What show from the 2025 TV schedule has the claim to fame of being extremely funny and extremely relatable and also has the most food-related puns? No, we’re not talking about that CBS spinoff NCIS: Oranges — maybe later — but rather Bob’s Burgers, which has impressively remained a top-tier animated comedy for 15 seasons, longer than a lot of local burger joints stay afloat. It’s definitely not just the food or the comedy that’s made the show stand out for all these years, though, but also the diversity.
Since first introducing viewers to the Belcher family and Seymour’s Bay, creator Loren Bouchard and the rest of the creative team have populated the close-knit seaside community with an ever-engaging assortment of characters of all ages, sizes, backgrounds and creeds. Everyone is welcome on this show, even…Jimmy…Pesto. When I spoke with Bouchard about the currently airing 16th season, I brought up how much fans like me champion Bob’s Burgers for continuing to bring in diverse and distinct characters, and asked how important it is behind the scenes. He told me:
It’s very important. I think it’s tricky. You don’t want to do tokenism, and you don’t want to do it just to check a box. You want to do it because you believe in the product. To say it a different way: Bob’s is about an urban place. You know, it’s a relatively small town, but it’s a northeastern city environment, an urban environment, where they live in an apartment. They don’t have a yard, they don’t have a car in the driveway; they have to park somewhere further from their apartment. This is how a lot of people live, and I will add, it’s fucking cool.
Just right there, Loren Bouchard touches up on the idea that Bob’s Burgers’ sense of variegation isn’t just tied to token racial differences, but also includes the swath of other personal details that don’t always get representation on the screen, despite being an oft-recognized aspect of living in urban and downtown areas.
As a kid who’d only lived in the South, the idea of compatcted apartments without grassy areas or driveways probably seemed like something that only existed in New York or Tokyo to my brain. (Don’t judge me. ) Bouchard continued, saying:
It’s like when you arrive in those towns, if you step off the plane in the airport, or you get off the bus and the bus station, you’re already met with all this humanity. And you understand that what diversity is just a delicious box of chocolates, where you get so much more interesting stuff coming at you because you’ve got a melting pot, or a meeting place where a lot of different people have come together.
Sure, Bob’s Burgers‘ bottle episodes that are solely focused on the family members are hilarious and great, but the show probably wouldn’t have lasted this long if that was the set-up every week. As such, it was necessary to bring in all kinds of other personalities, and some of the biggest fan favorites over the years have been Lindsay Stoddart’s Angie, Damon Wayans Jr.’s Arnold, and Ken Jeong‘s Dr. Yap, to name but a mere few.
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I’d be remiss not to take this point to also celebrate Jari Jones’ Marshmallow and the other trans sex workers — Marbles (Jack McBrayer), Cha-Cha (Oscar Nunez) ad Glitter (Steve Agee) — that Bob first befriended during his taxi-driving side gig in the episode “Sheesh! Cab, Bob?” The fact that this group entered the show and existed without an obvious spotlight aimed at their sexuality, with Marshmallow making several A+ returns since, is huge for any show, much less an animated show on broadcast TV.
Bouchard went on to share exactly why he thinks this kind of setting is key to creating better stories, saying:
That’s why I love urban places. That’s why I like cities and towns, because you’re all on top of each other, and you all often came from somewhere else. And I find that storytelling in that environment is just better. In my opinion, it’s just more interesting, more quickly.
I think millions of viewers out there would agree that the diversity has helped keep the show more interesting. There’s representation for overarching societal values such as race, religion, or culture, as well as more honed-in distinctions such as people who wear hearing aids, anyone who’s neurodivergent, bisexual aunts, moms who have to fight the urge to project their body dysmorphia onto their daughters, and just about everyone in between. It even embraces everyone who loves adding fart sound effects to songs and everyday [fart sound] life, and it loves them all the same.
Bob’s Burgers airs Sunday nights on Fox at 9:30 p.m. ET, with all 16 seasons available to stream via Hulu subscription or Disney+ subscription.
