| “ | “Listen, you’re my children and I love you, but you’re all terrible at what you do here and I feel like I should tell you. I’d fire all of you if I could.” | ” |
- Bob
|
Robert "Bob" Belcher is a third-generation restaurateur, and the main protagonist of the Fox animated series, Bob's Burgers. Bob runs Bob's Burgers with the help of his wife, Linda, and their three kids, Tina, Louise, and Gene.
While poor with business management and cursed with an unlucky streak, his is experience and skill in homemade cusine has helped his restaurant stay afloat, in spite of seemingly constant financial uncertainty, providing for his family all the while. He is voiced by H. Jon Benjamin
Biography
Bob was born to an unnamed mother and Big Bob. His father had a drinking problem and ran a restaurant called Big Bob's Diner. Sometime in Bob's childhood, his mother passed away. Bob was rarely allowed outside and whenever he got distracted, his father would always tell him, "Get back to work, Bob." His father never smiled as he grew. One day, while Big Bob was getting his prostate checked, Bob was manning the grill and made a burger for Henry, who was pleasantly surprised, but then Bob's father showed up. He got mad at Bob and threw away his burger.
When Bob grew up, he left his dad with the restaurant to start his own. He first met Linda in a bar after she accidentally stabbed his upper lip with her engagement ring from her then fiancée, Hugo. The couple got married at city hall and had three children, Louise, Tina, and Gene.
Appearance
Bob has tan skin and black hair like the rest of the family. He is fairly tall. He has a great deal of body hair, which he seems to have inherited from his father. He has receding, black, hair and a visible bald spot. He compensates for this with his signature mustache, which ultimately won the affection of his wife. His ears are noticeably not visible despite his haircut not being sufficient to cover them.
He typically wears a light gray T-shirt, gray pants, and black shoes. While cooking and working at the restaurant, he wears a white apron, though he is oddly never seen with a hairnet. Alternatively, his nightwear consists of a white v-neck T-shirt, sky blue shorts, and brown slippers. He sometimes walks around naked.
Bob has a tattoo of a caricature of his own nose and mustache on his lower back. He got it by force when Bronconius attempts to tattoo a design of his face on a horse's butt instead of the 'official' Equesticle tattoo Bob consented to. [1]
Personality
Well-meaning and sensible, Bob tries to balance out his restraunt life and try to be a good dad and husband. Bob is one of the most realistic and normal cartoon dads out there. Although he regularly misses the due date for rent payments, struggles to make ends meet, and receives little respect from his children, he remains an adamant, hardworking, family man. A testament to his character, he maintains a sunny perspective and faces life's trials with enthusiasm and earnest.
His wife casts a seemingly incompatible contrast, while Bob is introverted, repressed, and sensible, Linda frequently displays a certain youthful exuberance, uninhibited by social standards, and occasionally comes across as harebrained. Proof that opposites do attract, Linda's unwavering support has helped Bob through countless struggles, despite his tendency to become jaded by her childlike enthusiasm.
He has shown a conspicuous capacity for patience, although this patience is so frequently tested by friends, family, neighbours, and rivals alike. He can be brusque with those who ignore his requests or make unreasonable demands of him; however he is typically only uncivil towards those who go out of their way to demean or harass him, namely his neighbor, rival, and fellow restaurateur Jimmy Pesto, owner of nearby Jimmy Pesto's Pizzeria.
Bob frequently tends to anthropomorphize things around him, typically because he feels lonely or neglected, a pattern that seems to have begun as a child, due to his unsatisfying relationships and busy work schedule. One example is in "An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal" where he names a turkey Lance, and develops a relationship with said turkey after becoming inebriated, due to the fact that he spent thanksgiving alone. His difficult childhood, ability to withstand perceived abandonment and unyielding patience for the behavior of his family shows Bob is very resilient and independent.
His greatest fear is failure, as revealed in "The Hauntening", he also had a fear of pigeons but conquered this in "House of 1000 Bounces."
Family Relationships
The Belcher Family and Moolissa
Although Bob's children seem to view him as somewhat of a buffoon, they also care very deeply for Bob, especially his youngest daughter, Louise. His wife, Linda, is very supportive of Bob, helping him get through tough times when he needs it the most. In most episodes, Bob's children either try to take advantage of or demean him, but in many episodes, such as "Bob Day Afternoon", they show how much they care for their father.
Out of all of his children, Tina appears to be the most supportive of Bob and they appear to be very close. In "Tina-rannosarus Wrecks", Bob and Tina are running an errand together, stumble upon an empty parking lot and he lets her take the wheel to practice driving. In "Two for Tina", Tina tells Bob, "Dad, if you believe you're beautiful, you will be. I did." Bob may not always be comfortable with Tina's uninhibited expression of her sexual feelings but he never silences her or encourages her to stop expressing herself. In "The Equestranauts", Tina is tricked into giving away her very rare Equestranauts horse figurine "Chariot". She enlists Bob's help to get her horse back, which includes Bob studiously reviewing every Equestranauts episode and book to ensure his complete knowledge of the series. Bob even goes so far in his quest to get Chariot back by getting a tattoo. In "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?, Bob picks up a second job working at night as a taxi driver so that the family can afford to throw Tina a thirteenth birthday party. Lastly, in "Mother Daughter Laser Razor", Bob takes Tina to get her legs waxed but Tina gets scared at the last minute and asks Bob to get his legs waxed too. Bob ends up getting his legs waxed in solidarity with Tina.
