This past Sunday, a new Fox animated series premiered to try and stem the unstoppable growth of Seth MacFarlane Sunday. It is called Bob’s Burgers, and it was created by Loren Bouchard, who you may recall as an Adult Swim stalwart. He wrote the theme song for Bob’s Burgers, just as he cowrote the theme song for Home Movies (with Brendan Small).

This is a nice, uptempo ukulele tune (right? ukulele?) that is meant to contrast the action onscreen. Other than the introduction of a horn section (mostly just to keep the song loud enough to be audible over the sound effects), the ukulele stays stagnant throughout the opening, even as things change onscreen.

And as to that: what I find most interesting about the opening sequence is that we move first through space and then through time. We start close on a hamburger, then expand out to Bob, his wife, his kids, his store, and the stores next to his. Then, at about nine seconds in (when the horns kick in) we start moving ahead - the store’s opening, its reopening, and so on. I think the opening shot of a hamburger is meant to make us understand Bob’s priorities - burgers, then himself, then his family. Once we get that, we can see the prologue to our episode: this store is cursed. I am surprised that there would be a gag you’d have to read to convey this information in a show’s opening credits, but I suppose it worked for The Simpsons.