Gayle Genarro

“	Guess who's on new meds!	”
- Gayle

Gayle is Linda's younger sister. She lives alone with her three cats: Jean Paw'd Van Damme, Pinkeye & Mr. Business.

Profile

Appearance

In all her appearances, Gale wears blue glasses. She has brown hair with bangs that she usually wears in a ponytail. Like her sister and mother, Gayle has a strong New Jersey accent.

Gale usually wears a purple t-shirt, green skirt and white fanny pack, though in "Dr. Yap", she swaps her shirt for a pink one of the same style and leaves her hair down. She occasionally wears a purple T-shirt with a lilac teddy bear design on it, dark green shorts, a pink fanny pack and white shoes, including in her brief cameo in "Boyz 4 Now" and her first appearance in "Art Crawl".

In "Purple Rain-Union", Gale wears a pink fanny pack, shoes and wears her hair in a left-side ponytail when onstage with Linda Belcher and The Ta Tas. When it snows, Gale wears a blue snow jacket with a pink stripe, yellow or pink pants, and a pink hat.

In "As I Walk Through the Alley of the Shadow of Ramps", she wears a guard uniform at her job at the art museum.

Personality

Gayle is a very cheerful and eccentric woman, but also extremely naive and gullible, as well as emotionally fragile. She frequently takes blatant lies and sarcastic statements seriously and can rarely take a hint, much to the frustration of others (though Louise regularly takes advantage of this). She is also peculiar, marginally confused, weird and strange.

Gayle is extremely socially inept, and often says and does things that are either inappropriate or annoying to those around her. Her emotional fragility and inability to connect with others often leads her to depression.

Gayle follows strange rituals and rules she creates for herself, such as sending $100 to a pig every time she eats a ham sandwich and if she stays awake, she won't die ("The Cook, The Steve, The Gayle, & Her Lover"), even going so far as to play pretend every night before bed that she's taking shelter from a nuclear apocalypse where everyone dies, "especially the men, so it's okay to sleep alone." ("The Kids Run Away").

Gayle is poor, and lives in a basement studio apartment within walking distance of Bob's Burgers. She is not seen to hold a consistent job, but gets a job as a security guard in "As I Walk Through the Alley of the Shadow of Ramps". It is revealed in "There's No Business Like Mr. Business Business" that Gayle frequently borrows money from Bob & Linda.

She also has a bit of a manipulative streak, using her pathetic nature to get what she wants (mostly from her sister Linda), such as faking injuries for attention ("Gayle Makin' Bob Sled"), asking to borrow money ("There's No Business Like Mr. Business Business"), or guilting others to get her way ("The Gayle Tales").

Gayle's neediness and eccentricities are all enabled by Linda, who is not only permissive with money, but often goes to great lengths to keep indulging her sister, such as creating games to keep Gayle interested in her job ("As I Walk Through the Alley of the Shadow of Ramps"), and forcing Bob to fake cheat with Gayle to boost her self-esteem ("Dr. Yap").

Gayle expresses herself through art, mostly paintings, but also through outlandish performance art. Some of her artistic "statements" include wearing a dress made of shrimp to Catholic Mass, shaving her cat and eating her lipstick because she wanted to feel "red" inside. Her most noteworthy artistic endeavor may be her painting series of animal's anuses, featured in "Art Crawl". In "Purple Rain-Union", it is shown that Gayle plays the keyboard.

In her first three appearances, it is stated that she only has one cat. In "Boyz 4 Now", Tina mentions that one of her cats got accidentally pepper-sprayed meaning she now has at least two. Then in "Turkey in a Can", she is shown with all three of her cats, mentioning that she found Mr. Business on her way over to the Belcher's.

Story

Gayle first appears in Season One when against Bob's wishes, Linda Belcher allows Gayle to exhibit her art in the restaurant during "Art Crawl". She displayed a series of paintings featuring animal butts with visible anuses, which are soon vandalized with pink panties. Gayle revises the paintings by adding pants and "huge, pendulous breasts."

Gayle appeared again in "Dr. Yap", where Bob kisses her by mistake when he is medicated. As a result, she gains a crush on Bob and thinks that he is her new boyfriend. Linda is happy to see Gayle happy and tells Bob that they need to find her somebody, as that is the only way Gayle will get off of Bob's back. In the end, Linda "falls in love" with Dr. Yap, and Gayle steals him away, meaning Bob and Linda are back to normal.

Gayle appears in "Topsy" when she and Mr. Fischoeder sing a duet called Electric Love for Louise's science project re-enactment.

Gayle makes a brief appearance in "Boyz 4 Now", after cancelling on plans to take Louise & Tina to their first concert, featuring Boyz4Now. She picks the girls up after having spent the day at the emergency vet with her cat, who now sports goggles pathetically in the back seat.

