series as "featuring the most celebrated father-daughter traveling barber samurais in the history of Japanese cinema."
  • Bob at one point calls Tina his favorite eldest daughter. Considering his other kids are right next to him at the time, being overly specific is arguably necessary.
• Ow, My Body Part!: Linda has a tendency to say, "Ow! My face!" whenever she is injured.
• Painful Body Waxing: Bob, Gene, and Tina in "Mother Daughter Laser Razor". It's also fairly itch-inducing, and Bob and Gene can be seen scratching each other's legs at the end of the episode.
• Papa Wolf: Bob looks out for his kids first and foremost. At one point he even fought Jimmy Pesto after he insulted them... and despite Jimmy being in much better shape than Bob, Bob managed to fight him to a draw. He's also made it clear that no matter what, if his kids need him, he'll be there.
  Bob: (to Louise) Just so you know, I'm always available to come pick you up. Even in college. Or on business trips. Or your honeymoon.
• Parental Favoritism: For the large part it's averted, but it's still oddly reflective of complex real life family dynamics. Although Bob and Linda have activities with one kid that they don't have with the others (such as Bob and Louise playing Burn Unit/watching Hawk and Chick or Linda and Gene's Spa-turday), they try their hardest to be as fair and inclusive as possible to all three of their kids. At the same time however, Bob seems to get along with Louise the best (although he admits Tina is his most supportive child), and Linda seems to get along with Gene the best.
  • Louise and Gene invert it—unlike their parents, they do play favorites and make no attempt to hide it. Louise heavily favors Bob and Gene heavily favors Linda. Unfortunately, this means that their relationships with their same-sex parent are lacking, and in Louise's case it's outright hostile at times.
  • Unlike her siblings, Tina doesn't overtly favor either parent. However, on occasion it's hinted that she favors Bob over Linda. While this might have to do with there being more Bob/Tina episodes than Linda/Tina episodes, overall Tina seems to just have a slightly better bond with Bob (though it's nowhere near as obvious as Louise).
• Parental Title Characterization:
  • Currently, Louise just calls her parents "Mom" and "Dad", but "Carpe Museum" reveals that up until the age of eight (only a year prior to the series) she was still calling Bob "Daddy" (and she briefly lapses back into it at the end of the episode), indicating her close bond with her father. Meanwhile, she's never been known to call Linda anything besides "Mom" or "Mother" unless she's trying to butter her up, indicating that she's nowhere near as close to Linda.
  • Courtney Wheeler often calls her father "Daddy", but it's not out of any sense of closeness (not that they're distant, though), it's moreso because of Courtney's immaturity.
• The Parent-Produced Project: It's all but stated that Doug Wheeler produced the Working Girl musical that was thought to be produced by his daughter Courtney. Courtney hasn't shown significant musical aptitude both before and after this episode (she's shown some but not the level this episode would have you believe), while Doug literally owns a music studio and is a professional songwriter. It serves as a contrast to Gene, whose fairly impressive musical feats (including his own Die Hard musical from the same episode) have all been his own.
• Parody Assistance: The episode "The Belchies" features a song in the end credits that's a send-up of "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" sung by Cyndi Lauper.
• Patriotic Fervor: The Capoeira instructor, Jairo, peppers his warcries with the occasional shout of "BRAZIL!"
• The Perfect Crime: After eating too much pie, and possibly helped along by seeing Tina and Jimmy Jr. kiss, Louise throws up on the pie restaurant's window. Louise surmises that since it's a rotating restaurant, no one will know who did it.
• Perpetual Poverty: The Belchers live a comfortable enough life, but Bob's restaurant always seems to be on the verge of going out of business.
• Person as Verb:
  • "Beefsquatch" has the name of Gene's on-air persona frequently getting used as a verb.
    Linda: [Bob]'s just sad because Gene beefsquatched all over his big break.
  • In "Best Burger", Louise informs her brother that in the family, "Gene-ing out" means to screw things up by getting distracted.
    Gene: Oh my god, I'm a verb! I'm a bad verb!
  • Louise also said Linda ruined her game with Bob saying she "Mom'd it all up." When she asks "Dad's here, did he Dad it all up?" she responds saying the latter is a good thing. Needless to say, Linda is less than pleased to hear that she's a bad verb while Bob is a good verb.
  • In "Itty Bitty Ditty Committee", Linda says that Gene got "David Lee Rothed" after learning he got kicked out of his own band.
• Pet the Dog: Some episodes allow even the most dickish antagonists to display kindness to the Belchers. Even Jimmy Pesto on a couple occasions.
• Ping Pong Naïveté: Most notable with Gene. His knowledge of sexuality seems to be based on Rule of Funny. He appears to think that a BDSM couple are "escape artists" in one episode, after earlier declaring that slapping a dead seal "sounds like an orgy" and intentionally recording his grandparents having sex. Of course, it wouldn't be outside of his personality to just be faking this to peeve people off intentionally.
• Pink Is Erotic: Tina's crush, Jairo, is the headmaster of Capoeira, a "sexy form of self-defence". This is treated as Tina's sexual awakening; as Jairo wears pink neckwear to emphasize the sex appeal and one of the women in the back of the advert wears a pink bikini.
• Playing Both Sides: Louise, when Bob and Gene start playing dirty tricks on each other in "Beefsquatch".
• Police Are Useless: It's a wonder Bosco graduated from the academy. In "I Get Psy-chic Out of You", he turns to Linda (who he assumes is psychic) for help in a high profile case (only catching the criminal by sheer luck). Later, in "World Wharf II: The Wharfening", he disregards Bob's desperate attempts to contact his wife to save his life as drunk texts (even though he's been missing for hours and was last seen going off with a family known to be unstable at best). Even later (in "Bobby Driver"), it's revealed he's shot somebody just because his mother told him to (though he at least refuses to do so again).
  • "I Get Psy-chic Out of You" shows him facing actual consequences for his constant screw-ups—he's on the verge of getting demoted to patrol and only through sheer luck does he solve the case needed to save his job. That episode also suggests that the police's incompetence is limited to Bosco himself. At the same time, however, "Bob Day Afternoon" shows him as the most competent of his team (albeit still pretty incompetent), painting a rather poor image of the police department as a whole.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: The meth-dealing, cop-killing One-Eyed Snakes also have ties to white supremacy movements, if Critter's Suspiciously Specific Denial indicates anything. "Wag the Hog" has another member note that they should probably be more racially tolerant. Interestingly enough, there are some non-white One-Eyed Snakes.
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The show's been doing them since Season 1, but kicked it into overdrive starting in Season 3, to the point that virtually every modern episode title is a reference of some kind.
• Powder Gag: In "Drumforgiven", Louise plans to send a music shop owner a glitter bomb disguised as a present, as payback for banning Gene from playing with the instruments in his shop. She has to abort the plan when Gene arrives to confront the owner himself. After all has been settled, Gene sees the bomb in Louise's hands, thinks it's a present for him, and opens it, covering everyone with glitter.
• Precision F-Strike: The show rarely uses anything more than mild swearing, but rarely doesn't mean never...
  • Linda says this in "The Unnatural" after Bob desperately tries to beat Gene in a baseball game to prove that his baseball coach is a sham:
    "You're such a dick, Bob."
  • Tina's reaction to Boyz 4 Now breaking up in "Bye Bye Boo Boo":
    "Son of a bitch!"
• Prefers Proper Names: Nat Kinkle tends to call Bob by his full name, Robert, and is the only character to call him such more than once; prior to meeting Bob, she demonstrated this by calling Tom Hanks "Thomas Hanks". Bob in turn adopts the habit of calling her by her full name, Natalie.
• Prisoner's Last Meal: In the episode "Lobsterfest", the Belcher kids imagine what their first time eating lobster would be like. For Louise, who imagines herself as a death row prisoner, lobster would be her last meal before being executed. She would then use the claws to attack the guards and escape.
• The Problem with Pen Island: The town's cultural center, "Wharf Arts", which Gene (and even Linda at one point) has naturally read as "War Farts".
• Prone to Tears: Aunt Gayle is extremely emotionally fragile, and the Belchers have to walk on eggshells around her to avoid triggering a full-blown meltdown.
• Pun:
  • From the Store Next Door to the Burger of the Day to most businesses in town, the show practically thrives on puns. Some of the puns are subtle, many are not.
  • If the burger of the day ideas we see are anything to go by, Bob is prone to these.
  • Pretty much every Belcher is prone to it. Bob's just the worst (or best) offender.
  • The shops and the exterminator van in the title sequence always have a different pun to their names in every episode.
  • The episode titles themselves. Many of them are pop-culture references with a word replaced with a major character or concept from the episode.
• Pungeon Master:
  • Bob. Keep an eye on the Burger of the Day on the chalkboard.
  • Really, the whole town qualifies; apparently a prerequisite to opening a business there is a pun in your name.
• Punny Name:
  • Tina and Louise, for Tina Louise who played Ginger on Gilligan's Island; and Gene and Louise for Jean Louise Finch, Scout's real name in To Kill a Mockingbird.
  • Logan's full name is Logan Barry Bush^note as in "loganberry bush". Linda lampshades it, and Logan's mother explains that she and her husband didn't think it through.
• Pushover Parents: Thundergirls Troop 257 is composed of pre-teen Alpha Bitches. As shown in "Motor, She Boat", their fathers are not only terrified of their ruthless, nasty daughters, but constantly seek their approval in a rather pathetic case of "Well Done, Dad!" Guy (one dad even hugs Bob because his daughter won't let him hug her). Contrast this to Bob and Linda, who are also pushovers in the sense that they let their kids get with a lot more than most parents ever would, but still retain enough authority to command some genuine respect from their children.
