"Crawl Space" is the second episode in Season 1, being the second overall. It first aired on January 16, 2011. David Herman, Larry Murphy and Renee Taylor guest star. This episode marked the debut of main character Teddy.
When Bob learns that Linda's mother is coming for a visit, he wants nothing to do with it. Linda has been cracking the whip at home, making sure every shelf has been dusted and every bed has been made. When she discovers a leak in the roof, she sends Bob to fix it, but he gets stuck in a wall, leaving Linda and the kids to entertain their guests and run the restaurant.
Plot[]
Linda's parents, Gloria and Al, visit Bob's restaurant for the weekend, and Bob does all he can to hide from the in-laws. While he is repairing the leaks, he finds a small crawl space and decides to live in there until the in-laws will leave, lying to the family that he is stuck. Teddy, making his first appearance in the series, comes to help Bob out of the wall. However, Bob admits to Teddy that he's staying inside the wall on purpose. When Gloria says that they will stay to help out in the restaurant, Bob tries to get out of the wall but finds out he is really stuck. After admitting to Linda he was lying she leaves Bob in the wall as punishment. After several days he starts to lose his mind and begins to have hallucinations, such as a life-size version of Kuchi Kopi, Louise's nightlight. Gloria eventually calls the fire department who break a hole through the wall and Gloria then finds Bob, bringing him out.
As this is happening, Louise convinces the school counselor that Bob has died. When he visits the restaurant he is shocked to find Bob is still alive and threatens to call child services however, Gloria changes his mind, Louise and Gene point out that he "took them away from learning" and "making them go into his car without putting their seat-belts on" even though they were the ones who told him to take them to the restaurant.
Continuity[]
After much analysis, it is simply impossible for the crawl space to exist in the space that it is shown in this episode. The original place that Bob crawls down into is between Tina's bedroom and the Kitchen of the apartment. After Bob moves around in the space there is simply no way that the turns could fit in the space provided. After Bob crawls down into the restaurant area it seems that he is in the approximate area that he would be if it were a real building. Although, there seems to be to much space between the hole that Bob sticks his hand through and the wall of the bathroom from inside the crawl space. From the outside the hole and the bathroom door seem very close, but from inside there is too much room. After Gloria pursues Bob through the crawl space it is apparent that there is simply too many turns and space to exist within the space provided. It seems that after this episode that the Belchers have installed a small closet in Tina's room where the crawl space was that was not present in this episode. You can see this closet in the episode Bad Tina where Gene and Louise hide from Tina to eavesdrop on her. It also seem that the animators took little care placing pipes and electrical wires where they would actually appear in the crawl space if this were a real building.
When the family starts to hear Gloria and Al having relations there seems to be continuity errors as well. They are staying in Gene's room which is at the front of the building, while the kids are on the other side of the apartment. Gene makes reference to sampling his grandparents having sex in the room next to his, but in reality they are not in a room next to Louise's where Gene slept that night, he likely said it wasn't his room because the class would think that he was in his room at the same time. Gene and Louise look in the wrong direction when they hear their grandparents. It appears that Bob hears them through the wall right next to him, but they are on the other side of the apartment from him. The only explanation is that her parents were so loud it could be heard in every room in the house.