Her voice is heard through the phone in "Eat, Spray, Linda", but it's unlikely to be Megan Mullally as she isn't credited.

Relationships

Gayle has had many romantic relationships throughout the series, but due to her bizarre habits, they tend not to last long.

High School

While in high school, Linda let her believe she was dating her boyfriend, Carl, because she always wants what Linda wants. After doing so, she felt confident enough to go after a boy called Vinny.

Throughout high school, she had a crush on Derek Dematopolis who she describes as a Greek god. Years later at the high school reunion, she sings a song about him and they hook up.

Adulthood

After being kissed by Bob while on anesthetic drugs, she becomes attracted to him and attempts to seduce him throughout the episode, but later, after finding out that Linda likes Dr. Yap, she starts hitting it off with him ("Dr.Yap").

In "Topsy", Gayle is hired along with Calvin to sing as Tina & Gene respectively. While rehearsing behind a curtain, they start fooling around. When their relationship is revealed at the end of the episode after the curtain collapses, she joyously exclaims that they’re in love. Turned off by the revelation, Calvin flees.

In "Turkey in a Can", she kisses Mort when panicking over whether Bob is going to drop the turkey in the toilet or not.

In "The Gayle Tales", she is shown to be dating Stacy, a man she met on a dating site called Cat Chat.

Gayle mistakes Neil for an art thief in "As I Walk Through the Alley of the Shadow of Ramps", and takes him as prisoner in the employee bathroom at the art museum where she works in the episode. When he accidentally refers to his dead cat as his dead wife, Linda suggests that the two have a lot in common and should get coffee. Gayle proceeds to make an overtly sexual move on him.

Mr. Frond

In "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled", it is revealed that she is now dating Mr. Frond, though the family learns the information for the first time to much hysteria and horror, two episodes later in "The Cook, the Steve, the Gayle, & Her Lover". Despite this supposed mix-up in episode order, It is hinted that the couple have broken up in "Lice Things Are Lice". According to Linda, Gayle's relationship with Mr. Frond was her longest ever after only 2 dates ("The Cook, the Steve, the Gayle, & Her Lover").

Trivia

Gayle is the first of many characters in the show to be guest-voiced by Megan Mullally.
Gene & Louise think she should be a mental patient ("Art Crawl").
Gayle is a member of Linda's high school band, "The Ta Tas."
She once pooped her pants in a cell phone store ("Boyz 4 Now").
In "The Kids Run Away", it's revealed that she made up her own board game called Gayle Force Winds. According to Bob, "It's Horrible. The rules don't make any sense, [and] it takes all day to play it . . ."
Gayle has held a grudge against Linda because she changed the channel while she was out of the room ("Turkey in a Can").
She appears to be a fan of Scott Bakula & Quantum Leap ("The Cook, the Steve, The Gayle, and her Lover", "Turkey in a Can")
Gayle cannot resist Peppermint Oil ("Lorenzo's Oil? No, Linda's").

Though Gayle says in "Dr. Yap" that she's always wanted to drive a car, she is shown to have her own car in "Boyz 4 Now" & "Lorenzo's Oil? No, Linda's", suggesting she learned off-screen.
She lies to her parents about having a better life than the one she has ("Have Yourself a Maily Linda Christmas").
Gayle's name is often misspelled as 'Gale' on certain TV programming info.

Quotes

"Happy things we should send into space . . . a jar of mayo, magazine clippings of Scott Bayo that song that starts with dayo . . . little cat you're just like me, you go outside and squat to pee. SQUAT! SQUAT!"
"I'm not wearing anything under my snowsuit . . . except for my long underwear, and my socks, and my other socks and a Maxi Pad."
"I feel like a teenager again, except my breasts are more even now."
"Oh! It's been so long since I've had my pillows fluffed."
"Your tongue feels so much different from my cat's . . ."
"You don't remember? We made love . . . with our mouths."
"You pretend to flirt with Linda, I'll fake flirt with Dr. Yap, and then we can sneak off and hit the slopes. My slopes."
"My cat. We got in a fight. Can I stay here for a while to cool off?"
"We're in love! We're a couple in love! It's really happening! Finally! Thank you, God!"

"What is this? A pee-pee party? You people are fun, all going at once."
"Okay, fine. I'll go by myself. That's okay. I can use the empty seat next to me to slump into when I die alone."
"Since I'm the one with the tickets, I want the essays to be about me! I want action! Adventure! Love! Drama! And Scott Bakula."
"My cat was right about you."
"Now that I made them all pretty, the pound will have to give me that fourth cat."
"Oh, Louise, I'm so glad it's you and not a murderer."