Why ‘Bob’s Burgers’ Loren Bouchard Is Leaning Into the Belchers’ Emotional Side

After 15 seasons, Bob’s Burgers creator Loren Bouchard wants to get a little emotional.

Bouchard, like many fans of the show, loves Bob’s Burgers for its musical gags and wealth of puns. In recent years, however, the animator says he’s come to appreciate the series for more than just its sense of humor, and is striving to create more heartfelt storylines for the Belchers. 

“It’s really nice to be able to do these episodes that feel a little heavier,” Bouchard explained to The Hollywood Reporter. 

The decision to craft episodes with “a little more oomph to ‘em,” as he put it, doesn’t come casually. “We know that we have a job to do, which is to be a comedy,” he said, tipping his hat to the viewers who are along for the ride. “It is nice that we’ve got fans who will go with us if we feel like we have a story to tell that really is worthy of maybe a slightly more serious moment, a little bit more emotion.”

One of these episodes is Season 15’s “They Slug Horses, Don’t They?” It landed Bob’s Burgers its 13th Emmy Award nomination and centered around a sisterly spat between Tina and Louise, one that Bouchard said was inspired by real-life sibling disagreements. “(Writer Nora Smith was) thinking about Tina and Louise and what it looks like when sisters fight like this,” he explained. “She was thinking all the way into the future about how you teach them to not ever get too far apart.” 

That thinking proved how poignant episodes can successfully fit into an otherwise silly series. “You’ve got to know you have something you want to say,” Bouchard continued. “If you’re just going to try to have a sad song and have people be sappy at the end of an episode, that’s not going to work.”