Review: Bob’s Burgers ‘The Runway Club’
Spoilers Below:
Before we begin, I’d like to point out that I have no idea whether this episode is called “The Runway Club” or “The Runaway Club.” Runway makes the most sense, since the installment dealt with fashion, but FOX’s website has it listed as Runaway, along with numerous other outlets. What’s the answer?!
Regardless of which title is the true one, it was pretty clear that last night’s show was supposed to be a spoof of The Breakfast Club. And if you didn’t get that before watching it, you probably realized this fact in the first few seconds.
Tina, Gene, and Louise arrived at school for a Saturday detention session, along with Jimmy Jr., Zeke, Tammy, and Jocelyn. A flashback revealed the punishments were handed out after Tina and Tammy wore the same sparkly jelly bracelet to school and caused an argument, a fight, and the fire alarm to be pulled. While serving their sentence, Mr. Frond decided to hold a fashion contest (since fashion was responsible for the melee) à la Project Runway, with the winner getting the opportunity to leave detention early. After competing against each other in teams for two rounds, the Principal tried to shut the whole thing down. However, the kids challenged Mr. Frond to compete against them himself, which he couldn’t turn down. In the end, the students bested the master and won their freedom.
Meanwhile, Bob and Linda were asked to buy magazine subscriptions as part of a fundraiser, but became suspicious that they were being scammed. After making this accusation, the Belchers felt bad (and pressured) and bought 20 – still unsure whether it was a hustle or not. In the process, they tricked Jimmy Pesto into buying even more.
In Case You Missed It:
1) Next door store: Shelfies – Pictures of Shelves
2) Burger of the Day: Let’s Give ‘Em Something Shiitake ‘Bout Burger,
3) The Mr. Frond bathroom graffiti read: “Sweater vest? More like sweater mess!”
4) Gene, upon learning they would be using the CPR dummy as a fashion model: “Good news for us because that dummy looks hot in anything!”
5) The Belcher Family Motto: “Maybe we’ll get lucky this time,” (according to Tina) or “Stop touching that; you’re getting it all greasy,” (according to Gene).
6) Are there enough David Schwimmer movies to make a marathon? According to IMDB, there actually is.
7) The detention fashion show competition was called “Scared Fabulous.”
8) Mr. Bronka’s fashion taste: “I like clean lines and simple silhouettes!”
9) The first magazine issues will arrive in 10-12-18 weeks.
10) In the closing musical sequence, the kids can be seen dancing in the background with cotton candy from the festival.
The parodying in this episode was twofold. First, as I previously mentioned, it was obviously a nod to The Breakfast Club, from the detention setting, to the music, to the mismatched student personalities, to the resolution that involved the whole group working together. However, most of the middle had nothing to do with the film, and everything to do with Project Runway, the inspiration behind the fashion competition, and the title – assuming it’s actually called “The Runway Club.”
As much as this was a pretty even split, I would have enjoyed more Breakfast Club gags intertwined with the fashion content. The beginning made it seem like a straight parody with the shot-for-shot intro, but after that point it lost its way. There at least could have been a letter in the end to bring it back around – perhaps read in voiceover, in which the group identified their clique niches and gave themselves a club name. At the very least it would have cleared up the title confusion.
Other than that, it worked well, as I always enjoy the assortment of kid characters on Bob’s Burgers. The only thing that would have made the casting better would be an inclusion of Andy & Ollie. I mean, why not? All three Belchers were in detention, why not all three Pestos? The only thing it would have changed was a small part of Jimmy Sr.’s one-upsmanship.
I actually really enjoyed the B-story. It had just the right amount of balance with the main plot, and further solidified the fact that Bob’s Burgers episodes work best when the kids and the parents have separate adventures. In this one, Bob & Linda kept their usual respective personalities intact, but also flip-flopped their roles as good cop and bad cop. For instance, Bob originally wanted to simply decline to purchase any of subscription-selling Sally’s magazines instead of alerting her to the scam like Linda wished to do. Later he was more vocal. Linda at first believed that Sally was a pawn in someone else’s con. But when Sally departed the first time, Linda didn’t see her purse right away, and immediately suspected the salesgirl, before finding the purse a moment later.
In the end, although there was a good amount of humor and references in the episode, Mr. Frond sunk it a bit for me. As regular readers may be aware, I haven’t been a big fan of Frond in the past. I gave an average score to “Work Hard or Die Trying, Girl” and a poor one to “The Frond Files,” and I wasn’t especially fond of “Synchronized Swimming” either. My opinion of “The Runway Club”/”The Runaway Club” doesn’t come from any sort of preconceived bias against the Wagstaff guidance counselor or his previous episodes, but the fact that Frond-centric episodes have had too much in common. Consider this: they are often broken up too rigidly. “The Frond Files” had three segments, “Word Hard or Die Trying, Girl” had two different sides of the same story, and last night’s episode had three different rounds in the fashion show. Not to say these episodes are all the same, but add in an obligatory Frond freak-out, and you’ve got yourself a solid cookie-cutter format. This may have been the best out of all the episodes mentioned, but it was still decidedly average overall – especially after losing a lot of the Breakfast Club momentum after the strong start.