• Put on a Bus:
  • After Season 1, the zombies from Tina's dreams just vanished... up until Season 4's "The Frond Files", where they're a focal part of her "Why I Love Wagstaff" story. The zombies do also make return in the feature film.
  • Hugo took three bus trips—he was absent for all of Seasons 4, 10, and 12-13.
  • Calvin and Felix Fischoeder were both absent throughout all of Season 10, the only season the brothers were absent from since their respective debuts (and in Calvin's case, the only season he's been absent from period).
  • Jimmy Pesto Sr. is shelved from Season 12 onward, not even having a cameo, after voice actor Jay Johnston was fired for his participation in the the Capitol Hill insurrection on January 6, 2021. He eventually returned in Season 14, now voiced by Eric Bauza.
  • Linda's parents Gloria and Al disappeared after Season 3's "It Snakes a Village" up until Season 10's "Have Yourself a Maily Linda Christmas", though they were occasionally mentioned during that gap.
  • Tina's secondary love interest Josh disappeared after Season 3's "Two For Tina" and only returned in Season 10's "Tappy Tappy Tappy Tap Tap Tap" to resolve his and Tina's relationship status.
  • Mickey the bank robber disappeared after Season 5's "Best Burger" and didn't reappear until Season 11's "Copa-Bob-bana".
  • Marshmallow hasn't had a speaking role since "The Bleakening" in Season 8 (she danced in the closing credits of The Bob's Burgers Movie). This was compounded in 2020 after 20th Television introduced a new policy that voice actors must match the ethnicity of their roles; David Herman was thus released from the role, and though Marshmallow has since been recast she has yet to make a return.
  • Darryl has been absent from the show since Season 9, possibly due to Aziz Ansari taking a brief break from his career due to a sexual misconduct allegation in 2018.^note Ansari is credited with appearing in a Season 12 episode, however, Darryl only appears in a brief non-speaking cameo. It's possible Ansari provided voicework for the episode prior to the allegation and was cut out of the episode afterwards
• Putting the Band Back Together: Linda gathers up the Ta-Tas for a final performance in "Purple Rain-Union", as the title suggests.
• Quirky Household: The Belchers count as this more than they do for Dysfunctional Family. Quirky doesn't even begin to describe them, but at the end of the day they're the most important things in each other's lives.
• Raging Stiffie:
  • In "The Belchies", Linda puts a "penis pill" in Bob's casserole. He's stuck with a boner for the second half of the episode. Linda even asks it to help them find their kids, using the logic that it made them.
  • Gene's reaction to the Marilyn the Manatee puppet; he mentions that she made him feel like he had to pee even though he didn't.
• Rain of Something Unusual: In "Lindapendant Woman", Louise ties frozen shrimp to balloons so that it could rain shrimp in the grocery store. She gets her wish by the end of the episode and is overjoyed.
• Rain, Rain, Go Away: Everyone is pretty down when Lobsterfest is almost rained away... except Bob, of course.
• Rapid-Fire Comedy: The show in general runs on this.
• Realism-Induced Horror: In-universe; Louise is a Nightmare Fetishist who loves outlandish, scary stuff and loves to be terrified. However, it's shown that more realistic fears like getting a cavity filled or growing apart from her father as she gets older terrify her in a way that genuinely upsets her.
  • Another in-universe case—in "Sliding Bobs", Gene and Louise's stories are highly unrealistic, and nobody is upset by them. And then there's Tina's story, which (aside from the whole "wiener dogs" plot point) is dangerously close to a hypothetical reality where Linda stayed with Hugo. It understandably freaks everyone out.
• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic:
  • Averted via the heavy use of improvised dialogue.
  • Unlike many comedy shows, the characters often react to humorous dialogue appropriately. Characters sometimes talk over each other, stutter, pause to let the other continue only to start up again, admit when someone has said something funny, etc.
• Real-Person Fic: Tina likes to write "Erotic Friendfiction", stories about real people she knows (including herself) in a romantic setting. She does this because she's already written erotic fanfic about every other bit of media she can possibly think of.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gene's speech dissolves into this during a pep talk toward the actors in his musical.
• Reconstruction: After so many animated shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy deconstructed the Dom Com format, the show reconstructs it by portraying the Belchers as deeply flawed and individually dysfunctional people, who nevertheless make up a very loving and supportive family that many people can relate to.
• Recurring Extra: Speedo Guy and Large Tommy.
• Recursive Canon: "Bad Tina" reveals that The Simpsons is still a show in this show's universe (as seen in a Freeze-Frame Bonus, it's one of the works Tina has turned into erotic fanfiction). However, several characters in this show make cameos in The Simpsons, most prominently Bob's cameo in the Family Guy crossover and a Couch Gag starring the entire Belcher family, meaning that Bob's Burgers technically exists as a show... within the Bob's Burgers universe. And that's saying nothing about the aforementioned Family Guy crossover, which confirms that Family Guy is also a show in the Bob's Burgers universe, which is even more of a Mind Screw given that show has directly mentioned Bob's Burgers several times.
• Red Herring: Early episodes hinted that if any of Bob's kids were going to inherit the restaurant as an adult, it'd be Tina, and an Imagine Spot in "Sexy Dance Fighting" even shows her working there after having a kid of her own. "Carpe Museum" reveals that one of Bob's kids does in fact want to run the restaurant as an adult, but it's not Tina—it's actually Louise.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Jimmy Jr. is the more reserved blue to Zeke's loud and hammy red.
  • The Belchers are all pronounced in these tendencies too. Linda, Louise, and Gene have red personalities while Bob and Tina seem more blue. However, they're all capable of being the other color if they need/want to be.
• Refuge in Audacity: The pilot is about suspected cannibalism in the restaurant. And then a group of "adventurous eaters" come to eat there believing they're about to eat actual human meat.
• The Reliable One: Tina is this among her siblings, due to being the oldest and by far the least chaotic.
• Repetitive Name: Chuck Charles. Chuck is often a nickname for Charles, meaning his full name would be Charles Charles. Or, at worst, Charlie Charles.
• Restaurant-Owning Episode: Besides being the premise of the show, this trope comes into effect whenever the Belchers try to expand their services, like serving brunch or running a food truck. These are usually the work of Bob's impulsive wife Linda, and her poor planning, compounded by the kids' antics, usually means they're back to normal at episode's end.
  • In "Are You There Bob? It's Me, Birthday", Hugo the health inspector takes Bob on an inspection to show how important his job is. The restaurant they inspect is run by a former stockbroker who had no food service training and opened a wrap restaurant because he thought it would be fun and easy. Hugo finds violation after violation and marks the place with an F, shutting it down before it even opens, and then makes Bob eat one of the wraps, which makes him violently ill. The stockbroker doesn't seem to get the message, as he plans to start a sushi restaurant next.
• Revolting Rescue: Attempted in "Art Crawl". When Andy and Ollie are waiting for customers late at night, Ollie complains that he's cold. Andy says he can cut him open with scissors and crawl inside of him. Before Ollie can do so, however, Louise comes by just then.
• Rimshot: Louise does one for her own joke in "Burger Wars" on a drum set.
• Rise of Zitboy: In "Purple Rain-Union", Bob's singular, gigantic pimple only appears directly before he has to go to Linda's High School Reunion (it isn't that bad at first, but Bob fussing with it makes it worse). It ironically seems to make him more popular.
• Road Trip Plot:
  • Discussed in "Burgerboss"; a throwaway line reveals that Louise plans to hitchhike across America, and she planned on bringing Bob with her. Bob's reaction implies that he has actually discussed these plans with her before.
  • Subverted in "It Snakes a Village". While the Belchers drive to Florida, we see pretty much nothing of the trip itself, to the point that it's glossed over using a map of the United States.
  • "Just the Trip" features the Belchers going on a day-long trip in Nat Kinkle's limo to return a snake to Nat's ex.
  • "Driving Big Dummy" features Bob and Teddy going on what was meant to be a simple afternoon trip across the state to pick up a new sink and drop off a giant dummy head belonging to Mr. Fischoeder. Teddy constantly making stops to talk to people extends the trip to roughly quadruple its original length (it was supposed to be a four-hour round trip, but Teddy takes so long that it goes from late morning to early nighttime before even reaching the halfway point).
• Rogues Gallery: While not in the traditional heroic/villainous sense, there are quite a few recurring characters who torment or annoy the Belchers:
  • Felix Fischoeder, the Cranwinkles, and Dr. Yap tend to antagonize the entire Belcher clan, yet take on Bob the most. While Yap has swapped over to the kids in later seasons, it's worth noting that for the most part they tend to antagonize him first, while in earlier seasons he would torment Bob for no good reason. Yap is also the most rational of the above, and most likely of them to be an ally of the Belchers instead.
  • Phillip Frond tends to antagonize the kids the most, being their guidance counselor and believing that their quirkiness is more harmful than it is beneficial. However, he also has moments of antagonizing Bob and Linda (primarily Bob), and in Season 1 he actually counted more as an enemy of Bob before switching to the kids in later seasons. It's worth noting that Bob seems to hate him even more than Gene and Tina do, arguably as much as Louise does.
  • Jimmy Pesto and Hugo Habercore are Bob's biggest hurdles in life. The former is a rival restauranteur who goes above and beyond to annoy Bob and even damage his business, including trying to buy his house just to drive him away, which in part seems to stem from Jimmy's jealousy for Bob's genuine cooking skills. The latter is a nitpicky health inspector that is hellbent in shutting Bob down if he ever gets the chance, due to the fact Linda left him for Bob, causing Bob to have a much harder time in the restaurant than necessary.
