Bob's Burgers: The Movie

[BritishHobo]

Anyone planning to see this? I'm looking forward to it, although I've felt a bit bored in the last couple of seasons. It's been in the bag for a while so hopefully will avoid that feeling. It also doesn't have the same kind of hype and baggage that was hanging off The Simpsons Movie, so THAT'S GOOD AS WELL.

Think it's out next week in the UK, not sure about the US. Sorry.

[RHX]

Yeah I'm looking forward to it - only just heard today it was coming out next week which was a lovely surprise.

[Blumf]

Would like to see it, but not sure if I want to go to the pit of post-Covid arseholes that is the cinema.

[dissolute ocelot]

I'm assuming it'll be on Disney+ soon. I'm hopeful they could do something with a bit of adventure and some songs. But unsure if it's one that needs to be seen in the cinema.

Plus I bought Louise Belcher rabbit ears for Halloween last year, then didn't do anything cos of Covids.

[BritishHobo]

My one annoyance is that Disney+ have been airing the new season weekly in the UK but are only up to episode 15. It doesn't make any sense that I'd be annoyed by this, because Bob's Burgers is not a show where you're going to need to have seen the finale to understand the film. It's not plot-heavy. It's not like a Bojack Horseman movie. BUT I'M STILL ANNOYED.

Probably going to binge the last eight or nine episodes this weekend.

[Pink Gregory]

I would happily be in the company of that family for a feature length period.

True it does feel like the series is treading water a bit (especially when really good sister series The Great North is also gradually airing on Disney+) but it's still really great.

That being said I'm really impressed with how grounded the series has stayed - most episodes are still 'a thing that happened at school' or 'something goes wrong in the restaurant', never jumping over the premise for the sake of an outlandish plot.

[BritishHobo]

I do have to say despite my previous post, I did binge the rest of season 12 today and found myself really enjoying it. The Mother's Day episode with Gayle taking the kids to recover a lost family recipe had me howling. It really is the joy in the little foibles of the characters.

[JaDanketies]

Very excited about seeing it. I hope there are plenty of musical numbers. I can't imagine they could do it badly.

Also, South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut is outstanding, and Beavis & Butthead Do America is also better than the average episode. The Simpsons Movie was much better than expected. So it's fair to assume that the movie will be significantly better than the TV show, based on prior experiences, and with Bobs Burgers being so good, the movie has gotta be really good.  I can't even think of any TV show spinoff movies that I was excited about and that were terrible.

[BritishHobo]

Saw this today. Ehhhhh it was okay. Just felt like a long episode really. It made me think that long-running animated shows like this and The Simpsons don't need to do films. They're so elastic in their setting and premise that you can't escalate them in a way that justifies a film. As with Homer and Marge having marriage troubles, and Bart getting into behavioural issues, all the plots in this felt like things the show has already done in numerous ways already.

[Pink Gregory]

Really liked it, yeah it sort of goes along at a steady pace and sort of peters out but in the way that it feels like a long episode of the show they haven't gone for cramming in every minor character or stunt casting a new one though

Spoiler alert

it felt a bit odd to hang a lot of the plot on a character that's only sporadically appeared and even then only in the last few seasons

[close]

.  Songs were nice, animation was nice, it made me feel nice.

Probably unnecessary, but I enoyed it, didn't suffer for being feature length.

Also I'm going to put it here that I find Linda Belcher almost unbearably sexy, so there's that.

[elliszeroed]

Enjoyed this. Felt a super long episode, but with nicer animation. Every family member had a storyline, lots of characters (mainly in the credits), but I didn't see Mort, or Mike the mailman, or those two police officers who were only in the first season, or the Limo driver. Didn't recall if the cousin had been in any prior episodes or not.

Felt more grounded than the Simpsons movie. But didn't feel as movie-epic in terms of story as the SOuth Park or Beavis & Butthead movie. I don't think the style of Bobs Burgers can be made into a fantastic movie, much like a sitcom like Cheers or Fraiser couldn't, without losing something.

[Pink Gregory]

I appreciated that they didn't feel the need to cram all of the extended cast in for recognition's sake. 

[KaraokeDragon]

Had a couple of sleeps since watching this and I think my feelings to it have warmed up quite a bit since then.

I found it just a bit on the thin side laughter-wise but I think it played to what I'd say is probably the show's greatest strength really well, that is how effortlessy it crams in the sentimentality without ever going overboard or being tonally inconsistent.

