I love Bob’s Burgers.  I tried it when it first started airing, but for some reason I bounced off it.  Then, years later, convinced by friends of mine, I gave it another try, and now, it’s become not just one of my favorite animated shows of all time, it’s surpassed Futurama as my top comfort show, and is one of my favorite shows full stop.  Barely a day goes by that I don’t watch at least one episode of Bob’s.  I shouldn’t be surprised, since it’s the creative marriage between the people behind Home Movies and King of the Hill, two more shows I love.  Bob’s does just about everything well, but more than perhaps any other show I’ve seen, it absolutely nails holiday episodes.  And since the nation is gathering around tables this Thursday (apologies to my Canadian readers, I’ll take care of you next October), I thought I’d celebrate the many excellent Bob’s Burgers Thanksgiving episodes by ranking them all by my preference for you, so you have an option to occupy the family when the forks are put down and that one uncle you really don’t like wants to start giving you life advice.  Let’s get into it.

11. Season 6, Episode 4: “Gayle Makin’ Bob Sled”

Gayle fans are probably going to hate me for placing this one at the bottom, and while I’m not a Gayle hater, Linda’s sister is at her neurotic peak here—whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is sort of in the eye of the beholder.  But if you’re like me and you think Gayle is best in small doses, this episode where Bob ends up having to drag her in a kiddie pool down a snow covered street to get to Thanksgiving dinner, it’s a little too much Gayle.  But it’s not a bad episode—it ends strongly and is definitely a good watch.  Still, something has to be at the bottom of the list and this is it.

10. Season 4, Episode 5: “Turkey in a Can”

Gayle and her cats are over for Thanksgiving, and as Bob tries out a new three-day brine, the turkey ends up in the toilet overnight.  And then the cat box.  After his initial shock, he gets a replacement turkey, but the it also ends up in the toilet.  And so on and so forth.  While this episode ends sweetly as the mystery is revealed and the repeated visits to the grocer for replacements offer some hilarious scenes, this one is this far down the list for me because it’s just too gross for my tastes.  Between the raw turkey in the toilet, rolling around in the litter box, and then Linda being sick on it, it just hits on all the things I don’t personally enjoy.  The episode is not without its moments, but they’re not enough to push this one further up the list.

9. Season 10, Episode 8: “Now We’re Not Cooking With Gas”

We all know that Thanksgiving is Bob’s favorite holiday and he is over the moon to find out that he’s been selected to purchase a Riverbrook Lake Farms heritage turkey after 5 years on the waiting list.  I’m not much of a turkey guy myself (unless it’s smoked, then we’re talking), but I’ve had the kind of turkey he’s talking about, straight from a farm, never frozen, and it absolutely makes a difference.  For Bob’s favorite day of the year, a gas outage on the block and no other oven access drives him to Linda-levels of steamrolling, forcing the family into the alley to cook the bird on a makeshift fire pit.  As the embers start to fade and the fire department threatens to hose him down and fine him fairly heavily, Bob starts a relentless race against the clock to cook the turkey before he runs out of fuel or the fire department returns to shut down the party.  This pushes him to send the kids out for every possible flammable object and Louise’s pyromania goes on overdrive, which is usually fun to watch.  However, when they fail to bring back anything usable, it’s Tina’s sacrifice that makes Bob realizes he’s the one ruining the day for everyone.  While the ending is quite nice and Bob learns a lesson, another episode in this list drives it home a little better and with funnier subplots, so that earns this one a 9th place spot only.

8. Season 3, Episode 5: “An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal”

Bob’s first entry into the Thanksgiving special is a strong start to a lovely series of episodes.  Bob is left out when landlord and eccentric Calvin Fischoeder offers them 5 months of free rent if Bob cooks his Thanksgiving dinner—and the Belchers pretend to be his family so he can trick a woman who will only date married men into a relationship (the intended length of which I can only speculate).  But, as expected, things take a turn for the Belcher family and what results is a serious bit of madcap fun.  Also, Linda debuts her Thanksgiving song and it’s an earworm.  Not my favorite, but it’s catchy as hell.  I’m a huge fan of Fischoeder and his affection for Bob and this is a very funny episode; placing this one 8th isn’t a criticism of the episode so much as it is a testament to how good the Thanksgiving episodes of Bob’s have been.  That this first one has been bested—in my opinion, of course—several times over shows how good a Thanksgiving episode Bob’s is capable of.

