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.

As a long time fan and student of comedy movies, I’ve seen so many off-beat team comedies that I absolutely love and adore. During a meeting of the Writers Guild Foundation’s Veterans Writing Project, I realized just how intimately I know and understand these films, and thus I present to you my pretentiously titled unified theory of team movies.

Here are some examples of the greatest team comedies out there. Great is subjective, but I love them so, whatever. Here they are.

Dodgeball
Beerfest
Balls of Fury
The Ringer
Space Jam
The Longest Yard
Happy Gilmore
 
Some of these aren’t traditionally “team” as they are much more about one man preparing to face the big game, but they have a lot of people rallying around them that essentially function as the team in question.

While all of the ones that I’ve listed are sports comedies (including Beerfest, because drinking is a sport if you’re doing it right), this category of film applies to much more than just this type. It also heavily applies to heist films, and to some extent ensemble superhero pieces. They all focus on a group of people teaming up to prepare for one big game with one main character as the point of view and focus. In heist films, the big game is the heist. They’re no different!

Using the films on my list, I’ve come up with a unified theory of team movies. It includes the common character types that they all hold, the structure that they all follow, and the emotional journey that the hero must go on.
 
Note: This is not a mandatory guide to follow. It’s simply an analytical tool that breaks down these movies in a general sense. All of these break from the form in one way or another and those moments are what make them unique and memorable. Use this only to get yourself unstuck on the structure of your own piece, not as a plug and play guide.

Let’s dig in!



The Premise:

The common denominator of all of these films is the premise. You meet someone who could be totally incredible at what they do, but life has gotten in the way and now they’ve got a big problem that needs solved. The “big game” comes into their life as a solution to their big problem, but they’re initially reluctant to go on that journey.

Over the course you take them from washed up weirdo to realizing the potential that they always had inside of them, with a big team of people around them. It’s heartwarming stuff and has MAJOR comedic potential throughout with physical humor and emotional humor inherent in all of it.

What makes this premise work is the cast of characters that work around the main person with a problem.
 
The Players On Your Chess Board:

I know that saying “the team” would have been a more fitting title for this section given the sports of it all, but I like chess so sue me. The chess metaphor works better anyways because you have enemies in all of this! There are people working counter to the goals of the main character and the team as a whole, and they absolutely must be overcome. So badaboom…chess board.

When you boil down these movies they all have a very similar cast of characters that serve a super specific role in the plot. I’m listing them in order of their relevance to the plot in the hopes that if you read this list, you can understand the implied structure of it.

• The Main Character – We already said it. This is the potentially great special someone with a propensity for getting in their own way. Though they could be miraculous at the thing this movie focuses on, they’ve got a much larger problem that is much more important. Whether it’s a debt, some item they hope to obtain, the game is secondary to their problem.
  • Adam Sandler in every one of his movies, Vince Vaughn in Dodgeball who just wants to keep his gym, The pair of brothers in Beerfest who want to get their grandfather’s brewery back…etc. You know the main guys.

 

• The Golden Retriever/ Man With a Plan – This is the character with the point of view that your main character needs to come around to at the end. In the beginning they IDOLIZE the Main Character to a fault, and believe wholeheartedly in the power of the team. Usually this character is the one who realizes the actual plan of the big game being able to solve the problems of the Main Character. They’re the real emotional anchor of the team, and when the hero inevitably breaks their heart, they are the reason that the team keeps moving forward. They’ve got the plan, and they believe in it even when the hero doesn’t.
  • Justin Long in Dodgeball, Bugs in Space Jam, Fink the scientist in Beerfest.

 
 

• The Big Bad – This character serves two purposes. They are the catalyst for the “big game” moment. They’re the target of the heist, they’re the person to beat, or they’re the arbiter of the tournament. Whatever they are they serve as the goal of the movie. Second, they are constantly working counter to the goals of the main character. They’re doing everything they can to stop them from winning even if that means fighting dirty, which it usually does. They be evil.
  • Ben Stiller in Dodgeball, Christopher Walken in Balls of Fury, the Germans in Beerfest (it’s always the Germans!)

