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Bobs Burgers S 15 E 7 Boogie Days
(aka: Bobs Burgers S 15 E Boogie Days)

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Louise signs up for a father-daughter boogie board contest, but Bob is haunted by an incident he had the last time he boogie boarded. Meanwhile, Linda tries to celebrate Teddy's birthday.

Tropes

  • Bait-and-Switch: The episode initially makes it seem as though Bob's Near-Death Experience was highly exaggerated; Linda mentions it occurred in extremely shallow water, subsequently causing the kids to also not take Bob very seriously. As Louise finds out, however, he wasn't exaggerating at all—while Linda was correct in that the water beneath Bob was extremely shallow, it doesn't particularly matter how deep the water is when a giant wave is crashing onto you while you're unable to breathe and can't even tell which way is up. While Bob's Slippery Swimsuit is played for laughs, him nearly drowning is very much not.
  • Birthday Episode: The B-plot has Linda attempting to throw Teddy a birthday party.
  • A Birthday, Not a Break: Teddy has had bad luck celebrating his birthday because it often gets interrupted by something unpleasant, like getting a root canal. Linda decides to give Teddy a great party this year, only for Teddy to have to go to a funeral for a fellow handyman that day, and the rest of the guests are too sad to be in the mood. Eventually, though, Linda gets them all in a party mood.
  • Breaking Old Trends: This is the first episode where Courtney and her father Doug appear that doesn't see them have any significant interaction with Gene.
  • Continuity Nod: Teddy mentions that he can't spend his birthday with Kathleen, with whom he had been dating for several seasons, because she went to Ireland for a family thing.
  • Flashback Echo: Bob keeps having brief flashbacks to the boogie board incident. Louise starts suffering them too after she wiped out and hit her chin.
  • From Bad to Worse: Linda's impromptu birthday party for Teddy. It starts being planned right, until she hears that he's attending a funeral for an old friend who passed away and is coming to the restaurant with his other grieving handymen friends to eat. She still stubbornly sticks to the plan while trying to find the best way to start (or brighten the mood) with the rest of Teddy's handymen friends, but just as she's bringing the cupcakes, one of Teddy's friends breaks out crying, which only sours the mood as she tries to salvage the moment. Then Mort comes and Teddy only gets more ticked off. Fortunately, she manages to turn things around at the end by endearing all the other handymen into trying to repair the ice cream machine by turning it into a game.
  • Hidden Depths: Bob used to be a boogie boarder, and a competent one at that.
  • Look Behind You: Linda tries it on Bob so he won't see her contradict his story to the kids. Bob doesn't fall for it, although Tina does.
  • Near-Death Experience: Bob's retirement from boogie boarding occurred after nearly drowning from a particularly large wave.
  • No Sympathy: Linda repeatedly insists Bob is making a big deal about nothing because his drowning incident happened in shallow water. The episode steadily clarifies Linda doesn't know what she's talking about as Bob explains how legitimately frightening it was.
  • Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title is a reference to Boogie Nights.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: After being pulled underwater and getting hurt much like Bob was, Louise decides to quit the boogie board competition. Bob comes to the realization that quitting after one bad experience deprived him of having more great experiences doing something he loved, and is afraid that he's passing that on to his daughter. He convinces Louise to rejoin the competition, and they end up coming in fourth and having a great time.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Slippery Swimsuit: The worst part of Bob's incident wasn't that he almost got killed, it was that his trunks fell off and he walked into the shore naked. Louise notes that if Bob go back to boogie boarding sooner, this probably would've happened to him again.
    Kid: What's that?
    Bob: It's a penis.
    Bob: Don't look at me!
  • Stop Drowning and Stand Up: Deconstructed; Linda doesn’t take Bob’s near-drowning incident seriously because it happened in shallow water, which makes Louise initially not take it seriously, either. However, when Bob tells her the full story, it highlights it doesn’t matter how shallow the water is, when a wave is crashing you around like hard you can’t get your bearings together or come up for breath and he probably would have drowned if a nearby lifeguard didn’t realize what was happening and pulled him up. While an important lesson in water safety, Louise learning it is possible to drown in shallow water freaks her out and affects her confidence in her boogie boarding abilities. Furthermore, it also highlights how little sympathy Linda has for how genuinely terrifying the whole incident was to her husband.
  • The Talk: Bob attempted to give it to Gene in a flashback, prompting a Big "NO!" Freak Out from the latter and a Let Us Never Speak of This Again.
  • Trauma Button: Boogie boarding for Bob, as evident by his flashbacks and justified considering his Near-Death Experience.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: While Bob and Louise placed fourth, it's never shown who won the competition, or where the Wheelers (the only other notable characters participating) ranked.
  • Your Other Left: Teddy and a group of handymen friends celebrate his birthday by playing a game where they work in pairs to try and fix a broken ice cream machine. Namely, one person faces the machine and calls out instructions, while the other stands behind them and plays the role of the arms. When it's Teddy's turn, he is flummoxed by the idea of left and right, unable to tell which of his partner's hands is which, despite that partner pointing out repeatedly that they are facing the same direction.

Alternative Title(s): Bobs Burgers S 15 E Boogie Days

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