Torpedo (Bob's Burgers)

"Torpedo" is the thirteenth episode and the season finale of the first season of the animated television series Bob's Burgers. The episode originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 22, 2011.

The episode was written by Dan Fybel & Rich Rindali and directed by Kyounghee Lim. The episode has received mainly positive reviews from critics.

Plot

Bob and the family head off to a baseball game to see a new ad they bought. The ad is much smaller than Bob thought it would be, described as "a hot dog wrapper caught in the net." During the game, Tina notices that the town's team, The Wonderdogs communicate by slapping each other on their buttocks. Gene becomes interested in the baseball park's mascot race (owned by Mr. Fischoeder) and wants to race with his hamburger costume. Bob becomes amazed when he finds out his baseball hero, Torpedo Jones (Robert Ben Garant) is playing for The Wonderdogs. Bob once witnessed his infamous pitch that happened fifteen years ago but is now hitting rock bottom. After the game, Bob fails to find Mr. Fischoeder to get Gene in the race but instead, Gene asks Torpedo to participate which he agreed and befriends the family.

Bob and the family watch Gene's first race with Torpedo giving Gene advice, and Bob gives Torpedo a burger. Gene wins the race and a gold medal, but fails to promotes Bob's Burgers. However, Torpedo compliments the burger and tells the audience and other players to eat at Bob's Burgers after the game. Later at Bob's Burgers, Tina asks Torpedo for a job at the team in a way to butt-slap with the handsome players and gets hired. She is also required to give Torpedo a burger at every game. Torpedo gives Bob a baseball, and Bob notices it has the grease from Bob's Burgers on it. Bob deduces that Torpedo has been cheating.

Bob meets up with Mr. Fischoeder and tells him about Torpedo cheating, but Mr. Fischoeder shows Bob that thanks to Torpedo's cheating, more people have been coming to baseball games. He also reveals that he is using support beams from the roller coaster to prop up the stadium seats and that the Wonderdog games are rigged. Bob continues giving Torpedo grease and the kids learn about it. Louise tells Gene to cheat in his next mascot race by pushing the competitors. Gene wins his second gold medal in a row and hopes to make a record of winning three in a row. After finding out about Gene's cheating, Linda forbids anyone in the house from cheating. Bob tells Torpedo not to cheat but to try his best to win at baseball. However, Torpedo reveals that he cheated in every game, including his famous pitch. Gene is ready to cheat his third race so Bob tells Gene through a speaker that he shouldn't cheat. Gene decides not to cheat and tries his best but gets pushed by a competitor and loses. As Bob is about to reveal Torpedo's cheating, the rollercoaster collapses. In the aftermath of the collapse, Mr. Fischoeder tells Bob that he reminds Fischoeder of his father. The episode ends with Tina trying to keep a jock strap that belongs to a Cuban, handsome player named Angel (David Herman) from Linda.^[1]

Production

"Torpedo" is the thirteenth and season finale of Bob's Burgers and was written by Dan Fybel & Rich Rindali and directed by Kyounghee Lim. It features guest stars from Robert Ben Garant as baseball player as Torpedo Jones, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim as baseball commentators Burt Dellalucci and Paul Finnegan. Recurring guest stars as Andy Kindler as Mort, Larry Murphy as Teddy, Kevin Kline as Mr. Fischoeder and David Herman as Cuban baseball player Angel. This episode carried a TV-PG rating for suggestive dialogue (D), offensive language (L) and graphic violence (V).

Burger Of The Day

• "Take Me Out To The Burger (comes with peanuts and Cracker Jacks)", a play on the song "Take Me Out To The Ballgame"

Reception

In its original American broadcasting, "Torpedo" was viewed by an estimated 4.31 million viewers and received a 2.1 rating/6% share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49, a drop from last episode.^[2]

Critical reception has been mainly positive reviews from critics and fans alike. On TV.com, nineteen users gave the episode an average score of 7.7 out of a possible 10, which registers as 'good'.^[3] The Internet Movie Database page for Torpedo has recorded an average viewer rating of 8.3 out of a possible 10, based on 123 votes.^[4]

Rowan Kaiser from The A.V. Club gave the episode an A-, the highest rating of the night. He praised the storyline, described it watchable and found it nice to see a Gene-based episode.^[5]

References

External links

• "Torpedo" at the Internet Movie Database
• Torpedo at the Big Cartoon DataBase