 

• The Love Interest – The object of love and lust for the main character. In most successful cases, they’re a bit of a fem fatale. They’re working on the side of the Big Bad at the start and only work with the Main Character in a professional capacity. They typically start out hating the fact that they work for the big bad, but they are going through the professional motions. Through their professional work with the Main Character, they’ll start to come around to the point of view of the Golden Retriever (usually more so than the main character does) and slowly fall in love with the MC. They’re the middle man and have so much control over the plot, it’s wild.
  • Christine Taylor in Dodgeball, Maggie Q in Balls of Fury

 

• The Unlikely Mentor – The king of all washed up weirdos, and a legend amongst them (infamous or famous). When all other training routes prove themselves useless, they must rely on the most unlikely mentor out there. They’re surprising and weird and usually awful, but their training methods work. And they’re weirdness becomes a reason that they are beloved by the team. They take the team from a bunch of misfit weirdos to a group with a shot, but they always do it weird.
  • Patches O’Houlihan in Dodgeball, Chubs in Happy Gilmore, Wong in Balls of Fury, Landfill in Beerfest. They’ve all got something else in common, but I’ll get to that later. You can probably guess it.

 

• The Snowflake – Not all of these movies have one. Sometimes this is also the Golden Retriever. This is the teammate who is just a little bit different. They’re an absolute weirdo that everyone loves dearly. Their quirks make them beloved, but their quirks are also caused by some sort of deep-seated pain. This is the person on the team that no one would ever be mean to for any reason. It’s like yelling at a puppy. No one wants to do that, and if you do, you’re a jerk. Which is why the Snowflake usually serves as a great punching bag later on during the film. When the Main Character explodes as things come to a head, the accidental source of their anger is the Snowflake…which immediately makes the rest of the team turn against the MC. The Snowflake is a great emotional timebomb.
  • Steve the Pirate in Dodgeball, Most of the team in the Ringer.

 
So that’s your chess board and all the pieces. I’ll now break down my theory of the structure in the shortest way possible.

1. Meet the Misfits
   1. Meet the main character and all of his problems. Also, meet the losers in the team. This whole section serves to show just how miserable everyone is in their stasis. It also leads into the big moment of discovering the Big Game.
   2. This is also where the bad guy is introduced as a physical manifestation of the Main Character’s deep seated issues. We usually meet the Love Interest at this moment too, serving the purposes of the Big Bad. The entire team sees how much all of this hurts the MC and so:
2. Meet the Big Game
   1. The golden retriever presents the big game as a solution to the Main Character’s problems because they’re just that good of a person. The main character is reluctant, but the entire team is so gung-ho for it, They can’t help but fold.
3. Training
   1. This serves as almost the entire Act 2A of the film. Pretty much four things happen in here:
      1. The team finds The Unlikely Mentor and get trained up together, going from total trainwreck of a team to a group with a shot.
      2. The Main Character slowly comes around to the Golden Retriever’s way of thinking. Remember, the hero was reluctant at the start. This could mean that they started out with the yips, and they’ve recovered throughout this section, or they hated the sport and they come to love it. However it’s done, the MC comes around here.
      3. The Love Interest ALSO comes around to the golden retriever. They see the good vibes of the team and come to love it, as well as seeing the wonder in the Main Character. Their relationship with the Big Bad slowly dissolves.
      4. The Big Bad does everything they can to stop the entire team. They’re working counter to every step of progress the team makes and they hate that it isn’t working. They escalate and escalate until:
4. The Paradigm Shift
   1. Something big and catastrophic happens right when the team realizes that they might actually be able to do this miraculous thing. They’ve got a real shot. Then this big thing happens that shakes everything and launches the story on a crash course. The paradigm shift is usually the same thing:
      1. Death of the Unlikely Mentor. Every single one of the mentors I listed as examples dies as a catalyst for the paradigm shift. RIP Chubs, Patches, Landfill, Wong, Chris Rock in the Longest Yard and even Phil Coulson in the Avengers. Either something that the team does to celebrate their mentor, or the work of the Big Bad culminates in this big, awful occurrence that both shakes the confidence of the MC and the team, and will ultimately bring them back together. You don’t have to kill the mentor, but damnit…it works.
5. The Rocky Shores
   1. Moving forward gets harder. The Main Character retreats backwards towards their original mindset and starts seeking out other solutions to their problem, always bad ones that the Love Interest has a hand in being able to make possible. The team is struggling to keep it all together and the Golden Retriever is indicative of that. The Love Interest becomes a middle man between the Main Character and the team, parroting the viewpoints of the Golden Retriever. The Big Bad gloats, thinking they’ve won. It’s all a rocky mess which leads to:
6. The Blowup
   1. The lies of the Main Character come to a head with the team. Things get heated, the Main Character is usually mean to the Snowflake and then the team breaks apart. It’s big and ugly, and the relationship with the Love Interest is brought into question. Big ugly crap that ultimately forces the Main Character into the decision to do the BAD solution to his problem and abandon the team entirely.
7. The Plan
   1. While the main character disappears to do their own bullshit, the Golden Retriever pulls the team back together. We don’t need that guy. We’re all special in our own right. We’ve got this. We can do it….right? RIGHT?!
8. The First Half of the Big Game
   1. This is a two-hander occurrence and everything that the film has been building towards
      
