Image: Simon Chong via YouTube
On Friday morning, Welsh animator Simon Chong logged onto Twitter and share a side project of his that he’d been laboring over for months: a carefully constructed Bob’s Burgers/Archer crossover that he illustrated and animated himself using various audio clips plucked from Archer.
By Saturday night, he had a job offer to work on Bob’s Burgers.
According to Chong, he was inspired by the Archer episode that where an amnesiac Sterling was living as Bob Belcher, complete with the rest of the family, while unknowingly being hunted by Russian spies. Chong’s short video is a more direct crossover that sees the entire ISIS crew stumbling down the street and coming across Bob’s restaurant. As a bonus nod to H. Jon Benjamin, voice of both Archer and Bob, Chong hid two other characters the actor has voiced in the video, too.
From conception to posting the video, it took Chong seven months of painstaking work, but his skill and attention to detail is undeniable. The video feels like something Fox actually produced.
In fact, Chong’s video is so good that not long after he posted it to Twitter, it came to the attention of the Bob’s Burgers cast. They loved it and told Bob’s Burger’s creator Loren Bouchard, who absolutely floored by it. Bouchard contacted Chong, complimented him on his work, and then offered him a goddamn job. On Twitter, no less.
Bob’s Burgers went to Archer, but I wondered what’d happen if Archer came to Bob’s Burgers. So I made this: https://t.co/DseQaMe1Ar
— Simon Chong (@chongster62) July 20, 2017
Holy crap! Thank you so much! That means the world to me ^_^
— Simon Chong (@chongster62) July 21, 2017
Woah, wait, what, really? Bob’s is my favourite animated show, that’s quite literally a dream of mine!
— Simon Chong (@chongster62) July 21, 2017
Despite the public exchange, neither Chong nor Bouchard has made the hiring official yet, but suffice it to say that the artist worked his arse off and it looks like he ended up with the opportunity of a lifetime in return. Some dreams really do come true.