  • Tammy Larsen is Tina's recurring opponent. The girl is a bratty Alpha Bitch that sees Tina as the one she should one-up and humiliate at all costs. While Tina can often be friendly to Tammy, she will rarely do the same, and they have more than once competed over a boy (whether that boy is real or not).
  • Millie Frock is Louise's Evil Counterpart and a full blown sociopathic stalker for her, with her plans revolving around how to force Louise into being her friend. Millie is a surprisingly intelligent enemy, often on par with Louise herself, and is also prone to some quite mischievous and even dangerous actions when her plans go awry.
  • Louise and Linda have a shared enemy in the mother and son duo Logan and Cynthia Bush. Louise quite vocally considers The Bully Logan her nemesis ever since he stole her ears, while Linda vocally hates Rich Bitch Cynthia, who constantly berates her. Although there are a few instances where they work together (such as Louise teaming up with Logan to escape a boring seminar and Linda teaming up with Cynthia to thwart them), they both hate each other too much for that to last longer. Cynthia also clashes with Bob briefly in "Late Afternoon in the Garden of Bob and Louise".
  • Gene's recurring enemy was his Abhorrent Admirer turned rival Courtney Wheeler, an annoying girl with a crush on him that manages to piss off his whole family with her habits, but later episodes shows them making up and even still having lingering feelings for each other. The role of Gene's recurring enemy has since shifted to her father, Doug Wheeler, a Stage Mom that pushes his daughter and often ropes Gene along in his attempts at having artistic achievements.
• Romancing the Widow: More like adorably having a crush on the widow in Teddy's case. Two widows, in fact, the second of whom he does end up dating as of Season 13.
• Rule of Three:
  • According to the title sequence, Bob's Burgers is on their third "Re-Opening", and the restaurant suffered three disasters in the process.
  • Ethan makes up a third rule to invoke this in "The Kids Rob a Train".
• Running Gag:
  • Whenever Gene uses an innuendo in front of Bob, the latter will say "Gene." in an annoyed tone.
  • When there's a shocking revelation, the camera quickly zooms with a dramatic orchestra sting. Sometimes, the camera will zoom in and out on multiple characters' faces individually, all within the span of about two seconds. This was more common in the early seasons.
  • Each of the Belchers has put up with unwanted attention from an Abhorrent Admirer of some kind. Bob had Linda's sister Gayle, Linda had that creepy pilot who tricked lonely housewives into having sex with him, Tina had that boy who was trying to use her to fulfill his fantasy of tasting a TV star's hair, Gene had Courtney Wheeler, and Louise had Millie Frock (though Millie's obsession with Louise was not of the romantic sort, as far as we know).
  • Characters have a habit of mumbling their answers when they want to hide the truth from someone (Linda trying to hide the fact that she sold the espresso machine, Bob trying to hide the fact that he made a veggie burger for Teddy). Predictably, it never works.
  • Whenever Linda finds out about something that one would think would upset her, she looks like she is about to react with anger, but ends up actually being happy about it.
  • Whenever Tina greets Jimmy Jr. when he's accompanied by Zeke, she'll greet the former in a friendly manner and flatly acknowledge the latter. This has lessened throughout the series.
    "Hey, Jimmy Jr. (pause) ...Zeke."
  • Louise making old jokes about Bob. "Hawk & Chick" suggests this isn't just her usual trolly self, but rather that she genuinely believes Bob is that old.
  • The Belchers will come up with some plan with an overly-long name and then put their hands together, reciting that name as quickly as they can. The most recent incident is from "Frigate Me Knot."
• Sadist: Hugo admits in "Are You There Bob? It's Me, Birthday" that he derives pleasure from seeing Bob in immense physical pain.
• Sadist Teacher: Mr. Dinkler, the Thomas Edison-obsessed substitute in "Topsy", at least to Louise. He destroys her science fair volcano and is just a complete prick to her in general.
• Sarcastic Devotee: Louise, the girl who mocks her father and his restaurant daily, is not only a Daddy's Girl, but wants to run the restaurant in the future. Even before these two facts were revealed, it's hinted at in "Bob Fires the Kids", where Louise actually misses being in the restaurant even though she'll be the first to complain about working there.
• Save Our Students: The plot of "Bob and Deliver".
• Scandalgate: When a lunch lady doesn't give Gene enough tater tots, he refers to what happened as "Tatergate."
• Schedule Fanatic: In "Mazel Tina", Tammy demands that Tina keep her Bat Mitzvah running on schedule no matter what. Even when Tammy goes missing at her own celebration, Tina continues to make sure the events proceed on schedule, which means filling in for Tammy and becoming the new star of the party.
• Scout-Out: Tina is a member of a Girl Scouts-esque troop known as the Thundergirls, as revealed in the episode "A River Runs Through Bob". She's revealed to have quit at the start of "Tina, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", but rejoins at the end of that episode.
  • Louise also joins the Thundergirls in "Tina, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", albeit solely to smoke out a mole using her... usual methods. She otherwise looks down on the Thundergirls, thinking of them as a soul-stealing cult, and leaves the troop at the end of the episode with no intention of rejoining unless more crime occurs.
• Screams Like a Little Girl:
  • Mr. Frond has done this on more than one occasion.
  • It's hinted at this by Louise and Gene in "Christmas in the Car".
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Though it's pretty clear which musical will be chosen, Ms. LaBonz instantly chooses "Working Girl: The Musical" in part because Courtney's dad claims to know Carly Simon (plot twist: he does not).
• Second Place Is for Winners: Bob once entered a a burger-off against Skip Marooch, a well-respected professional chef (so did Jimmy Pesto, but he doesn't know anything about burgers and is pretty much a non-factor throughout the entire thing). Bob lost by a narrow margin, but he earned Skip's respect for holding his own and the judges' praise of his burger resulted in both Skip and many members of the crowd coming to his restaurant. Bob may not have won the competition, but he's definitely the one who got the most out of it.
  • The "Boyz 4 Now" subplot has Gene entering a table-setting competition and ending up coming in 4th place thanks to a rather tactless theme cobbled together out of desperation. Gene, Bob, and Linda are still happy about his placement, since it's apparently the highest any of the Belcher kids have ever placed in anything and the person they wanted to beat also lost.
  • In "Paraders of the Lost Float" the family enters a float into a parade in hopes that, with only four other floats competing, they would win the $500 prize for fifth place through zero effort of their own. Unfortunately, Jimmy Pesto has the same idea, and thus the Belchers actually have to work to earn that prize.
• Secret Diary: Tina's diary is how Linda finds out where the kids are in "The Belchies."
• The Secret of Long Pork Pies: The restaurant is nearly shut down after Louise starts a rumor that the burgers are made from the corpses from Mort's crematorium. Hugo wants to do tests to make sure the meat contains less human flesh than "the 4% maximum allowed by the FDA". It's worth noting that Hugo knows from the start that the rumor is fake, he's just drawing things out to spite Bob.
  • The original concept for the series.
• Secret Santa: The B-plot of "Gene's Christmas Break" revolves around Bob, Linda, Teddy, Mort, and Mike the mailman participating in one of these.
• Seinfeldian Conversation: A Once an Episode occurrence, often between Bob and Teddy.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Jimmy Jr. and Zeke respectively.
• Sentimental Shabbiness: In "Sacred Couch," the family buys a brand new couch and discards their shabby old one. However, they soon find they were very attached to the old couch and try to get it back.
• Serial Escalation: Tina's night terrors; they started after she saw the movie Night of the Living Dead when she was younger, and as a result she has vividly terrifying dreams where she is attacked by zombies. Then she hit puberty, and her budding sexuality has caused the dream to now have Tina making out with the decaying undead. Then after an unfortunate incident regarding the thin walls between her room and her grandparents, the zombies now make out with each other with Tina forced to watch while sounding like her grandparents having sex!
• Serial Homewrecker: Shelby Schnabel the sharpshooter only dates married men, to the extent that Mr. Fischoeder has to pretend to be married with kids to have a chance with her. Linda is quick to call her out for what she is.
  Mr. Fischoeder: She left me for a married oil magnate. Then she left him for a married movie magnate.
  Tina: She's a magnate magnet.
  Linda: More like a homewrecker.
  Mr. Fischoeder: Exactly! Which is why I need to give her a home to wreck.
• Series Continuity Error:
  • Gene is shown eating shrimp in the Season 4 finale, despite episodes before and after that one confirming he's allergic to shellfish.
  • In "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled" Bob insists he drive to Gayle's, bringing up Linda's previous attempt to drive in the snow, at which point it cuts to a flashback based on "Christmas in the Car"—but while Linda definitely caused the problems in that episode, Bob himself was the one driving.
• Shaped Like Itself:
  • The songs "Nice Things Are Nice" and "Bad Things Are Bad" from the Season 4 finale. The episode "Lice Things Are Lice" as well.
  • In "Synchronized Swimming", a woman asks Bob for a free sample of chocolate ice cream to see how it tastes. An unconvinced Bob points out that it's chocolate, and "tastes like chocolate tastes".
  • In "Topsy", Louise describes her lost volcano as "volcano-shaped".
• Shared Family Quirks: The Belcher children tend to take a lot of traits from their parents.
