Teddy

Theodore "Teddy" is a main character in Bob's Burgers. He is a carpenter, handyman, and Bob Belcher's best friend and is a frequent diner at the restaurant. He acts like an uncle to Bob and Linda's kids, Tina, Gene, and Louise Belcher. Teddy's last name remains undisclosed. He makes his first appearance in "Crawl Space."
He is voiced by Larry Murphy.
==Profile==
=== Appearance===
Teddy is a burly man in his 50s ("The Wolf of Wharf Street"). He has tan skin and has a shaven head with a 5 o'clock shadow. He wears a blue button-down with rolled up sleeves, a white T-shirt underneath and brown cargo pants. In one episode, he is seen wearing a customized work jumpsuit.
Teddy wears a gray beanie at all times. It is revealed in "Sea Me Now" that he does this because he feels self-conscious about the back of his head due to his ex-wife Denise constantly saying that the back of his head looks like a butt.
When he was a young adult, Teddy was muscular and had long blond hair ("The Deepening" & "Sliding Bobs"). He was attractive enough to be on a shark movie as one "Handsome Lifeguard Number 3." He let himself go after one of the cute beach girl actresses turned him down after an operator on set bumped Teddy, making him spill his drink all over said actress ("The Deepening"). His condition has not improved since his divorce. While he was in the Navy, Teddy kept his blond hair cut short ("Frigate Me Knot").
Teddy's shoe sizes are a size 13 on the left foot and an 11 on the right ("The Secret Ceramics Room of Secrets").
===Personality===
While kind-hearted as well as a loyal customer and family friend to the Belchers, Teddy is known for telling long-winded stories, so much so that one of his nicknames is "Talky Teddy" ("Crawl Space"). In one instance, Gene and Louise made a bet to see who could handle listening to one of Teddy's stories the longest. He's also known for invading Bob's personal space. Teddy is something of a "sad-sack:" he is a desperate, divorced and lonely individual with few social skills longing for companionship and a family of his own. Because of this he desperately wants to be part of the Belcher family and is often inserting himself into their personal lives. He frequents Bob's Burgers in order to have someone to talk to because he is lonely.http://longislandweekly.com/extended-q-cast-bobs-burgers/
Teddy has many fears and anxieties, the greatest of which he claims to be costumed characters and their "soulless eyes," after an incident with his ex-wife. Sometimes he fidgets his hands when he's nervous.s8e5 "Thanks-hoarding" When the Belchers are helping Teddy remove some stuff from his apartment, he fidgets his fingers. He also has a hot temper, and has been seen to fly off the handle ("The Cook, the Steve, the Gayle, & Her Lover" and "Uncle Teddy") in defense of those he loves, but always seems to express immediate regret. An example of this is when Teddy throws Jonas's moped over the cliff for stringing Tina along while babysitting the Belcher kids but feels remorseful as soon as he does it ("Uncle Teddy"). He sees a therapist, Dr. Marj orie, for this and other concerns. According to Teddy, his therapist says, "if [he doesn't] value [his] time, nobody else will" ("Glued, Where's my Bob?"). Teddy visits Dr. Marjorie every week ("Uncle Teddy").
Teddy will eat anything, and notoriously eats a sponge in "Synchronized Swimming." Teddy eats a burger every day ("Friends with Burger-fits") and is resultantly in poor health. Though occasional references are made throughout the series to Teddy's weight and health ("Uncle Teddy" and "The Deepening"), it is the focus of the Season 5 episode "Friends with Burger-fits."
===Hoarding===
When the Belchers visit Teddy's house on Thanksgiving, they discover that though he doesn't have silverware, he compulsively hoards things that he finds throughout his daily life as a contractor, and he envisions fixing in his closet and dining room ("Thanks-Hoarding"). With the help of the Belchers, Teddy lets go of some things and learns about the root cause of his hoarding.
==Story==
Teddy grew up in a dysfunctional household. For almost every dinner, he sat between his parents so they wouldn't argue. The handyman feels responsible for "fixing" things or holding the family together ("Thanks-Hoarding"). Despite this, he loves everyone in his family, including his father, whom he likely had a bad relationship with. He believes every bad thing in his life is fated after he stepped on a rusty nail while at a comet watch party, waiting for Kirby's Comet ("Comet-y of Errors"). It's unknown if he's lived in Seymour's Bay his whole life, but he's been here for a while. Teddy's family has a history here. He's known Bob ever since he moved here, and he even installed the booths of Bob's Burgers ("Romancing the Beef"). The time Bob came to Ocean Avenue was also the time Teddy went through a divorce with Denise, who treated him horribly and cheated constantly ("Romancing the Beef"). He visits his best friend's restaurant whenever possible to eat a burger and be in the presence of Bob and his family.
