10 TV Shows That Were Saved By One Genius Tweak
4. Changing The Oldest Belcher Child's Gender - Bob's Burgers
Loren Bouchard's original demo pilot of Bob's Burgers differed from the show proper in a number of ways, such as hinting that the Belcher family were cannibals - which Fox convinced Bouchard to nix - and assigning the oldest Belcher child a different gender.
In the demo, the oldest Belcher child is a boy named Daniel, but by the time the show went to series, Daniel had been switched out for a girl, Tina.
While superficially little actually changed about the character - she was still voiced by Dan Mintz and both looked and acted similarly - the gender swap led to Bob's Burgers ultimately offering up one of the most frank and hilarious depictions of an awkward teenage girl in sitcom history.
It's also tough to deny that the show likely couldn't have gotten away with some of Tina's more "eccentric" behaviour were she a boy - were a hormonal Daniel constantly obsessing over his female classmates' butts, it wouldn't hit quite the same way.
Given that Tina is the show's MVP in the eyes of many fans, kicking Daniel to the curb was an extremely smart call.