      1. At the big game, the team is getting absolutely destroyed without the Main Character, despite the relentless optimism of the Golden Retriever. The Love Interest usually abandons their own ideals and comes to help the team in this section, or in the second half of the big game. Your pick. The Big Bad is so cocky and confident in their victory that they don’t even notice the main character is missing, or they do and make fun of it.
         
      2. The Main Character is off doing their awful solution while having a complete and total existential crisis. They get so super close to finishing the bad option and then realize that the team needs them….and they need the team. BUT DON’T SHOW IF THEY FINISHED THE BAD OPTION OR NOT.
9. The Second Half of the Big Game.
   1. Oh goody, everyone is back together. The Main Character shows up just in the nick of time. They may be losing, but it’s not too late to pull out a win. Apologies are made, but they are tenuous. Over the course of the big game, the main character mends the relationships with all of the teammates and does stuff to emphasize their strength. It’s big and beautiful and funny until –
10. The Bait and Switch.
    1. The big game is over. One of two things happen:
       
       1. They won the big game. It’s great, but due to the bad solution of the Main Character, the Big Bad is still victorious. It seems like a big loss…until we get the explanation of what the Main Character did that we DIDN’T see. They did it! They saved the day! Screw that Big Bad. Kiss that Love Interest
          
       2. They lost the big game. It’s awful. It seems like a big loss and the Big Bad is gloating…until we get the explanation of what the Main Character did that we DIDN’T see. They did it! They saved the day! Screw that Big Bad. Kiss that Love Interest.
11. The Wrap Up
    1. A little glimpse at everyone’s lives and how different it is from the very start. It’s really sweet and lovely and often funny. Maybe a shot of how awful things are for the Big Bad. Just one big happy bow on the top of your big, beautiful team story.

 
That’s it! That’s all. That’s my entire Unified Theory of Team Movies. They all fit this mold with some variations. Heist films match it, superhero ensembles match it, and all of these wonderful sports comedies match it, with a decent bit of variation. They make changes to the expectations of all these scenes, they change up small bits of formatting, but this is what they all do to make it work.
 
I contest that any team movie at all could be viewed to fit this mold. Use it as you will for inspiration on your story beats, but do not use it as a hard and fast guide.
 
P.S. You’re Beautiful