==Relationships==
===Family===
Teddy has a family history in town. His great-uncle owned a speakeasy during the early 20th centurys1e2 "Crawl Space" Teddy says that his great uncle owned a speakeasy during Prohibition, which was from the 1920s to 1930s. named Swanky's, originator of the mixed drink "The Swanky Panky," and his uncle Paddy was a maid at Caffrey Taffy Company ("The Belchies").
Teddy has a sister, Dana, who's married to a man named Dan.
Teddy's parents fought throughout his childhood, often leaving him to feel responsible for "fixing" things or holding the family together ("Thanks-Hoarding"). 
Teddy's mother, who is partially blind (Aquaticism), lives some distance away from him and flies in for visits. The two often travel together, taking a single's cruise in "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled" and a silent weekend retreat. Teddy remarks to Bob over the phone that he doesn't think his mother "respects herself" when it comes to men, and has an age-inappropriate boyfriend who Teddy and Dana exclusively call "Boy-Toy" as of Season 8. Teddy and his mother traditionally celebrate Thanksgiving at Dana and her husband's place, with the recent addition of Teddy's mother's new boyfriend ("Thanks-Hoarding"). There might be some unsettled conflict between Teddy and his mother, as implied by himself when Teddy talked about him having "mother issues' in response to Bob's conflict with Big Bob ("Father of the Bob"). 
Teddy's father is implied to be deceased as Teddy dedicated his cover of Natalie Merchant's wonder to him in "The Millie-churian Candidate." According to Teddy in "Bob Fires the Kids," his father was an alcoholic before dying. Teddy had a bad relationship with his father ("Father of the Bob") and clearly connects personally to the harsh lyrics of musical health inspector Tommy Jaronda's "Daddy," a song with lines like "Daddy, you are my enemy/ punches are not hugs to me." Teddy's admitted favorite childhood memory is when his father high-fived him ("Lorenzo's Oil? No, Linda's"). His worst memory in general is when his father toilet-trained him for seven years when Teddy was seven and until he became fourteen ("Turkey in a Can").
====Francis====
Francis is Teddy's guinea pig, who is tragically killed in "Full Bars." In the episode, Teddy is depicted as a loving and devoted, though misguided pet owner who spray paints the animal and lets her run freely around a crowded room. Teddy tells the Belchers that she goes by Francis or Frankie, but never Fran, or as Linda suggests: "Francie-Pants." Upon her death, he becomes hysterical and holds an aggressively mandatory funeral at his Halloween party.
=== Love interests===
Teddy is constantly in search for (usually unsuccessfully) for love. In "My Fuzzy Valentine," he attends speed dating at the restaurant as set up by Linda. He eventually gets Gina's phone number, another participant in the speed dating. In "I Get Psy-chic Out of You," Linda gives Teddy a vision that he is to meet a woman in a yellow dress and he'll find a nickel. Later in the episode he phones her asking if the dress has to be yellow as he has found a woman wearing a vest with a yellow floral pattern. During the credits, he is seen dancing with the woman. Teddy even claims to have gotten to 3rd base with his 2nd cousin.
In "The Silence of the Louise," he starts a professional relationship with Janine, the owner and operator of Yours Truly Stationery, making inspirational posters, but checks more than once to see if she might want it to become romantic.
In "Nightmare on Ocean Avenue Street," he tells Bob that he thinks Glenn, the rival handyman, is handsome and has a great body. Teddy also acknowledges that Glenn smells nice and believes that Glenn is "competent." At first, Teddy is jealous of Glenn for always stealing his jobs, but when he finds out that Glenn was doing all of this to impress him, Teddy compliments his work.
====Denise====
Teddy was once married to Denise, who treated him horribly and insulted him constantly. When they were in a relationship, Denise made Teddy go to the bathroom in the yard, and she's the reason why Teddy covers his head because she told him that the back of his head looks like a butt. She never wanted to be seen with Teddy when they went out to eat, and she made him sit in the car every time ("Cheer Up, Sleepy Gene"). She also constantly cheated on Teddy ("Sea Me Now"). In "Bed and Breakfast," Teddy reveals that he once caught her having sex with a man named Ray, who dresses as a seal down at the amusement park. He claims it was a threeway between them, but it's likely a lie Denise was telling, or Teddy was trying to spare his own feelings. Despite Denise's horrible treatment towards Teddy, he never held her accountable. They divorced after she left him for someone who was into boats. Following their divorce, Teddy spent years fixing up a boat which he christens Sea Me Now to try and impress her, but he crashes in front of her, and finally explodes with a flare gun. All of the Belchers recognize Denise's poor treatment of her ex-husband, and as a result, they often attempt to help him connect with other women, usually to mixed results. 
==== Helen====
In "Housetrap," Teddy reveals a crush on a rich widow / employer named Helen. He enjoys spending time sitting on the porch drinking tea with her "for what feels like minutes" and thinks she might reciprocate his feelings. 
