How the creators of the 'Bob's Burgers Movie' are just as funny as you'd expect them to be

You had to be there.

That’s what I kept thinking about a Zoom interview with Loren Bouchard, the creator of “Bob’s Burgers,” and H. Jon Benjamin, the voice of Bob and several other characters on the show.

The two were promoting “The Bob’s Burgers Movie,” which arrives in theaters Friday, May 27. They were smart, funny and basically ad-libbed all over each other’s answers, which was delightful and pretty much what you would expect if you’re a fan of the show, about a hapless father trying to keep his family and burger business going.

But it’s hard to capture just how delightful. For instance, at one point Bouchard talked about his love of Mel Blanc, the greatest voice actor of them all, who provided voices for the likes of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Marvin the Martian and so many more.

“The Jon Benjamin of his day,” Benjamin interjected in the driest possible tone — the tone of Bob.

It was hilarious. If you heard it. Our conversation may not translate fully to the page, but you’ll get the gist.

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Question: The movie is good, which always makes these talks easier.

Bouchard: Oh good, that’s great.

Question: You don’t have to say things like, “That was interesting.” Anyway, as with any ensemble, favorite characters change. But I’m on record as saying Bob is the best dad on TV.

Benjamin: Well you’re our target audience, right? A dad with three to four kids. … Nine-year-old girls probably don’t like Bob the best.

Question: Jon, have you seen the finished film?

Benjamin: It was interesting.

Question. Hahaha. Was there extra pressure because so many people love the show?

Benjamin: Honestly the pressure is not squarely on my shoulders, even though it’s called “Bob’s Burgers.” Loren, I assume, who is the principal architect of the movie, or at least one of the three … I probably didn’t have the same trepidation worrying about the quality of the movie, just having done the show for so long. … But I was privy to the scripts when we started producing it, so I kind of knew what we were getting into. So I was pretty confident.

Bouchard: We felt the pressure, for sure. Not in a bad way. We were ready. We were ready for the challenge. And we feel excited to share this movie. We feel good about where we ended.

And I guess I would add one thing, which is in the end we did have a fun fork in the road, because one way to make the movie is to make a movie that’s full of what you might call cameos and trivia — the fan quests and all the fan-favorite characters and fan-favorite details, and you could potentially build a movie around those, and potentially even feel good about it.

Question: Right, like a fan-service movie.

Bouchard: But in the end we didn’t do that. We really wanted to make the best movie we could make. If that meant we couldn’t cram in all the fan-favorite characters and we couldn’t get to all what you might call the trivia, little nods and winks, that was OK. We gave it up lovingly. We knew that the fans would forgive us for not hitting all their favorite characters if we could give them a really solid movie.

Question: There are certainly some in there.

Bouchard: Yeah, lots of them made it in. But when we looked at how much screen time we had, we realized we had to spend that telling a story that felt exciting and meaningful to all the family members, and Teddy too, and we would give up some of those cameos in exchange for some of that meat and potatoes.

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Question: Why do a movie at all?

Bouchard: We really didn’t even want to do a movie for a while. We were happy doing the series and really just wanted to do the best version of the series that we could. And then when we were starting to branch out, it was fun to branch out in a different direction — comic books and the cookbook were the first big projects we took on the side. And trying to do the best job merchandising we could, and really riding herd on that process.

And then we did the live tours. And that was the beginning of understanding of “Bob’s” as spectacle, “Bob’s” as a group experience, what that could be. And that really started to speak to the movie, because that’s where you really start to talk about what does it feel like to be an audience in the theater watching something that’s “Bob’s Burgers” related.

Question: It got pushed back by the pandemic a couple of times, right?

Bouchard: Yes, blessedly. It was great.

Benjamin: I needed some personal time, too (laughs). I would add, I don’t know if this was an impetus at all, but people started asking for a movie at Comic-Con in Season 3 or 4, ‘When are you going to make a movie?’ Maybe that’s not why you guys did it, but that’s just my opinion. And there’s always that in the air.

Bouchard: Yeah. And we just didn’t know the answer until we knew whether we could do a good movie.

Question: How is the process different from making a show?

Bouchard: It’s not especially different. You just spend more time on every moment. And you think a little differently in terms of scale. You need to have visual set pieces and action set pieces that really feel, again, like a spectacle. Not just funny or not just story or a character beat, but actually really function the way a theatrical experience should, which is to say a little bit like a roller coaster or something, where everyone’s sitting there, going through these ups and downs at the same time.

Benjamin: It was cool the way you really leaned into lulls. Not a lot of movies do that.

Bouchard: (Laughs) Yeah.

Benjamin: The bottom of the coaster.

Bouchard: The long silences.

Benjamin: I’m just joking, obviously.

Question: I assume you are 90% of the time.

Benjamin: Well, it’s lower.

Bouchard: That’s true. It’s 73.

Benjamin: Yeah, I’m down to, like, 70.

Question: The actors seem like a reflection of the characters, and vice versa.

Bouchard: Yeah, absolutely. I say this to anyone who will listen, if you’re trying to create an animated TV show, pick the actors you want before you even decide what characters you’re going to have. Because you will create better characters if you know what their voices are going to be from the beginning. Not the type, not like, “Oh, a Bill Murray type” or “an Alan Rickman type.” It’s not, think Jon Benjamin, it is I can get Jon Benjamin.

Benjamin: (Laughs) That was always the case. There was never any confusion about that.

Bouchard: Jon was gettable.

Benjamin: Always available.

Bouchard: You will write a better character because the actor will know what to do with the line, and you don’t have to spend a ton of time negotiating. “Oh, he’s more of a put-upon dad, you’re playing him kind of mean.” It’s almost all in there, and you’re just acting that actor to open his mouth and do what comes naturally. We fit these characters to the actor very carefully, and it’s a great shortcut.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Loren Bouchard, H. Jon Benjamin talk about 'The Bob's Burgers Movie'