7. Season 11, Episode 7: “Diarrhea of a Poopy Kid”

Okay, so you know I don’t like toilet humor by now and while Gene does spend this entire episode on the bathroom floor, it keeps the truly gross stuff off screen.  I know there’s a contingent of Bob’s fans that don’t like “story” episodes, but I love them, so this one earns the 7th spot.  As Gene is quarantined in the lav because of a stomach bug, Louise and Tina (and eventually Bob) decide to tell him stories through the door to comfort him as he’s missing the best food day of the year and Bob’s new experimental menu.  Gene asks for stories that make him hate food and the kids do their best to comply.  Louise tells the story of The Breadator, a parody of The Predator, where Gene is the hero who takes on an invisible alien hunter made of rosemary bread, one of Bob’s new dishes.  Tina tells the story Pear Force One, a spoof of Air Force One where President Gene and his wife, First Lady Mom (yeah, Gene’s Oedipus complex is on full show here), are hijacked by sentient pear terrorists who want to prove that pears are as good as apples.  And Bob tells Parmageddon, a story about deep sea marinara miners who have to save the Earth from a Texas-sized chicken parm from space.  A very sweet episode that offers a lot of laughs, it’s only not higher on this list because other episodes are just better.

6. Season 12, Episode 8: “Stuck in the Kitchen with You”

Similar in structure to “Now We’re Cooking”, Bob’s Thankzilla side rears its ugly head here as he steps in to serve Thanksgiving dinner to the residents of a retirement home when the cook goes into labor. But, where this outshines “Now We’re Cooking” is the direct confrontation that leads to Bob altering his behavior and strengthening his relationship with Louise (my favorite pairing in the show) and a lovely and funny B-plot where Zeke and the remaining Belcher kids rally together to entertain the senior citizens when a TV outage means they can’t watch the parade.  Even Linda has a great little subplot with Sergeant Bosco and his mother.  These things just take it up a level for me and make it a classic Thanksgiving episode.

5. Season 7, Episode 6: “The Quirk-Ducers”

Despite being given a half day on the day before Thanksgiving, school counselor Mr. Frond’s dreadful yearly Thanksgiving plays keep them there far too long and hamper the beginning of what should be a very long weekend for the kids.  So, Louise concocts a plan (this phrase shows up in my notes a lot) to adapt one of Tina’s “erotic friend fictions” into a musical that is so offensive that Frond himself shuts it down and sends the kids home.  You see, Tina got Mean Girl’d when Tammy calls her quirky and she takes it out on the page.  What comes next is a very sweet and genuine story about Tina learning to value her uniqueness in a time when conforming is the easiest path to peer acceptance, with one of the best songs in the long history of great songs in Bob’s.  I genuinely love this episode.

4. Season 13, Episode 8: “Putts-Giving”

This might be a controversial one, but I adore this episode.  Thanksgiving just happens to be the last day that a 50% off coupon for the local mini-golf course is valid and Louise convinces Bob to take the family there for a short trip before dinner is served.  The course has a yeti obstacle that is rather involved and Louise tries to get it to perform all its tricks at once—however, Tina abandons the effort because she wants to show Bob and Linda that she’s mature enough to go to an after-Thanksgiving party with high school boys in attendance.  What ensues is classic Louise chaos, however what really pushes this episode up the list for me is Louise’s motivation; sure, she wants to see the yeti do its crazy dance, but when it comes right down to it, she is reacting to fear.  Despite Louise’s tough exterior, the 9-year-old is afraid that her older sister is maturing beyond her and will never want to have fun with her and Gene again.  It’s a touching episode about growing up and what it means to mature and the sense of loss that comes with your older sibling outgrowing your interests as new things start to interest them in life; for Tina’s adolescent brain, that largely means boys (and their butts specifically) take priority over goofing off with her siblings.  As things go terribly wrong (another phrase often in my notes), Tina steps up and shows a real maturity and affection for her little brother and sister that is absolutely heartwarming.  An instant classic for me and it just misses out on the top 3 because of three even more excellent episodes.

