Chapter 7

The Next Iteration of Adult Animation

The Simpsons was a total gamechanger in TV animation. Not only did it prove unequivocally that an animated show could score high ratings in primetime, it became the longest running, primetime, scripted series in TV history (it premiered in 1989 on Fox, and has already been picked up through 2017). Creator Matt Groening, with assists from uber-writer/producers James L. Brooks and the late, great Sam Simon, conjured up a groundbreaking, hilarious, colorfully dysfunctional family comedy that paved the way for every adult animated sitcom in its wake: from Mike Judge’s King of the Hill, to Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy, American Dad!, and The Cleveland Show, to Loren Bouchard’s Bob’s Burgers on Fox, not to mention Matt Groening’s own follow-up series for Fox, Futurama. To date, The Simpsons has won 31 Primetime Emmy Awards, 30 Annie Awards, and a Peabody Award. Or as Seth MacFarlane puts it, “As far as I’m concerned, they basically re-invented the wheel. They created what is in many ways—you could classify it as—a wholly new medium.”¹ D’oh!

This reinvention expanded the Saturday morning kids’ cartoon universe into primetime family viewing, where kids, parents, and grandparents were all in on the joke (albeit not all always understanding the ironic nuance in the dialogue and signage). Adult appreciation of animation has helped drive the multibillion-dollar animation franchise industry by making TV series and movies that kids can consume like candy, but adults can stick around to enjoy in equal measure. The hilarious scene in the SpongeBob SquarePants movie, in which SpongeBob and Patrick get increasingly drunk at the ice cream bar, is an apt example of such double-edged humor (especially followed by their strung-out hangovers).

While the phenomenal popularity of The Simpsons rests on its iconic characters, fast quips and zany plotlines, the show’s longevity stems from its heart. All great TV series are about families (whether they’re related by blood or by association) because they offer multiple entry points to new plotlines, but, at the core, the true story engine the drives The Simpsons is the love underneath the snark and rebellion. And ultimately, any long-running family comedy is about forgiveness. Even though The Simpsons and the other aforementioned adult titles are animated, they’re still sitcoms. Sure, they enable the writers’ imaginations to go bonkers with surrealism, but they also adhere to one of the main tenets of the sitcom world: in general, the characters don’t change.

There are exceptions, but we tend to tune in to watch our favorite sitcoms to reconnect with beloved, flawed, iconic characters. They bring us dependable comfort and joy. They don’t change and we don’t want them to, for once they’ve overcome their innate human foibles, the show is over.

All live action and animated sitcoms are classically about 2 things: 1) the escalation of chaos; and 2) loveably flawed characters getting into and out of trouble by the end of each episode. Episodic plotlines deal with tremendous trifles, micro fires that can be extinguished, but the larger, macro troubles remain because the central conflict of the series is how it sustains. Once Al and Peg Bundy realize their true love and start appreciating each other in every precious moment, then Married…With Children evaporates. Once Seinfeld and his cohorts (or Leonard and Sheldon, or fill in the blank) find everlasting happiness and fulfillment and have nothing to complain about, then what? Then you’d really see a show about nothing.

The big difference between animated shows and live action sitcoms is this active stasis (paradox intended). By and large, while characters might not fundamentally change their personalities and interpersonal relationships very much (or at all) in sitcoms, the characters do evolve physically over time.

In the animated world, however, the characters literally stay the same. Think about it: Bart Simpson has been a teenager for 28 years. Stewie, the diabolical infant on Family Guy, has remained an infant for over 14 seasons. If the sitcom is TV’s version of comfort food, it’s especially reassuring that no one ever ages and seldom anyone ever dies (unless they’re villainous).

When it premiered in 1989, The Simpsons felt provocative and edgy, but today, while still sturdy and very funny, it feels quite tame. The characters and emotions are still relatively grounded and any mean-spiritedness or politically incorrect barbs are tempered for family audiences. Groening and his ingenious team of writer/producers have been able to push the boundaries with the conservative Fox network’s Standards and Practices, but even the bad taste jokes remain within the bounds of good taste. The more trenchant satire is more oblique and through subtext. You can watch The Simpsons with your kids, laugh and not feel embarrassed.

And then, in 1997, along came Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s outrageously provocative South Park on Comedy Central—and all hell broke loose in the TV animation world, for better, for worse. Where The Simpsons and its later cousins were mildly provocative, Stone and Parker not only leaned in to societal taboos, but took a sledgehammer and smashed through any semblance of propriety. An equal opportunity offender, the laugh-out-loud show features crudely drawn, very young kids as main characters, and the writers revel in scatological humor, religious sacrilege, utter disregard for conservative “family values,” merciless depiction of liberal causes—the more politically incorrect, the better. It’s just a TV show, so anything for laughs—especially laughter that makes audiences cringe with naughty glee, outrage or a combination of both.

The touchstone of the series is its topical references to popular culture—and every target is fair game. Due to the speedy animation process (an episode only takes 5 days to produce), South Park can lampoon current events, as opposed to the much more elaborate animation of, say, The Simpsons, which takes more than 6 months to produce each episode. (Some animated series can take up to a year to be fully rendered, voiced, edited, locked and ready for air.)