  • Gene and Linda tend to be the most musically-inclined Belchers, with Linda constantly breaking into song and Gene often having new ideas for his keyboard. The two both also have Big Eater tendencies (to the point that Linda has been banned from a bakery for taking too many free samples), and both have/had dreams of being famous stars one day (while Linda's dreams have since died down, she still encourages Gene to follow his).
  • Louise has inherited Bob's Shy Bladder, dry wit, Companion Cube tendencies, and even her sense of adventure. Additionally, while Bob tends to be the Only Sane Man, he can be just as vindictive as Louise when the situation calls for it. "Carpe Museum" shows Louise exploit their shared sense of adventure to get Bob to join her in ditching the field trip—while Bob is reluctant at first, he soon gets into it and the two even find themselves bonding.
  • Interestingly, Tina takes after not Bob or Linda, but Gayle, at least in the romantic department. Both of them are boy-crazy to the point of mild perversion, and neither of them can be tied down to one person, but actually keeping a boyfriend tends to go poorly. Both even have a recurring crush on one specific person (Jimmy Jr. for Tina; Bob for Gayle) who can be courteous to them but just as often considers them an Abhorrent Admirer.
• Ship Sinking: Season 10's "Tappy Tappy Tappy Tap Tap Tap" confirms that despite their initial connection, Tina and Josh aren't and never will be a couple, with both agreeing that they're Better as Friends.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page!
• Show With In A Show:
  • The western movie series, Banjo, seen in "Spaghetti Western and Meatballs".
  • "Beefsquatch" features the morning news program, Get On Up.
  • "Family Fracas" features both the titular Game Show and a judge show called Pam's Court.
  • "The Equestranauts" has the title show, a cartoon about horse superheroes.
  • The aforementioned Twincinnati.
  • There's also the Japanese movie series Hawk and Chick, which Bob and Louise regularly watch together, have come to bond over and even become close acquaintances with its main stars.
  • The Gladiators-esque "Supreme Extreme Champions", another show that Bob and Louise enjoy.
• Shy Bladder: "Poops... I Didn't Do It Again!" reveals that both Bob and Louise have trouble using public bathrooms. They both get over it by the end of the episode, and the middle part of the episode even implies they've bonded a bit over their shared troubles.
• Signature Instrument:
  • Gene has a small blue keyboard capable of recording sounds to which he is deeply attached to and is often seen playing (though he plays it less and less with each season).
  • In-Universe, Bob and Gene share a love for a series of western movies called Banjo about a man whose banjo also doubles as a gun and is his signature item, even featuring it in the DVD case of the collection of movies.
• Significant Reference Date: Bob and Linda's wedding anniversary is September 3^note as mentioned in the first episode (which takes place on it), as well as the Season 10 premiere (which takes place a day before, on September 2). September 3 also happens to be the wedding anniversary of the show's creator, Loren Bouchard.
• Simple Solution Won't Work:
  • "Long Time Listener, First Time Bob": When Clem Clements hijacks his old radio station so he can do whatever he wants on the radio again, with the Belchers (minus Linda) caught in the middle, the manager of the radio station asks Patrick, the radio engineer, to shut them down. Patrick admits he does have a button to shut them down, but he also points out they can just enter his booth to press the button again to resume what they're doing since there's nothing stopping them from doing it since he's outnumbered.
  • "Glued, Where's My Bob?": Bob gets superglued to the restaurant toilet due to a misfired prank — on the same day he's scheduled for an interview with Coasters Magazine, no less. A couple of times, characters suggest he simply detach the seat from the toilet, but this isn't feasible because Felix Fischoeder's redesign of their bathroom gave them a seatless toilet.
• Singing in the Shower: Linda, who loves to sing anyway, gets more than one singing in the shower scene.
• Sisterhood Eliminates Creep: In "Better Off Sled", the athlete girls team up to get some payback on Logan Bush for making fun of them (and picking on the Belcher kids).
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Jimmy Pesto, Hugo Habercore, and the Bush family play the closest roles to this.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • In "Lobsterfest," the kids are looking at a pamphlet that Louise says is porn. Bob thinks nothing of it. But once he finds out it's actually about Lobsterfest...
  • Likewise, in the beginning of "Hamburger Dinner Theater", Bob seems perfectly fine with the idea of Linda going to a strip club named Pickles. However, he gets upset when he learns she's actually going to dinner theater.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Actually quite idealistic and heartwarming for an adult-oriented show. The Belchers can reach small yet hard times but they all have each other to get by. They still love each other like a real family, and we love them because of it.
  Bob: Let's go home, live our lives the best we can. I mean, we're poor, but we're happy.
• Sleeping Dummy: Louise makes one of these when sneaking out in "The Belchies", complete with socks to simulate her bunny ears. Gene also makes one using a bag of garbage, while Tina just leaves a note with her name on it.
• Sleepwalking: Allergy medication causes Bob to sleepwalk and put the Thanksgiving turkey in the toilet, thinking he's toilet training Tina.
• Small Town Boredom:
  • "Hawk & Chick" reveals that Louise believes Seymour's Bay to be in the middle of nowhere. When she and Bob meet retired actor Shinji Kojima, she outright asks him if he's lost, because she can't comprehend that someone as important as him is willingly visiting a town as unimportant as Seymour's Bay.
  • "Local She-ro" shows Linda determined to avert it in Tina by taking her on a tour of the town and showing her everything great about it. Her persistence stems from the fact that Linda herself had a case of this when she was younger, something she doesn't look back on fondly.
• Smelly Skunk: Linda gets sprayed a by a skunk in "Eat, Spray, Linda." Worth noting is that the skunk spray acts just like it does in real life, a spray of fluid from it's anus.
• So Unfunny, It's Funny: More often than not, Bob's punny names for the Burger of the Day, as well as his comedy routine in "Beefsquatch". To make matters worse, he seems genuinely surprised when people aren't laughing.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: Invoked in-universe. In "The Millie-Churian Candidate", Peter Pescadero calls Jimmy Jr. a "dick" on Wagstaff School News. Being a school news channel, he gets bleeped and he promptly apologizes. The show itself has never used any language that had to be bleeped out. In fact, "dick" is occasionally (albeit rarely) used uncensored as an insult.
• Spear Counterpart: Tina has Nathan in "Beefsquatch" and Henry Haber in "Carpe Museum". Both take different aspects of Tina up to eleven (Nathan takes her normally-harmless creepiness to Abhorrent Admirer levels, while Henry takes her obsession with certain interests to the point of being obnoxious about it).
• Speech Impediment: Jimmy Jr. with his lateral lisp.
  Tina: You're so annoying.
  Jimmy Jr.: Well, I have a speech impediment, Tina.
  Tina: Well, fix it.
• Speed Dating: Linda sets up a speed dating event at the restaurant in "My Fuzzy Valentine". It doesn't go so well.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To Family Guy. Originally panned by critics and viewers alike as another unnecessary copy of adult animated sitcoms centered on a Dysfunctional Family and appealing to Dark Comedy and Cutaway Gags, Bob's Burgers grew to use the archetype to go into the opposite direction of comedy. A large portion of Bob's appeal is the genuinely heartwarming moments between the quirky Belchers and the lighthearted style of humor that heavily contrasts with Family Guy's dark brand of humor that focuses on the often unlikable Griffins and their Dysfunctional Family dynamics. Additionally, Bob's Burgers almost never undercuts these moments with a cheap gag or joke, something that Family Guy is infamously prone to doing to its own heartwarming moments.
• Spiritual Successor: While it's earned comparisons to King of the Hill due to its quirky characters and realistically grounded (albeit Denser and Wackier) setting, the show also has more left-leaning values, particularly in its unassuming depictions of gender nonconformity and sexuality, than the characteristically conservative Hill. As such, one could say that it's a better liberal version of King Of The Hill than The Goode Family was.
• Spoiled Brat: Due to the Belcher kids living in Perpetual Poverty, many of their rivals tend to be this. Tammy's parents are pushovers and somewhat terrified of her, Bryce and the other Kingshead Island teens are filthy rich bullies, and Louise's nemesis Logan has a My Beloved Smother (though their relationship is volatile). Darryl's bully Tyler from "Burgerboss" runs to his wealthy father when chased by Bob.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Though the show initially focused on Bob's attempts to run the restaurant and the rest of his family's antics in equal measure, later seasons have put Tina, Gene and Louise's adventures at the forefront while Bob and Linda are relegated to secondary subplots that don't factor into the kids' stories, and there are even multiple episodes that either don't feature the restaurant at all or relegate it to a minor set piece for the actual plot of the episode.
• Stage Whisper: Played for Laughs in "Wharf Horse", when no amount of insistence from Bob can stop Linda from stage whispering a plan to manipulate Mr. Fischoeder... right next to Mr. Fischoeder.
• Start My Own:
  • Bob left his father's diner to start Bob's Burgers after his attempts at creativity were stifled.
  • In "Broadcast Wagstaff School News", Louise encourages Tina to do this with her own news show when the current news won't listen to her plea.
  • In "Work Hard or Die Trying, Girl", this is how Courtney reacts to not being allowed in Gene's musical.
• Status Quo Game Show: Double subverted in "Family Fracas". Bob's family gets on the show and amasses a huge win streak, but the wheel of prizes at the end keeps giving them nothing but Fracas Foam. Eventually, the Pesto family is brought on and, through some host-sanctioned cheating, actually wins the minivan that the Belchers were trying to get... but then when Jimmy Pesto and his family try to drive home in it, it gets a flat tire, and Jimmy has no clue how to fix it.
