Every Season Of Bob's Burgers Ranked Worst To Best

From adult animation cult hit to major motion picture, "Bob's Burgers" has been on quite the journey since the Fox show started in 2011. Even though the passage of time doesn't seem to affect the Belcher family, "Bob's Burgers" has changed tremendously over the years. Initially pitched as a show about a family of cannibals who run a restaurant, the program has toned down the edge and grown into a heartwarming comedy for all ages.

"Bob's Burgers" follows the struggles and absurd adventures of Bob (H. Jon Benjamin) and his wife Linda (John Roberts) as they try to run a burger joint while raising kids Louise (Kristen Schaal), Gene (Eugene Mirman), and Tina (Dan Mintz). After 13 seasons, with at least two more to come, we've gotten to know everyone quite well.

How do each of the years match up against one another? More than just the art style has changed in the decade and a half since the show was pitched. It's fair to say that "Bob's Burgers" is still a popular show for Fox, but many consider the golden years to be behind it now. So how do these new seasons stack up to the early years, when "Bob's Burgers" is still finding its footing?

Taking into account fan ratings, IMDb scores, and our own bit of long-time "Bob's Burgers" fandom, we ranked the seasons of the hit animated sitcom from worst to best. Stick around to see which season is named Burgerboss.

None of these placements were easy to determine, and that goes for last place as well as first. At the end of the day, though, we found Season 11 of "Bob's Burgers" to be bland, undercooked, and sometimes just flat-out gross.

It's hard to bounce back from the season's second episode, "Worms of In-Rear-Ment," where the Belchers are stuck on the toilet from pinworms the whole episode. "Bob's Burgers" is no stranger to gross-out humor (who can forget Linda's Diarrhea song in Season 3?), but the entire premise of the episode just made us nauseous without any laughs to take the edge off. Many of the same comments apply to Episode 7, "Diarrhea of a Poopy Kid," where Gene spends the entirety of Thanksgiving in the bathroom.

Even if the storylines and holiday specials are tame and forgettable, the season isn't without its moments. If you are going to watch one episode from Season 11, you can't go wrong with "Y Tu Tina También," an admittedly hilarious episode about Tina falling in love with the boy on the Spanish tape. But even in that gem, we can't remember what Bob or Linda did, which shows that at its worst, "Bob's Burgers" suffers from the lack of connective tissue between its A and B plotlines.

Hitting double digits can often be a death knell. Even the record-breaking run of "The Simpsons" began to go stale around Season 10. And while this weak series of "Bob's Burgers" episodes has nothing on the guest-star-filled pablum of the early 2000s "Simpsons," it certainly wasn't doing much to bring in new fans either.

Funnily enough, the season begins with its strongest episode, "The Ring (But Not Scary)." No, this isn't a Halloween episode, but the kids feel frightened like never before when they lose Bob's long overdue engagement ring for Linda at the water park. The episode strikes a great balance of silly and heart-warming that much of the rest of the season lacks. New appearances from familiar characters like Hawk and Chick and Nat the limo driver failed to drum up as much excitement as even the new, albeit simple, premise of "the Belcher family goes to the mall." "Legends of the Mall" ends up being a memorable episode in a sea of mostly forgettable ones or retreads.

If you are going to venture into Season 10 and aren't a "Bob's Burgers" diehard, we recommend "Poops!... I Didn't Do It Again." The episode, like the season premiere, gets the show's balance of gross-out humor right, and ends up featuring one of the most touching Bob and Louise moments — even if it's bonding over the fear of public pooping.

The modern seasons of "Bob's Burgers" have yet to hit the consistent soaring heights of the show's best seasons, but Season 12 was a sign that things were at least headed in the right direction again. It's still rare for a modern "Bob's Burgers" episode to knock it out of the park in terms of both its A and B plots, but a handful in Season 12 at least do one or the other right.

"Driving Big Dummy" is both hilarious and touching, as it digs the deepest into Teddy (Larry Murphy) and Bob's friendship as any episode has. Between a half-decent Thanksgiving episode and an epic two-part finale, Season 12 had some highlights, but is certainly indicative of a writer's room starting to show its age.

We also love the tiny hints in this season that subtly set up the events of "The Bob's Burgers Movie." In small moments throughout these episodes, we see the crack in the sidewalk start to form and get bigger. Every fan who's seen it knows that this will lead to the explosive opening of "The Bob's Burgers Movie."

