Fox Made Bob's Burgers Swap The Gender Of A Fan-Favorite Belcher Family Member

Most animated shows have a general idea of what their characters are going to be when they start casting, but in the case of the Fox family sitcom "Bob's Burgers," they actually worked in reverse. The series started with a cast in mind and then created Belcher family members inspired by those cast members and their specific talents. It's a pretty unique way to create a television show, but it worked. The voice actors each bring so much to the table that the show actually uses a mixture of written script and improv to bring the Belchers to life, something very few animated shows would ever even attempt.

H. Jon Benjamin is perfect as the family's fumbling but loving patriarch, Bob, while John Roberts somehow manages to change his voice to the perfect pitch for Bob's wine-chugging, song-singing wife Linda. It's not super unusual for voice actors to voice characters of different genders (Nancy Cartwright as Bart Simpson, for example), so Roberts voicing Linda isn't too strange.

What is a bit unusual, however, is that Tina Belcher was originally written as a boy, but had her gender changed after the fact. In an interview with It's Nice That, series creator Loren Bouchard revealed the origins of one of the show's most beloved characters, from picking a voice actor to designing the character to ultimately switching their gender. Much like deciding to cast first, the gender swap was a bit of genius, creating not just one of the best characters on the show but in all of animated comedy history.

In the interview, Bouchard explained that he had ideas about who the characters would be based upon their voice actors, but that Fox execs made some notes that led to Dan Mintz being the voice of the Tina Belcher we all now know and love:

"I've worked with Jon Benjamin who plays Bob for over 20 years [...] I knew I wanted him as the dad and we built the family around him. I knew that John Roberts, who plays Linda, could do that voice, and that Kristen Schaal should be Louise [...] Eugene Mirman, the voice of Gene, is an actor who again I've been working with for a long time, I knew he would be great. The only person I didn't know was Dan Mintz. Jon Benjamin recommended him, saying, 'you've really got to hear this guy's voice, it's so funny,' and we cast him as Tina. Although originally we cast him as a boy, it was only after the pilot episode and Fox's feedback that we realized the character wasn't quite there. So we kept the voice and actor, but changed the gender. He was thrilled!"

Tina is a 13-year-old girl who loves horses and writing fanfiction about her friends, and there's something extra hilarious about her having the voice of an adult man that hasn't really been modified at all. It's deep, it's awkward, and it's perfect.

While it might seem difficult for an adult man to voice a teenage girl, Mintz has said that Tina's particular way of looking at the world makes her truly universal. In an interview with Phoenix New Times, Mintz said that while he was initially concerned about playing a female character, but because "Tina is so kind of straightforward, I think she is easier to play for a man." While he imagines a woman's sexuality as being "super complex and hard to understand," Tina's is relatively simple — "She's just attracted to this and knows what she wants." (Butts. What she wants is butts.)

Mintz recognizes that people might have been drawn to Tina at first because of the "gimmick" of having his voice come out of a teenage girl, but he thinks the writing eventually made her into so much more.

"And I think, in many ways, she started out as like as kind of the least-relatable character and she ended up being the most-relatable ... I think people relate to having someone that is just a little invisible to the world, but you know, wants to make a connection to people."

The Belchers don't always fully understand one another, but there's a love and acceptance at the core of the family that makes "Bob's Burgers" so much more than the average sitcom. Tina is often the most misunderstood of the bunch, however, making her a real fan-favorite for reasons well beyond her voice or even her "erotic friend fiction." Almost everyone has felt like an awkward outsider at some point, and Tina captures that feeling perfectly — trademark groans and all.

Changing Tina's gender without changing her voice at all made the character more unique and also helped highlight her awkwardness. Both of her siblings have higher-pitched voices (as does her mother), while Benjamin has a smooth, deep register that also helped him voice international superspy Sterling Archer on FX's "Archer." So it makes sense that at least one of the Belcher siblings would have a deeper voice. Tina's voice really sets her apart from other teenage girls in animated comedies, who are usually either bubbly or sarcastic. By contrast, Tina is sort of a mumbling, grumbling mess who just wants to be left alone to think about butts. Girl, same.

Looking for more Tina to love? Then check out our list of the 12 best Tina episodes of "Bob's Burgers"! (Hint: the incredible "Vampire Disco Death Dance" made the cut.)