Review: Bob’s Burgers “Mom, Lies, and Videotape”

Check the tape.

Spoilers Below

Plenty of animated shows gets into the anthology groove, telling three extra-canonical tales while taking inspiration from religion, mythology, literature, or pop culture. Bob’s Burgers unsurprisingly has a soft spot for this routine, considering the natural storytellers that the Belcher children are. “Mom, Lies, and Videotape” offers a nice twist on the formula, as the fantastical stories attempt to twist themselves into reality.

Since Linda is sick, she cannot make it to Wagstaff’s Mothers and Primary Caregivers Appreciation Cabaret. That means Bob is on recording duty, so he whips out his old camcorder (which Gene and Tina mock as a flux capacitor and a Transformer, respectively). Alas, he is beset by technical difficulties and none of the show is captured. Not to worry, though, as Louise, Gene, and Tina spin tales for their mom about much grander productions than what was actually performed.

Louise introduces us to the western known as “The Town with No Moms,” which has something to do with her playing the mom of an entire town and Regular-Sized Rudy partnering up with her. What it lacks in logic it makes up for in action. Given Louise’s penchant for violence, no surprise “The Town with No Moms” climaxes in a rubber band fight. As an appetizer, it does the trick.

Gene’s class had been assigned a mythological hook, so his story, “Eternally Momternal,” concerns the creation of the first mom. Which culture’s mythology is this, exactly? As Gene informs us, it is a classic combination – Greeks, Romans, Pokémon, Tex-Mex, etc. The meat of his storytelling mostly consists of adding the suffixes “go” and “yo” to names. Conceptually, “Eternally Momternal” is sound. But as for its narrative progression – well, that’s beside the point.

The coup de grâce comes from Tina, who lets her siblings go first so that she could get the hang of what is going on. But that is unnecessary because she has surely known how to weave a tale all along, or maybe she really does learn a lot from listening to Louise and Gene. It is probably more the former. Let us not forget this girl’s extensive bibliography of erotic fan and friend fiction. So it should really be no surprise how glorious it is when her Alien pastiche is revealed to be a Freaky Friday mash-up. Linda questions the unbelievably high production values, but she also accepts them, because it is way too engrossing not to.

Ultimately, it is revealed that a recording of the event is now available online. But Linda declines to watch it. The version that her kids told her is better. Thus the Bob’s Burgers Lesson of the Week: any heartfelt gift to Mom on Mother’s Day is the best version.

Memorable Lines and Obs-burg-vations of the Day:

–Bob’s Burgers always kills it with the camera zooms. Latest example: the crash into Linda’s face when she learns there is no recording.

-“Did I stutter? Because sometimes I stutter, but I feel like I got that out pretty clearly.”

-“Huh? Oh, a baby. Right.”

-“Wait, you saw Caligula?” “You saw Caligula? Wait, what’s Caligula?”