Season 13 has one episode that single-handedly boosts its ranking. The highest-rated "Bob's Burgers" episode on IMDb, "The Plight Before Christmas" is a marvelous return to form even after the excellent and fan-pleasing movie performed below expectations. In the undeniably solid half-hour, every plot line comes together as Bob and Linda rush to attend each of their kid's holiday performances at school. This has everything you want from a "Bob's Burgers" episode (including holiday spirit) but the ending is a real tear-jerker that elevates it from great to all-timer status.

While the general quality of the show is still more hit-and-miss than it used to be, Season 13 had the best hit rate in quite some time. When it hit, it really hit, which is how it produced more than just one of the best "Bob's Burgers" episodes in years. In addition to the spectacular Christmas episode, the season finale "Amelia” is an honest and powerful half-hour of TV. In choosing her for an assignment, Louise has to grapple with the reality of Amelia Earhart's failure and learns a very real lesson about how even our idols are human.

The decline in "Bob's Burgers" is slow and gradual, making it hard to determine a starting point. We couldn't bring ourselves to call Season 9 bad, but if we are recommending seasons to casual viewers this might be the first to fall after the cut-off. It's the first season that we scroll through and remember less than half the episodes by name. The ones we do remember are pretty good, though. 

It returns to some ideas with diminishing returns, like in its season premiere where Tina once again meets Boyz 4 Now. Then again, there's the excellently titled "Taking of Funtime One Two Three," where the kids pull a heist at the arcade while Bob and Linda adopt a chicken from Teddy. And any true fan won't soon forget the emotional visit to Bob's mother's grave, finally broaching a touchy subject that the show had avoided confronting for years.

There are also decent Halloween and Christmas episodes in the bunch as well, making for a season that's not half bad after all. Although slightly past its prime, this season is still perfectly watchable TV.

Season 8 of "Bob's Burgers" gets off to a tremendous start with the fan-animated special "Brunchsquatch." The episode is well-written with a fitting conflict that leads to a half-hour full of solid chuckles. However, it's mostly memorable for the constantly shifting art styles crowd-sourced from fan submissions. The rest of the season fails to live up to these astronomical heights. It's still very much a good pack of "Bob's Burgers" episodes, but it's not firing on all cylinders compared to the seasons preceding it.

Some memorable moments include Tina spending a day as a lifeguard and the Belchers catering a wedding. It goes well enough. We do have to give a shout-out to the two-part Christmas episode from Season 8, "The Bleakening." While the series isn't as consistent as it used to be, "Bob's Burgers" is still killing it when it comes to its themed episodes, which have now come to include Valentine's Day as well. We can't deny that even in Season 8 the writers were full of new scenarios to place the family in, even if the season overall leaned too hard into making entire episodes from minor holidays. 

The first season of "Bob's Burgers" is very much a show still trying to figure out its tone. Even so, it was never a bad show. From the get-go, it's clearly trying to be a show for adults, but even on a more fundamental level, you can hear the actors find their characters throughout these 13 episodes. The animation too is extremely rudimentary in comparison to Season 13, for example. If you are jumping back from the modern seasons this might be jarring, but none of this prevents the first season of "Bob's Burgers" to dish out some bangers.

It's truly remarkable that "Crawl Space," the second ever "Bob's Burgers" episode, is still one of its best ever made. Nothing encapsulates Bob as a character more than pretending to hide in the crawl space to get a break from Linda's parents, and then getting stuck there. This isn't the only Season 1 classic: We find ourselves singing "Weekend at Mort's" all the time, to this day.

The biggest downside is that there are jokes from some of these super early episodes that haven't aged well. Entire premises for episodes, like "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?" contain problematic elements and questionable moments.

Season 6 has an excellent run of episodes — the only problem is that it's couched between two knockout acts. While it may not be as consistent as the season before or after it, this is still "Bob's Burgers" in its prime and you pretty much can't go wrong with a single episode from this list. From here on out, these are all top-tier "Bob's Burgers" seasons.

From excellent parodies like the robo-stache and the Gayle and Bob Christmas disaster, Season 6 is stacked top to bottom with fan-favorite moments and episodes. Let us not forget "The Hauntening," which stands out as the highest-rated Halloween episode of "Bob's Burgers" to this day. 

The best of the bunch would have to be the 100th episode and season finale "Glued, Where's my Bob?" With a ludicrous plot that feels fresh but totally on brand and the best musical number the series had yet whipped up, "Bob's Burgers" was still making major creative moves even this far into its run. Bad things do indeed happen in the bathroom, but there weren't very many bad things in this season.

