A
high school dropout, Bouchard was working as a bartender in 1993 when he bumped into a former grade school teacher of his,
Tom Snyder, who asked if Bouchard was still drawing, and offered Bouchard a chance to work on a few animated short films Snyder was making. The shorts developed into Bouchard's first series,
Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, which he produced. He credits
Jonathan Katz,
H. Jon Benjamin, and Snyder as major influences.
Dr. Katz ran for six seasons, from 1995 to 2000. He also produced one season of
Science Court, another animated show made by
Soup2Nuts. Towards the end of
Dr. Katz, Bouchard and
Brendon Small teamed up to create
Home Movies. He was a consulting producer on HBO's
The Ricky Gervais Show. in 2010 In 2009, Bouchard got together with
King of the Hill writer and producer
Jim Dauterive and developed ''
Bob's Burgers, an animated series about a family working at a hamburger restaurant. Bouchard grew up in a working-class family full of "blue collar creatives" and created Bob's Burgers'' because he didn't see that kind of life represented on TV. In 2010,
Fox placed the series on the primetime slate for the
2010–11 television season. A special preview aired on Thanksgiving on November 25, 2010. When the series premiered, it received mixed reviews with a
Metacritic score of 54 out of 100. However, as the first season progressed and concluded and the second began, critics began giving the series praise. The show has generally been viewed as a spiritual successor to
King of the Hill, which carried less emphasis on
shock comedy and focused more on character-driven humor. A
film adaptation based on the animated TV series was released on May 27, 2022. and serves as Bouchard's feature directorial debut. ==Personal life==