Bob’s Burgers Supervising Director Simon Chong on how a viral video landed him his dream job

August 12, 2026

Simon Chong got his job on Bob’s Burgers the way most people only fantasize about: he spent seven months secretly building a fan mashup of the show with Archer, posted it, and had a job offer from creator Loren Bouchard within 24 hours.

Two months later, the openly gay animator had sold his flat, left his own animation studio in London, and moved to LA. Now he’s the show’s Supervising Director and a multiple Emmy nominee.

We talked to him about that leap, what it’s like steering one of animation’s most quietly queer-inclusive shows, and — because there’s still, somehow, never been an official Bob’s Burgers video game — what one might actually look like.

Simon: Honestly, when I lived in Llanberis I was so young, I didn’t really understand what animation was. When I saw Toy Story in the cinema at 10 years old, It clicked that whatever that was, whatever I’d just watched, that’s what I wanted to do. My mother was incredibly encouraging about my creativity as a kid, which made everything feel very attainable. Thanks mum! I didn’t really start learning animation properly until after I left school and started college. They were very early animation classes with not the best software, but they got me going. 

I love animating and I love learning about animation. I was happily running an animation studio in London with my friends, but in my spare time I was, and still am, always animating. I find reverse engineering something to see how it was made completely fascinating, even if I’m dead wrong. I tried animating a crossover of the musical The Book of Mormon in the style of South Park. It was so much fun, and I was proud with what I made. So I set my goals higher and wanted to see if I could imitate Bob’s Burger’s animation style, crossing it over with another TV show, Archer. 

I found dialogue from both shows that sounded like characters were talking to each other and using as much visual reference as I could find, I spent 7 months working nights on this 4 and half minute short. It was only really made to show my company could make TV-quality animation, never for a job. I uploaded the video in July 2017, and 24 hours later, the creator of Bob’s, Loren Bouchard, tweeted me with the words “would you like a job”. Two months later I’d sold everything I owned, left my company and my apartment to move to LA to work on Bob’s!