You could argue that "Bob's Burgers" finds itself by the end of the first season, but it's clear by the end of Season 2 that the tone of "Bob's Burgers" is locked in. While it's only nine episodes long, Season 2 has as many all-timers as the full 22-episode runs. When you consider that "Burgerboss," "Bad Tina," "Moody Foodie," and "Beefsquatch" all came from this season, it's hard not to be supremely impressed.

If Season 1 introduced us to the Belcher's kooky reality, the show's second season focused on its characters. Three of the four aforementioned episodes highlight the antics of one character specifically. As the show invested more time into Bob, Tina, and Gene respectively, it realized that this was its winning formula. And then there are episodes like "Food Truckin'," where we see the highs and lows of what the family can accomplish through the power of teamwork. The Belchers are equal parts enabling and self-sabotaging, but at the end of the day, they love each other more than words can express.

Season 2 also introduces some pretty big recurring characters like Zeke, Tammy, and Dr. Yap, who gets an episode devoted entirely to him — and it's great.

It's quite a feat for any show to keep the quality as high and consistent as "Bob's Burgers" did well into its seventh season. This alone should cement it as one of the great animated TV shows of the modern era. It begins with "Flu-ouise," a fever dream of an episode where Louise is sick in bed that sees the show going to trippier and more abstract spaces than ever before. Of course, the season is still "Bob's Burgers" at its core and full of the hilariously mundane, such as Bob getting into a gingerbread house-building competition with Mr. Fischoeder (Kevin Kline) or Bob getting in a hip-hop dance battle to win Linda's Valentine's Day affections. 

That's perhaps the best part of Season 7. Everyone gets to shine at some point or another. Tina is the star of "Ain't Miss Debating" when she joins the Wagstaff debate team, but Gene and Louise making a stop-motion movie with a pile of rotting beef might be the funniest part of the entire season. Don't forget Linda, either. "Thelma & Louise Except Thelma Is Linda" is a great example of "Bob's Burgers" challenging its characters. Despite time never moving forward, both Louise and Linda learn the absurd lengths they will go for each other. 

It's hard to top the one-two punch that kicks off Season 4. The perils of Bob and Linda surviving in the woods in "A River Runs Through Bob" straight into the kid-focused "Fort Night" demonstrates how masterful the show had become at doing its thing.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the seasonal specials. After Season 4, the annual holiday episodes were a much-anticipated highlight of each upcoming season. "Turkey in a Can" mixed the early show's toilet humor and Bob's love for turkey into a delightful Thanksgiving mystery. And who can forget "Christmas in the Car?" 

"The Frond Files," "Slumber Party," and "Mazel-Tina," also represent three fundamental episodes whose highlights were not the Belchers, but the side characters. From Mr. Frond to Tammy to the oft-forgotten Jessica (voiced by Kathryn Hahn) who didn't make another appearance until Season 10, by Season 4 "Bob's Burgers" had begun to show a "Simpsons" level of finesse when it came to making minor characters with gigantic personalities.

You could certainly make an argument that Season 5 is the best season of "Bob's Burgers." There's no denying this season is filled with bangers, from the premiere — where Gene makes his "Die Hard" musical dreams a reality — to the season finale "The Oeder Games." In the latter, we see the Belchers competing in an elaborate "Hunger Games"-like competition set up by their greedy landlord, Mr. Fischoeder. 

At this point, it wasn't just the Belchers — characters like Fischoeder were getting more and more opportunities to shine, as we saw in "The Oeder Games" and the season's Thanksgiving special, "Dawn of the Peck." Episodes like "The Gayle Tales" fully embraced the popularity of the show's bourgeoning ensemble cast of characters who gave "Bob's Burgers" so much of its personality. Season 5 also introduced us to Bob's father "Big Bob" (Bill Hader) and martial arts cinema stars Hawk and Chick.

Season 3 is the first full season of "Bob's Burgers," and it is still the best. A big reason this season winds up on top is the music. "Bob's Burgers" has always been a musically inclined show, with an original song ending each episode dating back to the first season. From "Topsy" to "Boyz 4 Now," this season's essential episodes all came with a case of earworms.

Season 3 was also truly an inflection point for Tina. She had already become one of the series' most relatable characters. A walking ball of hormones and anxiety, Tina is the perfect caricature of a teenager, while also being completely unique in her weird perspective. The third season gave us such Tina-tastic episodes as "Broadcast Wagstaff School News" and "Tina-Rannosaurus Wrecks," and for that, we are forever thankful.

All in all, this season is where the writers of "Bob's Burgers" found their groove as songwriters as well as comedians. It truly elevates the series and gives it that je ne sais quoi it needed to finally grow to its full potential. For that reason, Season 3 earns the win.