There are plenty of moms on the small screen, but easily one of the funniest – and one of the most accurate portrayals of a modern working-class mother – is Linda Belcher. Funnily enough, there’s a politician named Linda Belcher who once served in the Kentucky House of Representatives.
But that’s not the Linda Belcher we’re here to talk about today – instead, we’ll be celebrating the matriarch from Bob’s Burgers. Since she’s basically everyone’s mom, Linda is arguably the most relatable character on the show (and it’s a very grounded, very relatable show). So, fans of Bob’s Burgers, here are Linda’s 10 Most Relatable Quotes.
“No boys, no parties, no summoning spirits.”
Most parents set ground rules like this when they leave their kids home alone while they go for a night out or a few days’ vacation. However, very few of those parents would include “summoning spirits” among the big no-no’s, because it’s just common sense that you shouldn’t summon spirits from beyond the grave.
But apparently, that’s not obvious to Gene, Louise, and Tina. The line hints at a past experience where the kids tried to put on a séance or use a Ouija board and it went terribly wrong. That does sound like something the Belcher kids would do.
“Only strippers shave above the knee.”
Society expects women to shave their legs – shaved legs are all over magazines and billboards and reality TV shows – but it is a huge hassle to keep it up, especially when you have to shave the whole leg from top to bottom.
Linda has the right idea. Unless you’re a stripper and take your clothes off at work every day, there are very few occasions when you’ll have anything above your knee exposed. You’re not going to shave above the knee every single time on the off-chance that you’ll take a trip to the beach at some point that week.
“Nonsense or mom-sense?”
Like all mothers, Linda is a fan of a good pun. When something she said was deemed to be “nonsense,” she countered that it was actually “mom-sense” – because she wants to fit the word “mom” into anything she can, and some things that mothers do for their kids only make sense to them initially before the positive effects show themselves later down the line.
“Mom-sense” is an interesting concept that should’ve caught on. It could be used in everyday speech to refer to something that seems crazy to everyone else, but makes perfect sense to the mom that came up with it.
“Forecast calls for fabulous!”
Although Beverly Goldberg is the TV mom who is most often called a “smother,” Linda Belcher is another prime example. She loves her kids so much that she wants to be involved in whatever they’re involved in, but they often want to just have some independence and do something on their own.
This was the case with the sleepover that Linda crashed. She came in to join the kids wearing her own pajamas and with her hair up in pigtails and told them all, “Forecast calls for fabulous!” We can all relate to the resounding rejection she faces in this scene.
“Don’t you tell me not to have a crap attack! I’ll have a crap attack any time I want!”
As a parent, it can be tough to deal with teenagers, but when Tina started showing her teen rebellious streak, Linda wouldn’t have any of it. When Tina first started hanging out with Tammy, she learned terms like “crap attack” that she used to rebel against her controlling parents.
However, Linda insisted that she could have a “crap attack” whenever she wanted to. It’s a different way of telling Tina that she is a child and Linda is an adult and she therefore has more freedoms than her. Every parent wants to tell their teenage kids this, but they won’t listen.
“Tammy can go sit in syrup. Let the bees get her.”
Sometimes it can be hard to think of a great line or the perfect insult on the spot. When Tina had been blackmailed and bullied by Tammy and came to Linda for comfort, Linda was too clouded by rage against Tammy and love for Tina to think of an insult that actually made sense.
Instead, she starts off with a nonsensical phrase: “Tammy can go sit in syrup.” Then, she saves it with the following statement, which makes sense of the fact that she mentioned sitting in syrup: “Let the bees get her.” Linda always manages to save it eventually.
“Oooh, mini croissants! No matter what I say, stop me when I’ve had 16.”
Most people who make a “No matter what…” request related to food are saying, “No matter what, don’t let me have any of that food.” But Linda has her own spin on it. She doesn’t want her family to try to stop her from eating the mini croissants she’s spied at a buffet, but she does want them to stop her when she’s reached her limit, which is apparently 16 mini croissants.
At that point, it seems kind of pointless to take any dietary needs into consideration, because that’s a lot of mini croissants, but we all do whatever we can to feel good about ourselves.
“When I die, I want you to cremate me and throw me in Tom Selleck’s face.”
Death is a difficult subject to think about, because none of us can fully understand it before it’s actually happening, and by then, it’s too late to properly comprehend it. But Linda has a decidedly fun take on her own inevitable demise.
When she dies, she wants to be cremated, and instead of having her ashes collected in an urn or scattered across an important personal location from her life, she wants to have them thrown in Tom Selleck’s mustachioed face. While this wouldn’t be a particularly pleasant experience for Selleck himself, it would be an incredible way to go out.
“Mommy doesn’t get drunk. She just has fun.”
Although Linda is shown to be a wonderful mother who cares deeply about her kids, she’s also shown to enjoy drinking a lot. But then, this is characteristic of mothers. They spend every single day looking after their kids, so if they get a chance to unwind and take a night off, of course they’re going to enjoy a couple of drinks.
Linda’s drink of choice is usually wine – she was once ecstatic to find that a supermarket she was shopping in was selling wine in a squeezable bottle – but she insists she doesn’t get drunk; she just has fun.
“I’ve only had half of four bottles of wine.”
This is what Linda says to Bob when he accuses her of being drunk at Mr. Fischoeder’s house (and to be fair, he can’t really talk – he’d been drinking absinthe all day at this point). It’s Thanksgiving and Fischoeder has agreed to five free months of rent if Linda and the kids pretend to be his family while Bob cooks.
Bob is irked, because although five months of free rent sounds great, Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday and he’s missing out on it, which leads to this confrontation. But whatever context the line is used in, it is shamefully relatable.
