‘Bob's Burgers’ Showrunner Explains Why the Show’s Family Dynamic Is the Antithesis of ‘All in the Family’

On the third day of New York Comic Con 2025, Disney held a Bob’s Burgers panel to honor the show’s recent 300th episode and offer sneak peeks at the show’s current season. It was led by the show’s creator, Loren Bouchard, who was joined by the entire cast. During the celebration, Bouchard revealed why one of the greatest sitcom characters of all time was exactly what he didn’t want for his show.

During the panel’s Q&A segment, a fan dressed like Nat the Limo Driver asked Bouchard why he went for a more wholesome family dynamic than other adult cartoons. Bouchard’s answer made it clear that it’s something he’s thought a lot about.

“When we first started talking about the show, we used Archie Bunker as kind of a negative example. It’s like the grumpy guy who’s annoyed with his wife, and it just felt so done — so played out — and we’ve seen all iterations of it,” Bouchard responded, referring to the All in the Family patriarch who, incidentally, was the direct inspiration for Eric Cartman on the not-so-wholesome South Park.

As nice as most of his characters, Bouchard went on to explain his anti-Archie stance while also leaving room for fans of All in the Family, saying, “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do when getting your comedy off the ground, and if you’re writing a family sitcom, there is the dynamic of a husband who hates his wife and, I guess, you can start there if you want. But it felt, to us, like it just wasn’t funny — to us, I should say. So, we just took it off the table. Then, once you do that, you’re sort of free to just think of funny things that they can do, and you don’t have to have this dynamic where they’re anything but a normal family. And, of course, they love each other; of course, they’re going to take care of each other. They’re still going to squabble, and (they’re) still going to disagree, but you just don’t need it as much as (we thought) for several generations of television.”

Doing away with such a sitcom staple obviously worked for Bob’s Burgers as its 300-episodes-and-counting run has proven, especially since the tight, loving family dynamic is a big reason why fans love the show. 

Not to get too sentimental, though, when the voice of Louise, Kristen Schaal followed up by asking the audience, “Most families do like each other, right?” the reliably surly voice of Bob, H. Jon Benjamin, quickly responded with a simple “no.”