How I Wrote A Killer Bob's Burgers Spec In A Weekend

I don't make posts like this very often, but I figured the insanity that I put myself through was worth one. After all, writing a spec script in a weekend is something I would strongly urge against. A good story takes time to craft and you're setting yourself up for failure. 

So why did I do it?

Absolute necessity. My life has been kind of a hectic mess lately. A lot of good, a lot of bad, and a lot of me scrambling to keep up with it all. As a result, things fall through the cracks more often than I'd care to admit. So when I realized that the deadline for the Universal Animation Writers Program was mere days away, I absolutely panicked. I don't write specs often. The only one I had ready to go was a less than stellar attempt at a What We Do In The Shadows episode that was also written out of necessity. Looking at the requirements for the fellowship, I had to write another spec. A truly terrifying prospect for me.

Luckily for me, my absolute favorite animated show, Bob's Burgers was on the list. But I didn't have an idea for an episode that hadn't already been done. Scrolling through the episode list with concept after concept took up most of my first day. Nothing at all worked. I was frustrated and on the verge of giving up. So I did what I always do when I'm stressed and feeling low: I went to my office to fuck around with my Legos. I had to toy with the idea of letting this fellowship deadline pass and to try again next year. Not something I wanted to do at all. My career has yet to start and I want to be as pro-active as possible. All of these thoughts swirled in my head as I played with my little Lego Pirate diorama. It didn't even hit me until after nearly an hour that the answer to my Bob's conundrum was right in front of me.

It hit me like a brick to the head. It was an idea that practically wrote itself. Who knew that Bob's and Lego could go hand in hand so well? Maybe the thousands of people petitioning for a Bob's Burgers Lego set, but that's completely beside the point.

I rushed to twitter to run the concept by people I trusted. The results were clear. The idea worked. I had to write it. 

With only a weekend to write, I had to fall back onto all of my analytical skills and my knowledge of story structure to build a frame-work for myself to go from. That meant that I needed to spend at least half a day binging Bob's and figuring out what makes the episodes tick. 

And that brings me to the reason for this blog post.

I created a structural guide for how a Bob's Burgers episode functions. I unashamedly love analyzing things for structure and use it constantly in my own work. Although I often break my own rules, which infuriates me endlessly, it's a great thing to fall back on when I need to wrangle my unwieldy ideas back in. So creating this guide was nothing new. While I wrote it for myself, it felt like an absolute shame to not share it. 

I could talk a ton more about how great my spec was and how I somehow managed to make the deadline with something I'm proud of, but I don't want to toot my own horn any further than I already have. If you want to read the script, you're more than welcome to reach out to me and request it! You can be the judge of how "killer" it is or isn't. Instead I'll just leave you with some well wishes for your writing and get into the structure of an episode of the best animated show on TV. I recommend watching an episode while you read this breakdown.

The show begins!

Act One
Family Shenanigans bring us into the episode with context.

• This is usually just a snapshot of the normal life of the family that is quickly interrupted by something that is going to be the center of the episode.

 
A-story

1. An interruption of the shenanigans presents a storyline.
   1. Whatever that interruption is presents a story. Something that must be surmounted. Something that has emotional stakes for one or more characters.
2. We fall into the storyline in a surprising way.
   1. Because this is Bob's we're talking about, we launch into the presented story into a way that is less than typical. Usually this means an unusual solution to a problem, despite Bob's insistence that we should go a normal direction. The rest of the Belchers always win and we are on our way.
3. Frustration fuels commitment.
   1. As we start to wrap our heads around this ridiculous way into the story, some kind of emotional shenanigans make us commit. This means that we probably don't like someone's reaction to something we're doing. Maybe Jimmy Pesto laughs at the issue we're trying to solve and we just want to rub his face in it. Really anything that gets us charged up to carry on.

 
B-story

1. Presents itself quickly. Small, entertaining stakes. Jump in quickly.
   1. As the A-story takes off, another smaller stakes something presents itself. It's a total tangent to the rest of the story, but kind of related, usually. Just a funny little off-beat situation that we can follow and compare to the wildness of the main story.
2. A quirky solution to a quirky problem.
   1. As this smaller stakes quirky problem comes up, someone commits to solving it with a quirky problem. Sound familiar? This is basically just a mini structural mirror of the show's A-story. Small problem with a weird solution. The Belchers never do anything the normal way.

 
A-Story

1. Seeking advice
   1. Back to the A-story, we find ourselves needing to figure things out. I call it seeking advice because sometimes that's literally what happens. We know the solution, but we need someone to talk us through it. Half of the time, this just means that the family is arguing with each other about how something should happen. Either way, this chunk is almost always about logistics. Ridiculous logistics.
2. A and B cross. The nexus of both begins.
   1. Okay, this doesn't always happen, but it's so great when it does. Having a moment where both conundrums cross and through this, each story gains traction is just so satisfying. Either way, this section should move us out of seeking advice and into real action.
3. Bad motivations fuel a bad approach to the idea.
   1. Bad motivations are EVERYTHING to this show. This is when things really start going. The center of the A-story has terrible motivations for moving forward with their plans. This highlights the lesson that needs to be learned by the end of the episode. The focus of this story does bad things for bad reasons.
4. Our bad idea comes back to bite us.
   1. In some small way, the bad stuff we're doing makes us eat our words. It presents new obstacles for the episode and increases the tension as we break for commercial.