When Helen reappears in "The Helen Hunt," she is much less interested in Teddy than her first appearance, and appears to be using him. Though Linda spends the entire episode trying to get the two together, Helen leaves quickly without saying goodbye after casually putting Teddy in danger. 
====Caroline ====
In "Bobby Driver," Teddy talks to Linda about going on a second date with Caroline, who likes sushi. Teddy claimed to also like sushi, but doesn't really. 
====Kathleen====
In “The Helen Hunt,” Teddy meets Kathleen while searching her apartment for Helen’s Netsuke. The two seem to have chemistry, noticed by Tina, while Linda continues to try to set up Helen and Kathleen. Tina pushes the two of them together by cleaning a dish rag, and encouraging Kathleen to stare into Teddy’s eyes. By the end of the episode, Teddy and Kathleen return to Kathleen’s apartment. 
Kathleen appears again in “All That Gene” as an accountant for a theatre company where Teddy does carpentry. Their relationships becomes less work-related in "Fingers-loose." Although she doesn't appear, Teddy tells Bob about his upcoming date with Kathleen to the movies. Teddy says the two are officially dating in “A Comet-y of Errors.” It is shown in this episode that Bob likes Kathleen and thinks the two of them work well with each other. 
In “The Show (and Tell) Must Go On,” Teddy turns Bob’s Burgers into a sports bar to watch Hurling to impress Kathleen, even printing his own signs and inviting a group of online hurling enthusiasts. He tells Kathleen he is concerned about them not having the same hobbies, but she reassures him that it’s completely normal. 
=== Friends ===
==== The Belchers ====
Teddy's best friend is Bob, whom Teddy is deeply devoted to, and at times, he is even shown to idolize Bob and his family. This likely because Teddy himself desperately wishes for a family of his own. He is often shown to waver between wanting to be friends with Bob, and wanting to be Bob, he frequently makes comments of "watching over Linda & the kids" if something happens to Bob. When the Belcher kids leave their bikes in Teddy's garage, he pretends he is father to three children of his own ("Bob Fires the Kids").
While Bob can become frustrated with Teddy's over-eagerness or occasional angry outburst, he nevertheless cares very much for his friend and both often join the other in their schemes. Teddy's long stories are a frequent annoyance for Bob, although he listens enough to understand when Teddy is going through a difficult time. Generally Linda is more often the one to approach him or engage in conversation with him, such as her telling Teddy stories of the raccoons that live behind the alley.
Teddy is, in his own words, the "fun uncle" to the Belcher kids ("Uncle Teddy"), but according to Louise, he's the "dangerous uncle [they] never had" ("The Secret Ceramics Room of Secrets"), as he supplies the kids with the tools they need to pull off crazy schemes in episodes like "The Quirkducers" and "Ain't Miss Debatin'." The Belchers themselves might see Teddy as an uncle figure. Linda and Bob trust Teddy enough to watch their kids multiple times ("Uncle Teddy" and "Zero Larp Thirty"), and in "Thelma & Louise Except Thelma is Linda," Bob trusts Teddy enough (to an extent) to help run the restaurant as a stand-in for Linda and the kids. Teddy and the Belchers also shared multiple Thanksgiving dinners together ("Turkey in a Can," "Dawn of the Peck," and "Thanks-Hoarding"), and Linda invited Teddy (and Mort) to one of their family hugs ("Turkey in a Can"). Tina referred to Teddy as "Uncle Teddy" in the eponymous episode, and in some episode listings for Season 13 and Season 14, he's also referred to as "Uncle Teddy."http://thefutoncritic.com/listings/20230501fox16/http://thefutoncritic.com/listings/20230920fox05/
Teddy is also is shown to have a crush on Linda in several episodes, ("Aquaticism," "Dawn of the Peck," and "Beefsquatch") and he sometimes has erotic dreams about her ("Drumforgiven"). Teddy dreams about marrying Linda with Bob being his best man at their wedding. After Teddy marries Linda, he also wants to adopt Bob so Bob can stay in his life ("Just the Trip").
For some reason, Teddy believes that Bob's name, as well as the name of the restaurant, is "Bob Burgers," in spite of frequent and repeated corrections from Bob, who finds this very irritating. ("Paraders of the Lost Float," et al.)
==Appearances==
As a main character, Teddy has appeared in all but a handful of episodes.
==Notes ==
==References==
Category:Characters
Category:Males
Category:Characters introduced in Season 1
Category:Episode Title Characters
Category:Secondary Characters
Category:Main Characters
Category:Characters who have at least once worked at Bob's Burgers
Category:Protagonists
Category:Love interest
Category:Divorcees
Category:The Bob's Burgers Movie Characters
Category:Teddy's Family
Category:Characters voiced by Larry Murphy