• Status Quo Is God:
  • Nothing stops Hugo from being a complete and utter jerkass to Bob. Nothing. Not even having his job threatened by his supervisor.
  • No matter what, whenever Tina DOES manage to find a boy that likes her in any way, that boy will never be seen again by the next episode and never mentioned again. Or, in the case of Josh, he'll come back but have any romantic connection with Tina ruined by the end of his return episode.
    • Relatedly, even if she manages to win Jimmy Jr.'s affections (usually coupled with a Big Damn Kiss), expect their relationship to be back at square one by the next time Jimmy Jr. appears. This one is actually recognized in-universe, with all of the Belchers (sans Tina) believing that Jimmy Jr. is just leading Tina on.
  • None of Aunt Gayle's love interests seem to last, even those who actually do return her affections. Mr. Frond is the only one to last more than one episode, lasting for seven episodes in Season 6 before Mr. Frond ruins it by cheating on Gayle.
  • "Weekend at Mort's" shows Mort hitting it off rather well with a woman he met online, but she's never seen nor mentioned again after that episode, and "My Fuzzy Valentine" explicitly states that Mort is single.
  • The show runs on the Perpetual Poverty trope, so anytime the family finds any source of financial betterment, expect them to lose it by the next episode or before the end of the episode. They can't even get away with replacing their couch with one they bought with their own money.
  • Louise joins the Thundergirls in "Tina, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", but quits by the end of the episode and reveals that unless there's a murder or drug sting, she won't rejoin for as long as she lives. Tina goes through the opposite scenario that Louise does—she quits at the start of the episode but rejoins at the end.
  • Subverted regarding Boo Boo leaving Boyz 4 Now in "Bye Bye Boo Boo", which is not resolved at the end of the episode or even the end of Season 6. It takes Boyz 4 Now until the premiere of Season 9 to reconcile.
  • Subverted with minor elements: the ice cream machine is shown to be damaged in all subsequent appearances after Bob uses it to stop the mechanical shark in "The Deepening" (although it's still functional), and the Embarrassing Tattoo Bob gets in "The Equestranauts" is still on his back in later episodes. Louise's lofted bed from "Loft in Bedslation" has survived from its debut episode as well.
  • Louise's schemes tend to rarely work in later seasons of the show. Either she's talked out of them (usually by Tina), or goes through with them only to be Out-Gambitted or otherwise fail. If it's about money or for a selfish reason then it's just about guaranteed to crash and burn by the end of the episode.
• Stealth Pun: In "Turkey in a Can", Linda and Gayle help Gene write a song about gravy — "It's a gravy boat, not a navy boat..." then they get sidetracked and start singing about a navy boat that pours sailors onto your food. They specifically say "sailors" instead of... you know, another word for sailors.
• Stock Ninja Weaponry: The ninja star credit card, created by Louise Belcher.
• The Stoner: "Bob Fires the Kids" reveals that several characters around town, including Marshmallow and Mr. Fischoeder, use weed. "Comet-y of Errors" also depicts Mr. Fischoeder in the middle of tripping on mushrooms.
• Strong Family Resemblance: It's prevalent throughout the entire Belcher family, but perhaps the standout examples are the three generations of Belcher men—Big Bob, Bob, and Gene. Bob heavily resembles his father (down to having the same shape of mustache), albeit Bob still has hair on the top of his head while Big Bob is bald. And Bob apparently looked near-identical to Gene as a child, to the point that Gene sees a picture of eleven year-old Bob and actually mistakes it for a photo of himself.
• Stylistic Suck: Anytime a musician appears or a character sings, the lyrics are going to be deliberately awful. Gene and Linda in particular stand out^note Though to Gene's credit, if he's given enough time he can create genuinely good music that wouldn't sound out of place on Broadway.
• Suck E. Cheese's: Family Funtime's name couldn't be more ironic. The owners put games out of order if they think kids are winning too many tickets from them, and Tina prays that there isn't any pee in the ball pit when she hides there in one episode.
• Sucky School: Wagstaff School is among the worst of them. Its staff is almost universally incompetent and/or cruel (with one exception in the straight-laced Ms. Jacobson), it has numerous budget problems (it had to completely cut chemistry from the curriculum as a result), its competitive teams are so bad the trophy case was once converted to a turtle tank, and pretty much nobody of any age likes the place.
• Super Bowl Special: Three restaurants (Bob's, Jimmy Pesto's, and a noodle place) end up using the same retired football player (Sandy Frye) in their local game-day commercials. They even use the same line at the end ("[insert restaurant here] goes great with Frye"), despite the pun in said line really only working for Bob's restaurant.
• Supreme Chef: Despite his lack of business, Bob is a highly talented chef and the only people who argue otherwise tend to be clearly biased against him. His food has impressed world-class chefs and even people who've eaten at much higher-end restaurants claim Bob's burgers are still better.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Teddy eats at Bob's restaurant almost daily, and eats a burger and fries every time. This is shown in "Friends with Burger-fits" to have negative long-term effects on his health—namely, he has very high cholesterol and his doctor is concerned that he could die if he continues to not change his eating habits.
  • Bob runs his business his way, but it's shown he's not very good at anything but cooking. He's shown to have little to no skill in business management and very adverse to change. As such, he consistently rejects things like a Tiki motif by a friend investing because he hates it, or refuses to sell sweet potato fries because he hates them. He also refuses to emulate his rival Jimmy Pesto despite his better amount of customers. Bob also has No Social Skills, preferring to stay behind the grill as opposed to go out and talk with people and get involved with locals. While in most stories this counts as Underdogs Never Lose, it results in his business constantly teetering in bankruptcy, relying mostly on repeat customers. If it weren't for Status Quo Is God, Bob's refusal to budge on how he runs his business would have done more damage than anything.
• Swallow the Key:
  • Tina in "Wharf Horse", though she is tricked into doing it by Louise. As a result, she's stuck with a bike lock around her neck for the rest of the two-part Season 4 finale, only getting it off in the end credits of "World Wharf II: The Wharfening".
  • Bob attempts to do it in "The Wolf of Wharf Street". After failing to do so, he questions how people in movies can do it so easily.
• Switching P.O.V.: A large part of the episode "Work Hard or Die Trying, Girl" is different people telling the story from their perspective. For the kids (especially Louise), this dissolves into Self-Serving Memory at times before they're corrected.
• Take That!:
  • Tori Amos gets a not-very-subtle "tribute" in "Food Truckin'".
  • The subplot of "The Kids Rob A Train" can be seen as one to wine tasters, in particular, pretentious ones. The end of the subplot (where Bob and Linda trick the wine taster into drinking nearly an entire glass of spit) isn't too far-fetched, either, since some experiments actually do show that professional wine-tasters can be easily tricked, despite their "expertise".
  • "The Equestranauts" is one for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and especially its infamous Peripheral Demographic, the Bronies (here referred to as "Equesticles"). Although the Take That! is more aimed at the Bronies than the show itself, since the whole episode is dedicated to mocking Bronies while the actual show is just parodied. Although given the positive reception of the episode by the Brony fandom and the fact that it stands as more of an Affectionate Parody, it being an actual "Take That!" is dubious.
    • While the episode comes off at first like the typical Brony-shaming, the end of it shows more understanding towards the community as mostly decent people (as Bronconius's followers are shown to primarily be peer-pressured into their worse actions, and are actually pretty nice to the Belchers when acting on their own terms—Bob even personally befriends one). The real Take That! is directed at Bronconius, who represents the worst people in the fandom who use their love for the show to mistreat others.
  • "The Hormone-iums" seems to be one towards abstinence-only education, how some programs intentionally lie about how not only sex but any affection works, and overall how this misinformation does more harm than good.
  • "Long Time Listener, First Time Bob" has a rather harsh one against automated radio stations, particularly ones like Jack FM for being super corny and try-hard.
• Tangled Family Tree: Slightly downplayed in that Zeke's family tree isn't so much convoluted as it is massive. However, actually piecing everything together is rather lengthy, as his family is only revealed bit by bit throughout the series, often only in throwaway lines. Among Zeke's relatives include:
  • His mother and father, who got together when Zeke's mother was in high school and Zeke's father was around 50, then divorced when Zeke was a toddler. In the present day Zeke's father would be close to Mr. Fischoeder in age, and is old enough to not only be his son's grandfather but also old enough to be the father of both of his wives.
  • Two paternal half-siblings, one Bob's age (44) and one an infant. The infant might not actually be related to Zeke, however, as Zeke never refers to them as his sibling (simply as his dad's girlfriend's baby).
  • His stepmother Cheryl, who is currently married to Zeke's father. It is unclear whether she's the mother of Zeke's younger half-sibling or if the mother was a previous ex of Zeke's father, but the short timeline between Zeke mentioning both suggests the former. She never appears directly, but has a single line in "Mom, Lies, & Videotape".
  • His cousin Leslie. Leslie appears in "Boyz 4 Now" and "So You Stink You Can Dance" with Zeke also mentioning him in "Carpe Museum".
  • An aunt who smells like coconuts, mentioned in "The Silence of the Louise". It's unclear whether she's Leslie's mother or also Leslie's aunt (which would mean there's an additional aunt/uncle in the mix).
  • His grandmother, who appears in "Midday Run" and "Stuck in the Kitchen with You". The former episode implies that her husband (Zeke's grandfather) is deceased.
• Technical Euphemism: In "The Unbearable Like-Likeness of Gene", Gene admits to Courtney that he never liked her and that he only stayed with her to get closer to her father Doug. Courtney asks if he was using her, and Gene says he prefers to call it "networking".