 
ACT TWO
 
A-Story

1. Frustration mounts. We’re knocked back. Need a new way forward.
   1. Great. We tried something bad and it made things worse for us. Go figure. We're low in some way and we need to find a new path forward. Once again we start planning.
2. Even WORSE inspiration fuels an even WORSE approach.
   1. Escalation is everything. Instead of learning from the setback we decide to follow our terrible motivations, deepen them and find an even worse approach to fixing things. There's no way this could go wrong....right?
3. Back in the game. We work hard as hell to win.
   1. Now extra motivated, we launch full force into the work of our bad idea. We're out for blood and we will not be stopped. Usually, we've got blinders on and we're actively (and obviously) hurting people.

 
B-Story

1. The problem of the B-story becomes apparent.
   1. As the B-story progresses, another obstacle presents itself that makes this quirky story even more quirky and deepens the stakes. We keep trying to fix it but-
2. We learn we’re stuck in it as the C-Story introduces itself.
   1. We find out that the only way to solve the B-story is through an even DEEPER level of story.

 
C-story

1. As a function of the B-story, we launch into a further ridiculous situation.
   1. And so we launch into this inception like hell of solving more and more problems to fix something that is fundamentally very simple. Everything always gets harder for the Belchers.

 
A-Story

1. Our ridiculous actions resolve with complications.
   1. Whatever solution we've been working towards just gets weirder. We hit the end of this even worse plan, but it's not at all what we expected. There are more strings here.
2. Failure of a success.
   1. Great. We won. But we hurt someone in the process. Big time. Very bad. 
3. A bad lesson learned.
   1. While we COULD learn what we need to from this second failure, we don't. We get the wrong lesson. We change our mindset completely, but absolutely not for the better.
4. The biggest complications arise.
   1. As we learn this terrible lesson the forces working against us present the biggest possible challenge that we need to conquer to get what we want. 
5. We’ve got a bad approach to the final test.
   1. Because we've learned the wrong things, we find a simply terrible approach to solving this final problem. Genuinely awful and it's clear to the audience. That's why this commercial break keeps the tension up.

 

 
ACT THREE
 
A-Story

1. Worst laid plans
   1. We put together an absolutely terrible plan to do what we think we need to do. It's almost always totally overcomplicated and overblown for the situation and full of obvious flaws. Something that's doomed to fail in spectacular ways but is believable enough for the heroes to hold onto.

 
B&C story

1. Builds to ridiculous heights.
   1. both of these substories build together to a completely unhinged ridiculous pathway that is so far from the original problem that it's kind of a wonder how we got here. But still we got here and it somehow makes sense.

 
A-Story

1. Our bad motivations reach a crescendo.
   1. We put our terrible plan into action as our bad motivations reach a fever pitch. We're so close to victory that we would do just about anything to achieve it.
2. Lessons learned as we hit our ultimate defeat.
   1. But right as we reach our victory, we finally realize how much of an idiot we've been. Unfortunately, it's too late. The hurts have happened and we need to fix it. Once more, a tension filled commercial break.

 

 
ACT FOUR
 
A – Story

1. A gauntlet to solve the problem presents itself.
   1. Now that we've finally got the proper motivations, we need to undo everything that we've done and it's not going to be easy at all. It's going to be a lot of work, but we commit to doing it.

 
B&C Story

1. C-story resolves.
   1. This further complication of story resolves itself in a satisfying and hilarious way. Which:
2. Makes or destroys the success of the B-Story.
   1. As a result of the C-story concluding, we find the true solution to B-story. It's almost always in a way that is not even close to the original plan to solve the problem. But it always makes the B-story a success or a failure.

 
A-Story

1. Our lessons learned solve the problem.
   1. Once more, we put plans into action. This time, we're doing things right. We tackle the gauntlet to the best of our ability.
2. Solemn victory.
   1. We fix things, but we've got to admit we're wrong and make amends with the people we hurt. It's always a solemn victory of sorts because we reach an ending that returns us to stasis, but there's lots of feels in it.
3. One last test of weakness.
   1. Before we can end, we need to see one last temptation present itself to show that we have truly changed. A smaller temptation that's reminiscent of the issues we've been dealing with pops up.
4. We overcome it, together.
   1. We truly have changed, and the people we've hurt help us pass the test of weakness.

 
Return to stasis as a family. A reflection of the beginning.

• As the episode ends, we return to the stasis we always find ourselves in at the start of the episode, no matter how much things have changed over the course of it. This is almost always a reflection of the family shenanigans that were interrupted at the beginning of the episode in some small way. That's what makes it a satisfying ending.

And that's it! That's what my feverish weekend with the Belchers yielded as my own structural guide to writing an episode of Bob's Burgers. If you're reading this because you're planning on writing a spec, please don't take it as the hard-and-fast truth. This is just one guy's interpretation of a show he has nothing to do with. But if you ask me...it's pretty damn close. Hopefully this helps someone in their writing adventures! If you need me, I'll be in the office playing with Legos while I try not to explode from stress.

​P.S. Forgive the weird numbering. Weebly doesn't make this easy.