Introducing Death: The Belcher Truth of the Opening Credits (DARK THEORY)

Welcome back, Fanaticals! As you can see, today is the first Dark Theory we will be talking about. Bob's Burgers is full of a myriad of dark theories, which actually start as early as the opening credits!

I want to warn you all one more time that this is a heavily dark theory content post, that talks about main character death with a bit of detail. If you are not comfortable with this, please do not read any further! If you are comfortable and ready to dive into the dark deep end, then let's go!

Bob is the Only Family Member Alive

So, this is a huge breakdown in and of itself. There are many theories that come along with this overall that vary between the entire family is dead, only a few members have died, and even down to the actions of other characters in response to the possibility that Bob is the only one alive. With this theory comes the extension that the family being "alive" is actually Bob hallucinating them. Obviously, there are some holes to this theory, but there is also some supporting evidence in several episodes. Eventually, I will go deeper into this theory, but the reason I mention it now is because it has some connections to the theories we are going to be looking into today. Mostly because I will reference a couple times how Bob "copes" with their deaths, AKA why they are still alive in the series; the secret to this theory is that he can't cope, and that is why they are all hallucinations.

This will not be the only time that we address this theory, but today we are going to focus entirely on the death theory that surrounds the opening credits of the show itself. Now, this theory entirely blew me away as I never expected there to be a connection between the death theories and the opening credits! However, a lot of it makes a lot of sense if we go based on the theory of certain family members being dead.

We are going to go in order of "accidents" by the way of the opening credits. I hope you're prepared for some crazy theorizing! Let's jump in.

Fire in the Kitchen

At the beginning of the opening credits, you see the "Grand Opening" banner, and then a fire catches in the kitchen; this begins the "death theory" of the opening credits. Sadly, according to the theory, this gruesome death would belong to my favourite Belcher, Louise. Not only is she beloved, but there is a lot of evidence throughout the series that she is a pyromaniac. The theory behind this is that she accidentally set fire to the kitchen one day, and it spiraled out of control taking her with it. There is even an episode where Bob tells Tina that the reason he keeps her as the grill cook is because he "can't trust Louise around fire". This comment connects to the theory above, as it shows that because he can't cope with Louise's death by fire, he does everything he can to prevent her from being around it in an attempt to "save her".

River of Rats

After the fire, the "Grand Re-Opening" sign appears just before a river of rats and the exterminator van. The "owner" of this death is more based on Bob's hallucination projections and is more assigned by process of elimination. We all love Gene, and sometimes he can be very much a practical joker. It is due to this fact that the river of rats death belongs to Gene. The theory goes that as Gene was gathering up the rats to release as a joke, that he was bitten by one and died presumably due to rabies.

Electrical Pole of Doom

After the river of rats comes through, and the "Grand Re-Re-Opening" happens, you see an electrical pole fall through the window of the restaurant. For those of us die-hard Bob's fans, you know that Tina generally sweeps or mops regularly in two spots: by the bathroom, and directly in frount of the window. That's not including all the times that she is just generally spying out the window, whether it's waiting to meet those new teens, or waiting to see Jimmy Jr. Ironically, when she is in frount of the window, it is right about the area that the pole falls through. Going back to Bob's lack of acceptance, according to the theory, part of the reason Tina is so obsessed with zombies is because when the pole fell on her and she was electrocuted, Bob watched her body twitch which he projects with her zombie obsession.

As an alternative, if we take into consideration the pole didn't kill her, she didn't die last but instead died during Louise's obsession with sticking it to Winkler over Thomas Edison; Louise didn't almost kill Tina, but actually did during the science fair itself because they hadn't prepped the area properly due to Louise being dragged off to sit in the office meaning there were no proper precautions for Tina's safety.

This theory is a bit of a doozy, obviously, and there is so much more to uncover with other parallel theories to this one; mainly the death of Linda, and a more in depth look into Bob "coping" with their deaths. While there can obviously be holes poked into this theory, as well as the other dark theories of Bob's Burgers, it is definitely an interesting take on why there were so many re-openings for the restaurant and the theory of the Belcher's in the opening credits.

Come join our community and tell us what you think about this dark theory! Join me tomorrow as we talk about a theory with roots from the movie! Until then, keep on theorizing, Fanaticals!