Loren Hal Bouchard is an American animator, writer, producer, director, and composer, best known for creating several animated TV shows, including Bob's Burgers, Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil, and Central Park, as well as co-creating Home Movies with Brendon Small and serving as the executive producer of The Great North.
Born and raised in a working-class family, Bouchard dropped out of high school and began working as a bartender in 1993, where he met a former grade school teacher, Tom Snyder, who offered him a chance to work on animated short films. These shorts eventually developed into his first series, Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, which he produced, crediting Jonathan Katz, H. Jon Benjamin, and Snyder as major influences. Dr. Katz ran for six seasons from 1995 to 2000.
Bouchard went on to produce one season of Science Court, another animated show made by Soup2Nuts, and later teamed up with Brendon Small to create Home Movies, which was initially picked up by UPN but was dropped after five episodes. The remaining eight episodes from season one and the subsequent three seasons were shown on Adult Swim, but the show was not renewed after the conclusion of the fourth season in 2004.
After Home Movies concluded and another Bouchard pilot, Saddle Rash, was not picked up, he created Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil, whose pilot was created on October 30, 2005, but debuted as a weekly feature on Adult Swim in September 2007. He also served as a consulting producer on HBO's The Ricky Gervais Show.
In 2009, Bouchard collaborated with King of the Hill writer and producer Jim Dauterive to develop Bob's Burgers, an animated series about a family working at a hamburger restaurant. The show premiered on Fox in 2010 and received mixed reviews initially, but as the first season progressed and concluded and the second began, critics began giving the series praise. The show has been viewed as a spiritual successor to King of the Hill, focusing on character-driven humor rather than shock comedy.
A film adaptation of Bob's Burgers was released on May 27, 2022, serving as Bouchard's feature directorial debut. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Holly Kretschmar, whom he married on September 3, 2006, and their two sons.