3. Season 8, Episode 5: Thanks-Hoarding

As Bob plans his meticulous Thanksgiving, Teddy comes in hysterically needing help to host an unplanned Thanksgiving dinner for his mother, her boyfriend, his sister, and her husband.  Bob, being a reluctantly good friend, decides to take the family over and help out.  In the process of prepping and teaching Teddy how to reheat food in the oven (Teddy is overly nervous and unable to follow even the simplest instructions), Linda discovers a room full of junk that hides a dining table.  She figures that cleaning out the junk and preparing the dinner table would be a much better idea than Thanksgiving dinner around the coffee table in the living room, so she and kids start a purge of Teddy’s items.  But as it turns out, Teddy is seriously attached to his stuff and as the purging process goes on, Linda comes to the realization that Teddy holds on to these broken things in the hopes of fixing them as he once did his best to fix his parents’ marriage as a kid.  This is a kindhearted episode that speaks to Teddy’s backstory in a way that we haven’t seen it before.  We always knew that Teddy was a friendly, but ultimately lonely guy who was working through something, but this is one of the best glimpses we get into the damage around which his personality formed.  It is a sweet, sweet story that has lots of laughs along the way and really shows Bob’s at its best; a touching story mixed with laugh out loud comedy.  While it’s an unconventional Thanksgiving episode, it found its way into my heart in a way that only Teddy can.

2. Season 5, Episode 4: “Dawn of the Peck”

Bob’s is always great when it finds a new take on integrating horror into the comedy and its Halloween episodes are legendary, perhaps even more iconic to the series than its Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes, and this one straddles the line of that pure Halloween terror and Thanksgiving brilliance.  The family decides to go to Wonder Wharf (also owned by the Fischoeders) for their Turkey Trot, what Linda believes will be a cute version of the running of the bulls, and the kids are excited to go on the rides and spend a day at an amusement park rather than just sitting around watching TV while Bob cooks.  As a result, Bob decides to boycott Thanksgiving and spend the day alone at home, getting drunk and listening to music.  But as things tend to, they go horribly wrong once again, and the birds are all out of sorts and overly aggressive, resulting in a zombie-like stampede.  Linda is trampled and pulled to safety by Teddy, the Belcher kids, along with Regular Sized Rudy (my absolute favorite supporting character) and Andy and Ollie are stranded on the teacups.  Rudy is always a delight, the crazed turkeys encroach, Linda is frantically trying to get to them, and blissfully unaware, Bob talks to and for his turkey baster (one of Bob’s best quirks that we get insight into in another episode and a classic recurring gag) and, drunk and determined, decides to go get a turkey and make his family the Thanksgiving dinner he’s wanted to make all day.  As the turkeys (and other fowl) wreak havoc, Bob walks into a mess he is woefully unprepared for.  Where later episodes are much more emotionally involved, this one delivers laugh after laugh and leaves you with a big smile on your face.  “Dawn of the Peck” is one of my go to episodes, so good that it transcends the Thanksgiving episode moniker, becoming an any time episode.    

1. Season 9, Episode 7: “I Bob Your Pardon”

Linda’s obsession with the mayor sees the family heading to the town’s first ever turkey pardoning, but she’s distressed when she finds out there’s a bait and switch and the mayor isn’t there, only the deputy mayor.  Beyond all that, the kids overhear a phone conversation in which a mayor’s aide lets slip that the pardoning is a big sham and the turkey, Drew P. Neck, is on his way to a slaughterhouse.  Louise has an excellent arc in this episode as she goes from hating turkeys to convincing Bob to go on a quest to save the turkey, enticed by the thought of adventure, and then pushes her limits to protect Drew P. Neck.  They follow the aide, kidnap the turkey, and try to find a safe place for him to live out his days naturally.  There’s a great callback here to one of my favorite episodes, “Stand By Gene” as they hurdle obstacles on the way to sanctuary.  This episode also has one of my favorite line deliveries by Tina, as she, after-school-special-style, yells “I mean what, we’re going to start lying to turkeys now?  YOU THINK THAT’S PRETTY COOL DAD!?”  I don’t know why that line tickles me the way it does, but I can’t help but laugh at it every time.  This is an episode that delivers on every level—it’s as funny as it is emotionally satisfying, and every little gag and through-line just works.  Even the argument that runs through the episode about fresh cranberry sauce versus canned (which is utterly pointless, since cranberry sauce sucks in any form) offers multiple laughs as it comes up throughout.  While the idea of saving the turkey is Tina’s, in this episode where every character delivers, Louise, as usual, overdelivers and stands out above the rest.  Just a completely brilliant episode that works on every level, it’s my favorite Thanksgiving episode and one of my favorites in the series overall.    

So there you have it.  If you’re not already a fan of Bob’s Burgers, I hope this ranking convinces you to give the show a try (the entire series is streaming on Hulu at the time of writing) and if you are a fan, I hope you enjoyed my look at each of the show’s excellent Thanksgiving episodes.  There really isn’t a stinker in the bunch; each one has its merits.  Thank you for reading this very long bonus post and have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!  Save me a piece of pumpkin pie, will you?