Louise loves to start rumors about her family and her dad's business, often getting him into trouble. In "Human Flesh", she brings one of her dad's burgers into school for Show and Tell, and states that it comes from human flesh.This rumor spreads through town and reaches the health inspector, who temporarily shuts them down while investigating. Louise also seems to share some of Bob's personality traits, such as talking to inanimate objects and wanting to own a restaurant when she is older. Louise appears to care very deeply for her father, even more so than her siblings. Their close relationship can be seen In "Hawk & Chick", as Louise becomes distraught over the possible of losing touch with her father as she ages, or in "Late Afternoon in the Garden of Bob & Louise", when Louise becomes jealous of the attention Bob pays to his plants and to Logan.
Gene tends to annoy Bob with his sound effects from his megaphone, keyboard, or any other technological device.
Gayle flashes Bob while she thinks they are having an affair
He strongly dislikes his mother-in-law, Gloria, primarily her voice and the noises she makes. In "Crawl Space", he hides in a wall for 3 days to avoid her. Bob isn't fond of Linda's sister, Gayle, either. He mentions how he dislikes many of her choices, such as hanging up her animal anus paintings in the restaurant. ("Art Crawl") In "Dr. Yap", Bob hallucinates from the medicine and accidentally kisses Gayle, mistaking her for his wife, Linda. As a result, Gayle falls for Bob as he tries to clear the accident.
Bob learned how to work at a restaurant when he was young working at his father Big Bob's restaurant Big Bob's Diner. Bob seems to hold some resentment toward his father for making him work so much and have so little when he was young as seen in "Bob Fires the Kids". Their relationship is further chronicled in "Father of the Bob".
Little is known about Bob's mother. It is revealed in "The Last Gingerbread House on the Left" that she has passed away. She had a brother called Ernest Lombard who ran 'Lombard's' department store before the mall opened and put it out of business.
In "Uncle Teddy" it is mentioned that Bob has a cousin called Vanessa who is in a cult, it is not made clear whether she is a niece of his mother or his father.
Trivia
- Bob and Linda's wedding anniversary is September 3rd, 1991 which is the same day Loren Bouchard and his wife got married.
- Linda told Bob she was pregnant with Louise at the top of the ferris wheel at Wonder Wharf, which led him to scream at the top of his lungs.
- He was 44 presumably for the first five seasons, and turned probably 45 in The Laser-inth.
- Bob is shown to be forgetful, forgetting his wife's birthday, his 40th birthday, and one of his children's birth (though no specified in Human Flesh which Belcher it is, many believe it is Gene).
- In an alternate reality, Bob is depicted as the alter-ego of super-spy Sterling Archer, a character from another animated television series who is also voiced by H. Jon Benjamin. In this alternate reality, Archer is suffering from retrograde amnesia. He believes his name is Bob and becomes married to Linda (Bobs' wife on Bobs Burgers) and stepfather to Tina, Gene and Louise (Bobs' children on Bobs Burgers). This is canon only to the Archer universe and does not reflect the relationships in the Bob's Burgers series.
- Bob considers himself 'mostly straight.' ("Turkey in a Can")
- Every day at 4:30pm, Bob has a "Business Meeting" in the bathroom. ("Sexy Dance Fighting")
- Bob has hemophilia, and loses atypical amounts of blood from relatively small wounds. ("The Kids Run the Restaurant")
- Bob has an allergy to lobster and cat fur.
- Bob's bald spot is shaped like an upside down burger.
- His bald spot is the exact same size as a mayonnaise jar.
- Posts as BurgerBob on the North Atlantic Burger Lovers forum. ("Uncle Teddy")
- Bob potty-trained all three of his children, due to Linda's weak stomach. ("Turkey in a Can")
- Once tried wind surfing. ("Sacred Couch")
- Most of his family and friends are convinced that his full name is Bob Burger.
- Bob was called "Daddy" by Louise until she was eight.
- He watched Gene eat a fern when he was a baby, and feared he would die.
- He and Linda used to build forts out of the couch cushions with Louise when she was a baby.
- He once let Tina watch "Night of the Living Dead" when she was eight (Crawl Space).
- He brought Tina to the carousel in Wonder Wharf ever since she was a baby.
- Bob would build gingerbread houses with his mother before she died. ("The Last Gingerbread House on the Left")
- Bob has demonstrated a considerable lack of business knowledge or a strong sense of morals, for stopping Gene, Louise, & Tina from selling marijuana and blueberries for the pot farmers Cooper & Beverly. If they had continued to be paid $70 weekly, they could have potentially earned $3,640 each per year, and a combined total of $10,920 annually. ("Bob Fires The Kids")
- He can be brutally honest, like when he tell his kids that they are terrible at their jobs
- One of his fears is for his kids to go to summer school because that means he would have to do the work by himself.
Memorable quotes
- "Listen, you're my children and I love you but you're all terrible at what you do here and I feel like I should tell you, I'd fire all of you if I could."
- "Are we just going to ignore the fact that Louise just pooped in the pool?"
- "Lin, they're anuses. I'm trying to think of worse paintings to hang in a restaurant. Um, nope, I can't think of any!"
- "Ok. Are you telling me as my daughter or as my grill cook? Because my grill cook would never tell me that. Also, my daughter should probably not say anything like that to me. Tell her, tell your mom."
- "Oh my god."
- "Listen, what happened to Hawk and Chick will never happen to us. This Hawk and this Chick will never not talk for 30 years."
Read more at: http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=428&t=20960
Archer version
- Main article: Archer/Bob's Burgers connection
Gallery
- Main article: Bob Belcher/Gallery