Review: Bob’s Burgers “Long Time Listener, First Time Bob”

No soap, radio.

Overview (Spoilers Below!)

Bob is pissed that Bob’s Burgers didn’t make it into a magazine list of best burgers by the shore. He grumbles that the magazine only chose trendy places that sell sweet potato fries instead of his good old traditional ones. The family goes bowling—and a man working there is nonother than Clem Clements, who used to DJ for Bob’s favorite radio station. Bob loved that Clem was weird, doing things his way and ignoring other people’s expectations.

Bob approaches Clem, who admits that he got fired from the station for refusing to play only clean music and give out prizes. Now the station is run by a robot DJ who plays bland, trendy music. Outraged, Bob offers to go to the station and give them a piece of his mind.

At the restaurant, Teddy orders a new menu item—sweet potato fries, of course—but Bob just can’t do it. In order to use up all the sweet potatoes they bought, Linda experiments with sweet potato pies. She makes ten pies, but she and Teddy both find them inedible.

Bob heads to the radio station with Clem and the kids, but Clem’s old boss Vance refuses to hear him out. Clem walks into his old booth to reminisce and ends up barricading the door with a sofa, taking over the station by force and holding producer Patrick hostage. The kids enjoy talking on live radio while Bob attempts to convince Clem this is a bad idea. Louise has to pee, and when she runs out into the hallway, Vance gets in. He kicks the gang out of the studio—but Bob suggests hijacking a station van and broadcasting from there. They park, of course, in front of one of the trendy restaurants from the list.

When Speedo Guy skates into Bob’s Burgers with a boom box, Linda and Teddy hear Bob on the radio. They hurry into Teddy’s truck (bringing a pie with them and eating all the while), but when they arrive at the radio station, Bob is already gone. Eventually, Linda calls into their broadcast and tells Bob that it doesn’t matter if he isn’t trendy—he’s true to himself, and that’s what matters. Some fans call in expressing support for Clem, and he takes a job at a small radio station where he can run things his way.

Our Take

With its heartfelt, silly, original plotlines, Bob’s Burgers never fails to make me smile. This week’s episode surprised me. I’d assumed that this would be a story about Bob needing to learn to accept change, to try new things, to embrace trends even if they’re not what he’s used to. But instead, we’re treated to a thoughtful story about how it’s okay to stick to your guns, even if it might hurt your career. That artistic integrity and not selling out is important. It calls to mind the song from the musical [title of show] that goes, “I’d rather be nine people’s favorite thing than a hundred people’s ninth favorite thing.” Being yourself might not please everyone, but the people who matter will be overjoyed.

Some of this caper’s funniest lines are more down to tone and delivery than the written dialogue, so they’re difficult to reproduce faithfully here. But if you’ve watched this episode for yourself, you may chuckle fondly remembering:

• When Bob’s mustache twitches, “it looks like a weird little dog having a nightmare”
• Louise’s perfectly deadpan tone when encouraging her father to keep ranting (“No Dad keep going this is good stuff”) and when she wistfully reminisces on the restaurant’s beginning (“How far we’ve come”)
• Bob asks how he looks. “Like a sad man with one bowling shoe on,” apparently
• The very real argument between Teddy and Bob, in which Teddy screeches, “What are yogurt fries?! Don’t try to serve me yogurt fries”
• Gene’s “We sell pie now, I ask hopefully?”
• Teddy asks Mort to look something up on his phone. Mort mumbles to himself, “Pretending to look it up, wishing I hadn’t come in here today…”
• Tina’s low, suave tones as she speaks into the microphone to deliver, “Sup, I’m Tina”
• “So the animal shelter won’t take the pies.” “Figures. Probably a bunch of snobby poodles.”
• “You brought a pie?” “I thought maybe it would taste better in the truck.”

Zany plot aside, so many moments of this episode are hilarious because they’re so real. Teddy and Linda continuing to eat the disgusting pies, just to see if they get better. Bob getting a spam phone call at a crucial moment. The Belcher family are real people—not idealized heroes—and that’s what makes this show so great. Plus, guest star Nick Offerman does an excellent radio announcer voice, and his comedic timing is predictably on-point.

No episode is perfect, and a few moments of this one didn’t quite land. I didn’t get the joke on the store next-door or the exterminator van (The Rods Must Be Drapey? Four Non-Bugs? Huh?). Gene’s “What’s radio again?” is a tired jab at Gen Z’s ignorance of pre-digital media, and it reads very out-of-character for Gene, who clearly knows what radio is. Mort’s “Is it worth the calories?” about the pie feels out-of-place in a show about a bunch of chubby people running a burger restaurant. If I want to see TV about dieting, do you really think I’d be watching Bob’s Burgers? And the pie subplot in general, while it’s hilarious, doesn’t really go anywhere—it needed a final scene to really drive home a punchline.

But despite these missed beats, this episode is fun and full of heart, and its sincerity cheered up my Sunday evening for sure.