• Terrified of Germs: Sleepover attendee Jodi, to the point that she has apparently never sat on anything (from toilet seat to car seat). Louise manages to drive her away by exploiting this fear.
• Thanksgiving Episode: Every season since Season 3 has had one. The plots usually involve Bob taking the meal too seriously, or having even his most basic plans derailed by his family's antics.
  • "An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal" (Season 3): Mr. Fischoeder attempts to seduce an Old Flame with a thing for married men by hiring Linda and the kids to pose as his family during Thanksgiving.
  • "Turkey in a Can" (Season 4): Bob tries to solve the mystery of why the turkeys he prepare keep getting thrown in the toilet every morning; Louise tries to clear her name of suspicions; Gene, Linda and Gayle attempt to create a Thanksgiving song; Tina tries to prove she belongs in the adult's table.
  • "Dawn of the Peck" (Season 5): While Bob stays at home drinking, Linda and the kids attend a "running of the turkeys" that leads to swarms of angry poultry rampaging in the streets.
  • "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled" (Season 6): Bob attempts to get Gayle (who's suffering from a broken heart and a broken ankle) to their Thanksgiving dinner while Linda and the kids attempt to make the dinner by themselves.
  • "The Quirkducers" (Season 7): Louise and Gene come up with a plan to get a half-day before Thanksgiving using Tina's erotic holiday fiction; Linda becomes obsessed with a potato that looks like her late grandfather.
  • "Thanks-hoarding" (Season 8): The Belchers end up helping Teddy with a Thanksgiving dinner for his family and discover he’s a (one-room) hoarder.
  • "I Bob Your Pardon" (Season 9): The Belchers are joined by a journalist to save a turkey that was supposed to be pardoned by the mayor but is headed for a slaughterhouse instead.
  • "Now We're Not Cooking With Gas" (Season 10): Bob gets a fancy heritage turkey for Thanksgiving, but a gas outage leaves him struggling to find a way to cook it.
  • "Diarrhea of a Poopy Kid" (Season 11): Gene is struck with an unknown ailment that leaves him quarantined in the bathroom with gastrointestinal trouble; to cheer him up about being unable to eat Thanksgiving dinner, the Belchers tell him a series of food-themed stories.
  • "Stuck in the Kitchen with You" (Season 12): Louise helps Bob cook Thanksgiving dinner for a retirement home. Meanwhile, Gene and Tina try to help Zeke entertain the residents when the cable TV goes out, and Linda tries to help Sergeant Bosco convince his mother to join the guests.
  • "Putts-giving" (Season 13): The Belchers go to a mini-golf course on Thanksgiving morning. The kids accidentally break a yeti animatronic that serves as part of the course, Linda becomes obsessed with getting a hole-in-one despite her clear lack of skill at the game, and Bob is worried about getting home on time to prepare Thanksgiving dinner.
• Theme Naming: Tina, Louise and Ginger.
• Themed Party: "Bobby Driver" has the Belcher kids attending a kid's extravagant The Great Gatsby-themed birthday party. The birthday boy is very uninterested in the party and the kids initially think he's a Spoiled Brat who doesn't appreciate his parents' hard work. They later find out the parents threw the party for themselves so they could post photos of it on social media, while the boy just wanted a low-key pizza party the whole time.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave:
  • Inverted. When Linda runs a bed & breakfast at their home, she is the thing that won't let the guests leave, until they're satisfied by her terms.
  • How Bob views his in-laws. Considering they regularly take advantage of Linda's generosity, his feelings are quite justified.
• Third Wheel:
  • Teddy often ends up being involved in Bob and Linda's situations, whether he's dragged into them or whether he decides to tag along uninvited. In "The Kids Run Away", he decides to crash Bob and Linda's stakeout on Louise, even though he claims that he just happened to be in the neighborhood.
  • Zeke is often the third wheel whenever Tina tries to spend time with Jimmy Jr. As a result, Tina doesn't like him very much.
• 13th Birthday Milestone: The episode "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?" has Tina turning 13 and wanting a party with smoke machines and streamers and to invite a few people from her class, particularly a boy named Jimmy Pesto Jr. Louise takes on the role of the kissing coordinator at the party and the episode ends with Tina and Jimmy Jr. sharing a kiss under the disco ball.
• This Is Gonna Suck: As seen in "Bed & Breakfast", "Mother Daughter Laser Razor", and "Slumber Party", Bob is able to anticipate that something is about to go wrong whenever Linda tries to do something regarding Louise. As seen in those same episodes, Linda tends not to listen to him—and Bob is pretty much always proven right.
• Threatening Shark: A mechanical shark goes berserk in "The Deepening".
• Three Shorts: Ocassionaly an episode will provide a set-up for the three kids to each tell their own story. See the Framing Device entry for a breakdown of the episodes that use this.
• Time for Plan B: In "Mazel Tina", when Tammy and Louise end up getting stuck in a hanging party decoration, Tammy briefly tries to break free with her feet by jumping and stomping. After Tina finds them but refuses to help them, Louise calls for Plan B.
  Tammy: And what is that?
  Louise: Going back to your Plan A. Jump till this thing breaks open! Go!
  Tammy: You got it! (they angrily jump up and down)
  Louise: Oh, my little legs!
• Toilet Humour:
  • "OT: The Outside Toilet" practically speaks for itself, involving Gene befriending a talking high-facility toilet.
  • There's Gene's love of fart jokes, the episode about "The Mad Pooper"... the show actually did this practically Once an Episode, for a while.
  • Gene calls the kitchen sink "the guest bathroom". He's even shown using it as such.
  • Louise apparently uses the bathtub for... yeah. She even tries to kick Bob and Linda out of it because she needs to go and Gene's already using the toilet.
  • "Turkey in a Can" is all about the Thanksgiving turkey ending up in the toilet, with Bob growing increasingly unhinged.
• Token Minority: In Thundergirl Troop 119, Molly is the only girl who appears to be non-white. At least, prior to "Motor, She Boat", which added the similarly dark-skinned Harley to the roster.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Louise and Tina, respectively.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Louise is an example of one of these. Despite being the tomboy to her older sister Tina's girly girl, she wears a dress and a pink hat with bunny ears and seems to have a fondness for the color pink and stuffed animals.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Whenever Teddy offers to help fix a problem, he will always make the problem ten times worse by doing literally everything except the one thing that would solve the problem. Even if the solution is as straight-forward as handing Bob a phone, he will insist on doing something that leads to the problem running for an entire episode. There's also the fact that he doesn't seem to know how to operate an oven or cook Thanksgiving dinner even after Bob gives clear instructions that are impossible to misinterpret.
  • Teddy also provides several literal examples. On two occasions he eats something he's severely allergic to (in one case eating it while driving), and it sometimes gets to a point where one has to wonder how he hasn't died yet.
  • "Christmas in the Car" shows plenty of instances:
    • Everyone in the family but Bob seems to be fine with the idea of tickling a driver (in this case, Bob). Surprisingly, it was Linda who suggested everyone tickle Bob.
    • The kids would have been the first ones to be gravely injured in a car accident for completely ignoring the candy cane truck coming from the road while they were pulling back to the street. Louise blames Bob for expecting them to do more work on that.
    • None of them but Bob can even tell they were truly going to die by a crazed driver in a candy cane truck and instead decide to blame Bob for trying to get them killed.
    • They finally realize the candy cane truck is out to get them when it tries running them all over head on. Even then, they stupidly endanger themselves as they try to make sure it doesn't notice them.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • Gloria was originally an obliviously obnoxious and well-meaning person, and Bob's hatred of her seemed fairly irrational (especially by the end of her debut, where she defends Bob and Linda from Mr. Frond). By Season 10 and especially Season 11, she's become a self-centered Abusive Parent whose only interest in her family's lives is based solely on what they can do for her, and in general Bob's hatred of her becomes rather disturbingly justified.
  • Speaking of Mr. Frond, in his debut episode he was completely incompetent at his job but still well-meaning. His incompetence remains, but by the end of Season 1 and especially Season 2 he's a lot more selfish and vain, with his attempts at helping kids being motivated by self-gain. He goes from yet another poor victim of the Belcher kids' antics to a Karmic Butt-Monkey who deserves quite a bit of his misfortune.
• Took a Level in Kindness: The Belchers themselves. In Season 1, they were a typical Dysfunctional Family who were all (sans maybe Bob) very selfish (with Linda and especially Louise being the worst in this regard). In every season afterwards, they've settled into their current roles as a Quirky Household—even Louise, still the most selfish of the family, has mellowed out quite a lot.
• Train Job: "The Kids Rob a Train", wherein the kids (and Regular-Sized Rudy) break into a train kitchen and steal their chocolate reserves. Bonus points for the chocolate bars resembling gold bricks.
• Trans Equals Hypersexual: Downplayed with the transvestites that Bob meets in "Sheesh! Cab Bob?" who are the only recurring trans characters on the show. While they are sex workers and openly willing to do pretty kinky stuff on the job, they're also pretty respectful people. The most recurring trans character, Marshmallow, interacts cordially with the cast without her profession coming up most of the time.
• Treasure Hunt Episode:
  • "The Belchies" (Season 2): The Belcher kids learn about a secret treasure hidden under a soon-to-be-demolished taffy factory, and go to find it. Tina ends up inviting Jimmy Jr. (who in turn invites Andy, Ollie, and Zeke), and Louise strikes out on her own to find the treasure while Bob and Linda try to find everyone before the demolition starts.
