Reviews: Bob’s Burgers ‘Work Hard or Die Trying, Girl’

Spoilers Below:

Last week’s Sunday night FOX lineup contained the season premieres of The Simpsons and Family Guy, but unfortunately no Bob’s Burgers. Should I feel weird that this was the show I most wanted to see? Has Bob’s really replaced The Simpsons as FOX’s best cartoon? At the point, in season five of the former, and 26 of the latter, it’s really anyone’s game. “Clown in the Dumps” got an 8.5 last week, so let’s see how things shake out.

This Bob’s episode started with a crisis at Wagstaff Elementary during their musical night, and Mr. Frond brought the Belchers and Courtney & her father into his office to explain the situation. In a flashback, Gene and Courtney each told their side of the story.

Basically, the two battled it out for control of the possible musical, which was yet to be determined. Courtney wanted to do Working Girl the Musical and received Frond’s approval by promising to get Carly Simon to attend. Gene put on his own production, a musical version of Die Hard, in the boiler room below the stage, featuring Andy and Ollie, Regular-Size Rudy, Zeke, Darryl, and Ms. Mirkin on keyboard. However, Gene fired his cast for alleged incompetence, and decided to play all the roles himself in a one-man production.

On the night of the shows, audience members of Working Girl slowly began leaving to attend Gene’s play instead. In a rage, Courtney’s dad threw a shoulder pad at Gene and that’s when Frond put a stop to it all.

Back in the present day, Frond initially called for an end to all current and future musicals, but Gene and Courtney made up and agreed to combine their musicals, forming and performing Work Hard or Die Trying, Girl.

In Case You Missed It:

1) “That keyboard is adorable; did you rescue it from a shelter?” Musical burn via Courtney’s pops.

2) What the H is a “good long Dutch oven cry?” Nevermind, I don’t want to know.

3) Frond telling it like it is: “I’ve come to the part where I blame the parents.”

4) Linda referred to Tina as her “little Sigourney Weaver achiever.”

5) That fat chick, Mrs. Whatsherface, had a Carly Simon t-shirt that read: “You’re Still Vain Tour ’85.”

6) Bob tried to convince Gene to call it a night by saying, “It’s 9:30 and I have a lot of sweat in my underwear.”

7) Courtney has two rows of teeth because her baby teeth never fell out.

When I look back at some of my favorite Bob’s Burgers episodes, it’s obvious that I prefer storylines that focus on the youngest Belchers. If the show’s title has “the kids” in it, it’s almost guaranteed to be a hit. If I had to pick which child I most enjoy plots about (in a weird, Sophie’s Choice kind of scenario) I’d say Tina, with Gene as a close second. In fact, I think Gene’s dramatics were the best part of this episode. I especially liked when he found out the boiler room/potential show space was directly below the stage, and shouted: “Then this is where I want to die!”

However, there’s one thing that can sink the son’s success: a musical episode. If you’ve read any of my past reviews of various shows, you’ll know that I dread episodes that feature of a lot of song and dance. Sure, sometimes they can be very entertaining – The Simpsons are generally great at it – but a lot of times the inclusion of a lot of music detracts from the number of funny lines. I feel like that happened last night.

Don’t get me wrong, it was still a pretty funny episode, and I definitely appreciated the abundance of Die Hard content featured, especially the last sequence, but there just weren’t enough laughs for this to rank too highly among Bob’s Burgers episodes.

I did enjoy the inclusion of some great guest voices: a little bit of Aziz Ansari always helps, and Sarah and Laura Silverman are very much appreciated as their semi-regular characters, Andy and Ollie. Still, there was no Teddy, and the restaurant wasn’t shown for even a second – which meant no “Burger of the Day.”

Perhaps if this episode came mid-season, it would have appealed to me a tad more, but as the kick-off for a 22 or 23-episode year, I would have wanted something a bit more familiar.