I think it really doesn't need to exist but of all the things that can be said of it's definitely one of the nicest, so I'm really glad it does anyway ^_^

[JaDanketies]

I really enjoyed it. It had a lot of heart. I got emosh on two occasions although it was a nicely emosh day in general so I was primed for some family warmness

watched it at the pictures. I hope you all caught the bit after the credits. V important

[Blumf]

On D+ now, so we watched it, and if you like the show, you'll like this. However, if you've never seen the show, this isn't a good starting point (Season 1 should be enough to get you up to speed, but why wouldn't you watch it all?)

Not much to say really, they have a really good knack of doing small scale 'epic' stories that remain grounded. The character work on the show is always top notch, and it's no different here.

I consider Bob's Burgers to be a worthy successor to The Simpsons, moving from the Boomer era suburban comfort (that lifestyle's increasing impossibility being lampshaded by the show itself a few times), to a modern day struggle to pay the bills.

So, which film is better, Bob's or Simpson's? That's tricky; The Simpsons Movie had much more going on, enough to justify a full film, but the Zombie era was in effect, so the depth of the characters are compromised, even if they did manage to pull it back from the worst of Zombie Simpsons. Still a bit too schmaltzy for my tastes as well, always the weak point with The Simpsons.

The Bob's Burgers Movie, on the other hand, doesn't really stretch it's legs. We could have had this story in a normal episode (we kinda have). But it's still at the top of it's game, everything right with the show is here. It is a good watch, it's just The Simpsons Movie does more to justify itself, a real film, not just an extended episode.

[JaDanketies]

South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut is the best animated series movie spin-off of all time. Adventure Time had some long episodes that were better than Simpsons or Bobs Burgers movie too.

I'd say the Bobs Burgers movie was better than Simpsons movie in that I would feel inclined to watch it more than once. Would've been about 14 years ago I watched it, in fairness, maybe I could see it again

[Blumf]

South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut is the best animated series movie spin-off of all time

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America a close second.

[JaDanketies]

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America a close second.

I think I might've preferred Bobs Burgers tbh. Beavis & Butthead Do America was very good but it's always been tremendously visually ugly, also it doesn't have any heart. Hope Beavis & Butt Head Do The Universe is better on the visual front, I always expect great things from Mike Judge

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I've been watching the latest series and had the gnawing feeling that it's getting a bit stale (although that could just be my perception, of course). How does the film compare?

I consider Bob's Burgers to be a worthy successor to The Simpsons, moving from the Boomer era suburban comfort (that lifestyle's increasing impossibility being lampshaded by the show itself a few times), to a modern day struggle to pay the bills.

I very much agree with all of that. It does occasionally balls up the money troubles theme though. For example, the episode in which Bob impulsively buys an expensive kitchen knife, which he subsequently destroys (for entirely stupid reasons). it's treated as no big deal, even though it presumably means the kids won't be getting new shoes for a couple of years. You could read it as saying that poor people are just irresponsible.

Beavis & Butthead Do America was very good but it's always been tremendously visually ugly

I've seen the same complaint levelled at Bob's Burgers. Eye of the beholder and all that.

[madhair60]

Also B&BDA is beautiful

[Blumf]

It does occasionally balls up the money troubles theme though. For example, the episode in which Bob impulsively buys an expensive kitchen knife, which he subsequently destroys (for entirely stupid reasons). it's treated as no big deal, even though it presumably means the kids won't be getting new shoes for a couple of years. You could read it as saying that poor people are just irresponsible.

I think you could just see it as some months being better than others cash-wise. Plus the exact details of their day-to-day finances aren't as important as the fact that they are forever beholden to the bank and landlord. Trapped in rentierism.

I do like the underlying idea that Bob is, in fact, a really good cook, but the world doesn't care, more interested in the cheap novelty of Jimmy Pesto's.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I think you could just see it as some months being better than others cash-wise.

It started with Linda ruefully getting several credit cards to pay for the knife, so it seemed like it was supposed to be an unwise, beyond their means, sort of purchase. Ironically, Linda is later the one who instigates the knife's destruction.

I do like the underlying idea that Bob is, in fact, a really good cook, but the world doesn't care, more interested in the cheap novelty of Jimmy Pesto's.