  • "The Secret Ceramics Room of Secrets" (Season 8): The Belcher kids try to find the rumored ceramics room in the school that was walled up in the 1980s after a kiln fire.
• Trolling Translator: When Tina hurts her tongue during cheerleading auditions, Louise volunteers to be her translator, which she uses as an excuse to screw with her. When Tina manages to get a date with Jimmy Jr. despite this, Louise takes the opportunity to set the date at the place she wants to go, a rotating restaurant that only serves gourmet pies.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior:
  • Louise sometimes goes into this, particularly as regards her proclivity toward violence.
  • Gene can manage it at times, despite being in the upper age range for this trope. There's nothing quite like recording your grandparents having sex and playing it in class to merit a visit to the guidance counselor.
  • Linda proved to be capable of this in her younger years. Besides throwing rocks at nearby drivers, she considered calling some bullies pretending to be a Serial Killer for a year suitable payback for being made fun of once (though in hindsight she now seems to consider it overkill).
• Trying Not to Cry: Even more heart wrenching due to the fact that it's Louise...
  • Specifically, Louise has cried twice throughout the series, but this trope has been in play for her many more times, such as the ending of "Hawk & Chick" (where she sounds noticeably choked up as she reveals her fear that she and Bob will grow apart).
• Twitchy Eye: Louise develops this briefly after having her pink bunny hat stolen by a bullying teen. This is a foreshadowing to her psychotic fit that starts mere moments later when questioned by Linda about the hat's absence, and only ends the next day at school when she resolves to get the hat back by any means necessary.
  • She gets it again after they find the ambergris and she becomes consumed with greed when they make plans to sell it on the black market. It doesn't help that she's sleep-deprived.
• Two Decades Behind: The characters make a great deal of 80's and 90's pop-culture references. Somewhat justified coming from the adults (who, based on the show's loose continuity, would have been born at the end of the 60's), but it is much stranger that Bob's Generation-Z children (especially Gene) do this with such frequency.
• Tyranical Town Tycoon: Downplayed in regards to Mr. Fischoeder. He's a corrupt businessman who practically owns the town, including various buildings, businesses, and the local amusement park (the last of which happens to be the town's major source of income). However, he rarely actually abuses his power and seems fine with just leaving his tenants alone until it's time to pay rent.

U-Y

• Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain: Though this is an Informed Attribute due to the animation style, Jimmy Pesto is often acknowledged as being handsome, while Bob is often called some variation of ugly or fat (occasionally both).
• Unconventional Food Usage:
  • In "The Belchies", it's revealed that Mr. Caffrey used taffy to create dummies to fake-out the authorities. Louise finds one of these dummies and has it serve as her companion.
  • Rather disgustingly subverted in "Synchronized Swimming". Bob assumes that Louise threw a chocolate bar in the pool to make it seem like someone took a dump in the water^note He calls it "pulling a Caddyshack", but she actually did crap in the water so that they wouldn't have to perform for the school board.
  • In "An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal", Bob becomes drunk on absinthe and befriends a Thanksgiving turkey that he calls Lance.
  • In "Turkey in a Can", someone keeps putting the Thanksgiving turkey in the toilet, and Bob assumes it's to get revenge. Near the end of the episode, it's revealed that the culprit was Bob, who was sleepwalking and dreaming about when he was toilet-training Tina.
  • In "The Frond Files", Louise reveals a prank she made up called "brownie surprise". The idea is putting a brownie on a chair so someone will sit on it and it'll look like they soiled themselves. She manages to get Mr. Frond with it at the end of the episode.
  • In "Dawn of the Peck", Bob talks to potato chips when he's distraught that he's not cooking Thanksgiving dinner for once.
  • In "Glued, Where's My Bob?", Tina, Gene, and Louise start a prank war revolving around putting sticky stuff in places for someone else to unknowingly touch, including guacamole and hummus.
    Bob: So... just a huge waste of food. And toiletries.
  • In "Ain't Miss Debatin'", Louise sculpts a Meat Man out of leftover burger meat and makes a Stop Motion movie with it.
• Unexpected Kindness:
  • In "It Snakes a Village", Tina and Louise are trapped in quicksand. Gene (who is in the tent) refuses to go after them because he's too nervous that a snake will get him. Louise is infuriated and thinks he'll never save them, but he ends up coming into the woods and pulling them out anyway. Louise even says he's not as cowardly as she thought.
  • In "Slumber Party", Louise discovers that Jessica is a bedwetter. A deeply ashamed Jessica expects her to tell all the other kids at school about this, but Louise says that even she wouldn't do that and agrees to keep it a secret. She even admits that Jessica is pretty good at pillow fights and decides to let her spend the night.
  • In "The Kids Rob a Train", Louise is outside a train with a bag of chocolate. Regular-Sized Rudy tells her to hand him the bag so he can pull her in through the window, and Louise asks him if he's going to just take the bag and abandon her outside. Rudy says he'd never do that, and Louise is flabbergasted because that's what she'd do.
• Unexpected Virgin: "Nude Beach" reveals that Hugo and Linda never slept together while they were dating. While it wouldn't be out of place for someone as pathetic as Hugo to be a virgin, it is a little surprising considering the two were outright engaged (for under a week, but still)^note By extension, this raises the possibility that prior to meeting Bob, this trope applied to Linda as well, which one definitely wouldn't expect given she's quite outgoing.
• The Unfavorite:
  • Tina subverts it. On the surface, Bob seems to get along better with Louise while Linda bonds better with Gene, leaving Tina as the odd one out. However, Bob and Linda go out of their way several times to make sure she knows she's loved equally to her siblings, and whatever hints of favoritism do exist are overridden by the fact that Tina doesn't seem to have any hang-ups about it. It also helps that as a growing teenager, Tina seems to prefer having more space to herself, while Louise and Gene are more energetic and thus require more attention.
  • Gayle is implied to be this for Gloria and Al, especially when we finally see them interact in Season 10 (Gayle's insistence that she's the favorite borders on Suspiciously Specific Denial, not to mention her parents seem infinitely more invested in Linda's life than hers). Considering just how badly Gloria and Al treat Linda, one has to wonder how much worse they've treated Gayle.
  • Felix Fischoeder was implied to be this to his brother Calvin, given his resentment of Calvin as well as how their father left Calvin an inheritance trust, Wonder Wharf, and the Fischoeder mansion (whereas Felix was left nothing of note).
• The Unreveal: In the episode where Louise loses her bunny hat, we never see her bare head completely (though we do see a fair bit of it during the close-up). She has a hoodie on the whole time and when she gets her hat back, she puts it back on over her hoodie.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Mort in episode 6.
• The Un-Smile: Tina's "everything is okay" face, as seen in "Tina-Rannosaurus Wrecks". It makes a return in "The Gene & Courtney Show", just as unconvincing as before.
• Useless Bystander Parent: While not actively abusive like his wife, Linda and Gayle's father Al enables Gloria's nonsense and never sticks up for his kids. It would normally be explained by Al's senility in that he doesn't even recognize what's going on, but Linda implies he's always been kind of useless as a parent even when Linda and Gayle were kids.
• Vague Age: Several of the adults. Bob and Gayle are the only major adults with a confirmed age (Bob was 44 as of "Father of the Bob" and turned 45 in "The Laser-inth"; Gayle is 42 as of "Boyz 4 Now"), whereas the rest are only hinted at.
  • As of "Eat, Spray, Linda", Linda has just turned either 44 or 45 (she cuts her age off after saying "forty-f-"), but it's never made clear which. As a result, it's also unclear whether she or Bob is older (Bob was still 44 at the time of this episode).
  • Mort is over 35, as that's the fake age he uses on his dating profile, and his hair is naturally gray (he's also bald, and he covers up both that and his true hair color with a brown toupee). He also has a visibly elderly mother, all of which would place him as a little older than Bob (around 50 or so).
  • Teddy was a young adult in the 1980's, and "The Wolf of Wharf Street" confirms he's at least in his forties. A throwaway line in "Thelma & Louise Except Thelma Is Linda" indicates he's at least 49 or about to be.
• Valentine's Day Episode: With the exception of Seasons 4 and 10, every season since Season 3 has had one, almost always focusing on one or several of the Belchers' love lives.
  • "My Fuzzy Valentine" (Season 3): While Linda hosts a Single's Day in the restaurant, Bob and the kids go after the perfect Valentine's Day gift for her.
  • "Can't Buy Me Math" (Season 5): Tina and Darryl fake a relationship to hook up with their respective love interests, but Tina soon develops a crush on Darryl for real; Bob and Linda try to make it through a weeklong Valentine's Day advent calendar.
  • "The Gene and Courtney Show" (Season 6): Gene and Courtney become the stars of the morning announcements and rekindle their relationship; Tina, Louise and Linda attempt to fix a mess Tina made with Valentine's Letters; Bob attempts to get last minute carnations to Tina's Valentine's Day.
  • "Bob Actually" (Season 7): A collection of stories of couples in the town. Linda helps a woman get over her break up; Bob and Teddy get dance lessons as a gift for Linda; Louise deals with Regular Sized Rudy's newfound feelings as well as her own; Tina has diarrhea but attempts to get with Jimmy Jr. anyway; Gene falls for a substitute kitchen assistant and helps her make dark chocolate.
  • "V For Valentine-detta" (Season 8): Linda and Louise take Tina for a girls' night out in a limousine on Valentine's Day after Jimmy Jr. breaks her heart; Bob and Gene attend a couple's trapeze lesson.
