The FOX network recently introduced another TV show to their Sunday night “Animation Domination” line-up, Bob’s Burgers. How will this stack up against the other animated sitcoms? Will it be quickly renewed or end up being cancelled?
Bob’s Burgers revolves around Bob Belcher (H. Jon Benjamin), a third generation restaurateur who operates Bob’s Burgers with the help of his wife and their three kids. He has big ideas about the food he serves but knows little about customer service and business management. The restaurant is constantly struggling and there are times when it doesn’t seem like his family is on his team. His wife, Linda (John Roberts), supports his dream through thick and thin but is tiring of it. Eldest daughter Tina (Dan Mintz) is a 13-year-old hopeless romantic with minimal social skills. Son Gene (Eugene Mirman) is an aspiring musician and prankster and youngest child Louise (Kristen Schaal) has an off-balance sense of humor but loves her dad’s business.
The new show debuted on January 9th and, thanks in part to the afternoon’s NFL Wildcard Playoff game, had a great premiere. The first episode of Bob’s Burgers scored a 4.5 in the 18-49 demographic and 9.38 million total viewers. Those numbers were good enough to make it the best performing network premiere of the season to date.
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Unfortunately that success was short-lived. Only about half as many of those viewers came back to watch in week two. The second episode dropped to a 2.5 rating in the demo and 5.07 million viewers. The most recent episode attracted a 2.2 rating, a further decline of 12% in the demo, and 4.81 million total viewers.
Thanks to the fantastic premiere numbers, Bob’s Burgers still averages a 3.1 rating and 6.42 million viewers. If the ratings keep declining or even if they just stay the same, that average will sink lower. Sandwiched between The Simpsons and Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers doesn’t come close to matching their ratings. That seems to indicate that some FOX viewers are making a conscious effort to skip the newbie series. FOX execs are likely wondering if other shows might make better use of the timeslot. They already have a couple new animated series in the works.
Back in October, FOX ordered six additional scripts for the series. Because it can take months to produce new episodes, the order would allow the series to remain in continuous production. The network has yet to order additional episodes be actually produced however. The network is likely waiting to see if the ratings even off or get better before committing to its future.
What do you think? Do you like Bob’s Burgers? Does the humor go too far? Cancel or keep it?
Image courtesy FOX.
give it a chance! it’s great!
everyone is used to the type of comedy style that appears in family guy. the type where just when ur getting into the story it switches to some parody of the real world. it gets boring after a while. bobs burgers has an original NON REPETITIVE story line and is funny when u listen to the jokes. KEEP IT FOX!!
My son and I love it,,age 9 and 38 ,,the simpsons have been a bit boring latley but we have watched all eposodes of bobs burgers a few times,, love it
I didn’t get into the pilot for the first 10 minutes, but after that, I found the show hilarious. I’m a big fan now and look forward to each episode.
noooo I love this show! My whole family thinks it’s hysterical!
Keep it, FOX!
I look forward to this show every Sunday!
I really looked forward to enjoying this program, but sadly… it was horrible. Hopefully Fox will be a little more discerning in the future.
This is a lovely, gentle show, in keeping with Bouchard’s style, and a lovely addition to a family of cartoons that began with Dr. Katz. It’s a real pleasure to hear H. Jon Benjamin doing his laconic thing, accompanied by another brilliantly strong cast.
But yes, it’s far too subtle in between the zip-bang-thwang noise of The Simpsons and Family Guy, and seems doomed in that slot. It’d be lovely to see it get a home on Adult Swim where it could be left to mature as with the wonderful Home Movies.
Ugh. Send to the meat grinder. The girls voiced by males gimmick is not as clever by half as this show thinks it is, and the same goes for the writing. (And don’t worry, Dave, I’d be happy to see Family Guy get the axe along with it).
Keep it! The pilot was fine, but the 2nd and 3rd episodes were great. This show has the potential to be one of the best shows ever. The rhythm of the dialogue is different than the other shows on Sunday nights and took me some time to get used to it. I actually watched the second episode twice, and liked it more the second time. It may not be for everyone, but the writing is smart and clever and I think a lot of people will be won over by this show like I was.
Worse show ever.
Not funny at all.
Grind it up and Cancel it.
I hope it gets cancelled just so that it can be picked up by [adult swim] for further seasons (a la Home Movies. Another Loren Bouchard show with H. Jon Benjamin) Home Movies was probably one of the three greatest animated shows of the 2000s as far as quality is concerned. But the masses don’t get it. They’d rather watch the formulaic Family Guy plots with “This reminds of the time that … (fill in obscure pop culture reference here). Hell, I know people who laugh at Family Guy jokes even when they don’t get it. They just know they’re… Read more »
DUMB-DUMB-DUMB
Well so far I’m not impressed, but I’ll keep watching for now. Hopefully it’ll get better.
I doesn’t get any better.
The fact that I barely made it thru ep 1 and the other 2 are still on my TiVo unwatched, I think I’m leaning towards cancel it. I have had no motivation to watch more. One issue I have is the voice of the dad is the same as Archer–a show I like–so it is hard to watch another character with the same voice.
Only watched the pilot. I was annoyed. Jokes weren’t all that funny, animation quality was poor, and I couldn’t get past the idea of using obvious male voices for every female except one.
Cancel.