Review: Bob’s Burgers “The Right Tough Stuff”

Arguably the biggest industry impacted by layoffs the last couple of years in show business, the reality TV segment, is still rife for parody and we’ve seen a number of examples of this in adult animation over the years. Whether it’s series like American Idol, The Amazing Race, Masterchef, DDD, and everything else under the sun, there are no shortage of gags that animation producers like to throw out at an audience that has most likely seen some, if not all, of the aforementioned franchises.

In this instance, Bob’s Burgers goes after the classic American Ninja strain of reality shows, but not so much the actual games, just the auditioning process. The aging premise showcases in a number of ways, whether it’d be Linda’s old-fashioned camera, the fact that we’re talking about sending in “tapes” for auditions, and the complete ignorance of social video reels that have flooded streams with far more examples of extreme stupidity than anything Gayle could ever muster. Will younger Bob’s Burgers fans even understand ANY of this? It’s hard to say. Even as a viewer of age I couldn’t help but think this whole bit would’ve worked a lot better had it been done in 2002 (of which it has by the likes of Family Guy, South Park, and others).

The far funnier bit in the episode written by Rich Rinaldi, is Bob’s dance with the electric grinder. Fun fact, the original pilot episode of Bob’s Burgers had at least two stark differences than the show that came after it: 1) Tina was originally a male character named “Daniel” and 2) the original premise of the series was far more macabre with the Belcher family kidnapping their customers and then grinding them into the meat that they would then both consume and serve to their customers. Both of those ideas went away, and the current incarnation of Bob’s Burgers is as a result of a bevy of FOX notes. And while I wish some of this history with Bob’s meat grinder was mentioned and would’ve been a fun dig deeper into the mythos of the classic grinder, I still far more enjoyed Bob’s obsession with the new meat grinder given that I am a bit of a cooking geek and can certainly empathize with Bob’s excitement over his new toy. THAT’S the stuff that makes Bob’s Burgers special.

Ordinarily I would’ve destroyed this week’s episode of Bob’s Burgers because of the cliched, ham-filled A-plot, but Bob’s dance with restaurant equipment makes this episode at least somewhat redeemable.