  • "Bed, Bob, & Beyond" (Season 9): When a movie night fails to end tensions between Bob and Linda, the kids tell stories to try and end their fight, albeit with the ulterior motive of avoiding trouble for breaking Gene's bed.
  • "Romancing the Beef" (Season 11): While Tina attends an "anti-Valentine's" party hosted by Tammy, the rest of the Belchers pounce on last-minute Valentine's Day reservations to give the restaurant a boost in business.
  • "Ferry On My Wayward Bob & Linda" (Season 12): Bob and Linda accept a Valentine's Day dinner invitation from the chef of a fancy restaurant on Kingshead Island. Meanwhile, the kids have a scheme to get cheap Valentine's Day candy, but first they'll have to make it past an unusually strict Jen the babysitter.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: For the most part, the show is a lighthearted (if sometimes biting) romp through the Belchers' coastal town, and none of the antagonists are dangerous so much as they are obnoxious. Cut to the Season 4 finale, where Felix Fischoeder attempts to drown his brother Calvin as well as Bob. Though even then, Felix still has his amusing moments and ultimately pulls a Heel–Face Turn—the true vile villain is Felix's girlfriend Fanny, who not only continues the murder plot after Felix tried to stop it, but also pulls a gun on the rest of the Belchers, being willing to shoot even the kids so that Wonder Wharf can be sold and she can get her nightclub. Not even Felix was willing to go that far, and while Fanny is dealt with quickly it does little to stop her from skyrocketing to the position of darkest antagonist in the entire series.
• Virtual Assistant Blunder: In "O.T.: The Outside Toilet", Gene discovers a high-tech toilet with voice recognition capabilities. Its AI is pretty advanced, but it still makes these blunders occasionally, such as playing the band Wings when Gene asks if it can deploy wings and fly.
  Gene: I'm gonna bet my sisters $1,000 that there isn't a talking toilet in the woods. That's what I call easy money.
  Toilet: Playing artist Eddie Money.
  [rock music playing]
  Gene: No, no, cancel! Undo!
• Vocal Evolution: In the first season, Tina wouldn't speak above a barely audible monotone and usually handled tense situations with an awkward, drawn-out moan. By Season 3, she began speaking up and the moan was replaced with hyperventilation (though the moan does reappear from time to time).
  • The moan comes back in Season 8 "V For Valentine-detta". For 12 hours straight.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Louise is Type 1 with The Pesto Twins. They trust her blindly, no matter how obvious it is that she's only taking advantage of them.
• "Walk on the Wild Side" Episode: In one episode, the normally shy and awkward Tina was influenced by a new student into wearing makeup, dressing scantily, and using lots of slang. Tina was also blackmailed into cutting class with her by being threatened with having her "erotic friend fiction" of him shown to her crush.
• Waxing Lyrical: In "Hamburger Dinner Theater", Gene describes an armed robbery using a lyric from Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Gimme Three Steps" - "When in walked a man with a gun in his hand, and he was lookin' for you-know-who".
• Weaponized Stench:
  • In "Friends with Burger-fits", during an ice wrestling match between Louise and Zeke, Gene uses a fart stored in a jar to disorient Zeke, allowing Louise to win the match.
  • In "Large Brother, Where Fart Thou?", Logan threatens to give Louise a Reverse Norwegian Stinkhold (read: shove her face in his smelly armpit). Gene, however, chooses to take the heat for her, so he ends up getting the full brunt of the stench.
• What Does This Button Do?: Gene and Louise play out something straight from Dexter's Laboratory in an abandoned elevator in "The Belchies". Cue The Walls Are Closing In.
• Whole-Plot Reference: Oh, so very often.
  • "The Belchies", to The Goonies: Louise, Tina and Gene go on an adventure after learning of a treasure supposedly hidden beneath an abandoned taffy factory.
  • "An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal", to Indecent Proposal: Mr. Fischoeder offers financial security to the Belchers in exchange for having Linda pretend to be his wife and having the kids pretend to be his own.
  • "The Deepening", to Jaws: A mechanical shark is released accidentally and terrorizes the town. Among the scenes referenced include Teddy imitating the "nails on chalkboard" scene, one scene between Bob and Linda spoofing the use of the Vertigo Effect, and Teddy saying "we're gonna need a bigger restuarant" (which Bob actually calls him out on).
  • "Bob Day Afternoon" to Dog Day Afternoon
  • "O.T. The Outside Toilet" to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
  • "Family Fracas" to Double Dare (1986)
  • "Christmas in the Car" to Duel
  • "Stand by Gene" to Stand by Me.
  • Bob and Linda's plot in "A River Runs Through Bob" is a parody of the Discovery Channel series Naked and Afraid.
  • Louise's and Gene's stories in "The Frond Files", to The Terminator and Rock 'n' Roll High School, respectively. Tina's is basically an "erotic friend fiction" version of The Walking Dead.
  • "Gene It On" to Bring It On.
  • "Bob And Deliver" to Stand and Deliver (with a bit of Dead Poets Society at the end).
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Parodied in-universe. In "My Greek Fat Bob", Linda hosts a party for Gretchen to sell "LadyGoods" products. Linda assumes she's selling cosmetics but is sorely mistaken when Gretchen begins her sales pitch in front of the kids...
  Woman: Do you think it's appropriate to have the children here?
  Linda: Why wouldn't it be appropriate?
  Gene: Our money's as green as yours, toots!
  Gretchen: Our first LadyGood is called the Joie de Vibe, which we all know is French for "fun".
  (She pulls out a vibrator and turns it on. Linda chuckles nervously.)
  Louise: Ha, ho! I don't know what that thing is, but the look on Mom's face is hilarious! I'll buy it!
• What Is This Feeling?:
  • Louise, upon discovering that her father considered a spatula, a brillo pad, and a dog-shaped piece of soap toys while he was growing up, asks if it's possible to feel sad for another person. Possibly intentionally invoked as a joke, since she doesn't seem to be quite that sociopathic.
    Louise: What is this feeling I'm feeling? Like, I'm sad for another person? Is that a thing? AM I GOING CRAZY?!
  • This hits Louise again at the Boyz 4 Now concert when she develops feelings for the youngest member. Too bad the feeling is to slap him as hard as possible.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The restaurant is "conveniently located on Ocean Avenue", but not only is the state never listed, the name of the town isn't even given—at least, at first. While the Belchers' home state is never verbally stated, "It Snakes a Village" and "V For Valentine-detta" confirm that the show takes place in New Jersey^note "It Snakes a Village" shows that the Belchers' trip to Florida starts in New Jersey, while in "V For Valentine-detta," Tammy says Becky's phone number begins with "201", which is a New Jersey area code. Even before the New Jersey reveal, however, Linda's accent suggested the central Mid-Atlantic region, which was further verified when the creators stated the Belchers lived in that general area. As for the name of the town, "Just One of the Boyz 4 Now for Now" officially gives the area the name of Seymour's Bay (named after the show's editor Mark Seymour and his editing bay).
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • According to "Bed and Breakfast", Teddy has an irrational fear of people in mascot costumes, which Louise tries to exploit. This fear stems from him witnessing his (now-ex) wife cheat on him with a seal mascot, and it's to the point that he lashes out violently when forced to confront said fear head-on.
  • A literal case; Gene has a fear of snakes, as revealed in "It Snakes a Village".
    Gene: I'm not afraid of ghosts, I'm not afraid of sharks, I'm not afraid of cancer, I'm just afraid of snakes!
  • Bob has a fear of pigeons due to an incident in his childhood, but it turns out to be a misremembered scene from The Birds. By the end of the episode he's gotten over it.
• Wimp Fight: Josh and Jimmy Jr. engage in one in during their Dance Off in "Two for Tina".
• World of Pun:
  • If you see the name of damn near any business, odds are it's a pun. "It's Your Funeral" Mortuary to the left of Bob's Burgers, the ever-changing storefront to its right, the exterminators in the Couch Gag...
  • Bob himself notes the entire town has this problem; in various episodes, we see businesses like Who Cut The Keys? (a locksmith) and Waxing Philosophical (a grooming parlor).
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Bob is heavily implied to be a hemophiliac, and even the most minor cut can send him to the hospital for stitches.
• Wrestler of Beasts: Invoked and discussed in "Dr. Yap"; the Prince of Persuasia says that one way to get a girl to like you is to make up a story about fighting and killing a wild animal.
• Wrong Restaurant: When the kids enter the Glencrest Yacht Club in "Burgerboss", Gene orders the butler to bring him a plate of pizza bagels, much to his confusion. In the end, the butler does actually bring him a plate of pizza bagels, but by then Gene isn't interested anymore.
• Yes-Man: Jimmy is almost never seen without his bartender Trev, who keeps agreeing and supporting every jab or joke Jimmy throws at Bob. "What About Blob?" reveals that Trev doesn't always find the jokes funny, he just wants to be Jimmy's friend and finds this trope to be the easiest way to accomplish that. In turn, Jimmy thinks of him as his son... more than his real blood sons, something he has gone as far as to outright admit in front of his kids.
• "You!" Exclamation: Tammy does this to Tina in "Mazel Tina" when she's finally freed from captivity after Tina refused to help her.
• You Were Trying Too Hard: This tends to pop up whenever Linda tries bonding with Louise. She tries to make Louise do things Linda herself likes or things Linda thinks Louise will like, while Louise wants to do none of that stuff. Linda then tries to compensate for it and goes overboard, resulting in nobody having a good time. It's a heavy contrast to how Bob deals with Louise—he just lets her do her own thing and pops in when there's an easy opening for him, resulting in their moments of bonding coming much more naturally.

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