I saw a youtube thing which made the point that, aside from Bob and his cooking, the rest of the Belchers aren't particularly good at their chosen hobbies, but all that matters is that it makes them happy. I thought that was a very sweet idea.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've not watched recent seasons and if I'd paid to see this at the cinema I might have been harsher, but I watched it today and thought it was a gentle, sweet natured ride with some strong gags, it's a shame it wasn't a full on musical, if it had been I'd have loved it a lot more, but this was the kind of nice laid back comedy that I was in the mood for today. 7.5//10

[Mister Six]

This is streaming on both HBO Max and Hulu in the US, as Warners (or one of their subdivisions) funded the film prior to Disney buying up 20th Century Studios, so we watched it on the former last night.

Much like the show has been for years now, it was very enjoyable, warm and comforting while not being hysterically funny. That's fine, though - I like these people and this town enough that any time spent in their company is nice, and the smoother animation, dynamic backgrounds and complex lighting all made the whole thing feel like a substantial upgrade on the regular show.

That said, the script felt a bit underbaked. Partly because the show itself has handled storylines along these lines itself a couple of times (it was only a couple of years ago that Felix was holding the family at gunpoint under the pier!), and partly because the nature of the story - it's all pre-existing characters in the show's main setting - makes any substantial change to the status quo impossible. The Wonder Wharf isn't going to burn down, nothing is going to happen to the regulars, so there's very little tension (I mean, Bob's not going to get shot in the face at any point, but you at least need the illusion of the possibility of change even if the happy ending is baked in, and that's where the hoary old "sitcom characters go on holiday" trope actually comes in handy).

But mostly I felt a little bit let down because it never quite came together at the end. What you need in something like this, I think, is for absolutely everything to pay off - for every character's personal arc to feed into solving the climax, and for the climax to in turn inform their character's transformation. Here, you had Louise proving her bravery by grabbing the fuse, which is grand, but Gene and Tina's resolutions were basically incidental to the thrust of the climax, I don't think Linda had anything in particular to worry about other than the restaurant (which is situational, really) and Bob's defeatism wasn't really played up much in the preceding film or indicated to be a major impediment to what was happening.

As a result, the really strong opening just kind of fizzles out towards the end, and the climax feels, well, anticlimactic. Could at least have done with the villain escaping the cops and confronting the Belchers at home, just to inject a bit of excitement into the ending, but maybe that would have dragged things out a bit too much.

Still a nice way to spend an evening, but I'm glad I didn't pay for it (beyond my usual HBO Max subscription), or bother trekking out to the cinema. I wish there had been a couple more songs, too. Bit of a dry spell in the middle.

[Mister Six]

Oh, and

Spoiler alert

Grover being the villain seemed too obvious because he was the only non-regular character, although I'm surprised to learn he was in some previous episodes that I'd totally forgotten about, and wasn't invented specifically for the film. Also pleased to note that he's played by David Wain, who's great in everything.

[close]

Was interesting to see Gayle and a few of the other regulars in the credits, even though they didn't appear in the film. I wonder if there are a few deleted scenes with them in, or whether this was just a way to acknowledge them because they couldn't work them comfortably into the script? It was quite impressive how many of the characters they managed to work in without it feeling like a distracting cameo-fest (even Jimmy Pesto, albeit in a non-speaking role).

I didn't see Mort, or Mike the mailman, or those two police officers who were only in the first season, or the Limo driver.

Mort got a couple of lines right at the start, before the pavement collapse, moaning about his burger taking too long to make, I think.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

it was only a couple of years ago that Felix was holding the family at gunpoint under the pier!

Somewhat depressingly, that was 2014 (if we're thinking of the same episode).

[Pink Gregory]

Yeah it felt very strongly like a Louise film, but it was like they didn't quite want to give one member of the cast more prominence but really that's usually how it works in the episodes.

As time has gone on I think they've struggled to do much with Tina and Gene (Gene especially, except for that one season when there's a bit of an inexplicable oedipal vibe between him and Linda).  I don't really mind though.

[Mister Six]

Somewhat depressingly, that was 2014 (if we're thinking of the same episode).

Oh god, I'm so old.

[Pink Gregory]

Watching this again and I'm really jazzed by how much time you get to spend with the Fischoeders, especially Felix.

Just casually poking the drum key on the keyboard/organ thing while casually mentioning having a last 'land poo'.

[Mister Six]

I dunno, I always find those two, especially Calvin, very funny. But also I suppose the three of them are the most obvious suspects (and Felix specifically is identified as the prime suspect by the kids), so giving them a bit more screen time makes sense.