South Park has been critically acclaimed by most critics for its bold, satirical, shocking storytelling, and panned by some for going too far. Parents Television Council founder L. Brent Bozell III labeled the show as “dangerous to the democracy”—much to the delight of Stone and Parker. Nevertheless, South Park has a cult following and has earned numerous accolades, including 5 Primetime Emmy Awards, many more nominations, and a Peabody Award.

The accompanying controversy has had the opposite effect on the series, which is heading into its 19th season, and renewed for several more. To circumvent the censors at Comedy Central, Stone and Parker simply bleeped out the swear words, moving the most edgy, “dangerous,” taboo stuff to their movie: South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (Paramount Pictures, 1999).

South Park’s influence led to the iteration of TV animation that I call …

Id Gone Wild

You can see the id running rampant in Seth MacFarlane’s universe and on most adult animation offerings on Cartoon Network’s nighttime programming block Adult Swim, and on the FX network’s smart, funny, Roy Lichtenstein inspired James Bond parody, Archer, available on Netflix to stream. It’s highly inappropriate, ultra-violent and hyperbolic, but it’s not trying for realism, so it’s easier to laugh at the collateral damage and character foibles, even when.

As the Id Goes Wild, characters give in to their wildest, raunchiest, most hedonistic vices. There are no limits to promiscuous sex, graphic (cartoon) violence, and using and abusing drugs, booze, cigarettes and people. Characters tend to be vainglorious, gluttonous, trashy, indignant, greedy, selfish, slothful—if you name a deadly sin, they’ve done it, or it’s on their bucket list. But bear in mind that we’re dealing with cartoon characters, and it can be a lot of fun to watch adults behaving badly, and/or anthropomorphic characters succumbing to their basest desires. Hey, we all have our dark sides and impulses. I suppose there’s a vicarious thrill of these edgy, provocative adult animation series—better to laugh at the random chaos and insanity of life than let it crush your spirit. Isn’t this all just good, harmless fun?

As a parent, and I like to think of myself as a cool, permissive, easy-going dad, a lot of these edgier animated series disturb me, and it bugs me that my teenagers want to watch, as much as it alarms me that so many video games are so hyper-violent—and increasingly realistic. I won’t go all Brent Bozell on you (God, no!), but consider animated series Squidbillies (which debuted in 2005 on Adult Swim, heading into its 10th season). Hillbilly mud squids, the Cuylers live in the Appalachian Mountains region of Georgia. The dad, who happens to be an alcoholic, is frequently abusive to his family, though in a humorous way. Rusty, his teenaged boy, longs for his dad’s approval and takes out his anger and frustration on his mom, who’s called Granny. Sister Lil is usually passed out in her own vomit.

Look, they’re squid—who doesn’t love calamari? And it’s an adult cartoon. But still. Or how about China, IL, an adult animated series about the worst college in America at which the school’s reputation is celebrated by the uncaring faculty and staff who are constantly shown drinking while teaching.

Or Mr. Pickles, also on Adult Swim, about a demonic border collie (named Mr. Pickles after his favorite dog treat), and the humorous story engine about this superficially heroic Lassie is that he sneaks away to kill, mutilate and hump his victims. Repeated graphic cartoon violence causes us all to become inured to its impact. I’ll take the stop-motion/animation series Robot Chicken (also on Adult Swim) over the former because stop motion just feels clever and silly, while too much cartoon violence and debauchery begins to feel cumulatively too disturbing (or perhaps should be) to be embraced as inconsequential.

There are many Adult Swim shows, and many would argue which is best. I could devote an entire book to the subject. But I’d like to recommend a few that I hold in high regard as a viewer and parent. Consider:

• The Venture Bros.: a parody of Hanna-Barbera’s Johnny Quest, it follows a cynical failed scientist (son of a famous adventuring scientist), his hyper Hardy Bros-esque twin boys, and their perfect soldier bodyguard. Alike to BoJack Horseman in that, as its creators put it, the main theme is failure. The heroes, allies, and villains are all failures in some way.
• Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law: Harvey Birdman defends those sweet classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons from rather serious crimes. Scooby Doo for drug possession. Boo-Boo and Yogi for bomb threats. The Super Friends for discrimination.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force: one of their first and longest running. The inane misadventures of 3, sentient fast food snacks. This show got old for me rather fast, but I’d put it over Squidbillies in terms of humor, plus it came first and helped cement that specific subgenre of weirdness that is Adult Swim. Squidbillies stems from it. It lasted 15 seasons.

And Now for Something (Kind Of) Completely Different …

The Awesomes on Hulu

Despite its relatively tame tone, and somewhat derivative premise, Hulu’s animated series, The Awesomes (created by Seth Meyers and Mike Shoemaker) is a breath of fresh air. It’s edgy, but has a nostalgic feeling to it, equal parts homage and spoof of the omnipresent superhero genre; it’s clever and amusing without straining to push the bounds of “decency” (Yikes, I sound so old and judgmental—not my intent!).

Seth Meyers lends his voice to the accident-prone, main character, Professor Dr. Jeremy “Prock” Awesome, who has an inferiority complex from living in his retired super famous, super hero father Mr. Awesome’s shadow. Prock didn’t inherit any super powers of his own, but he’s the brains and leader of the ragtag superhero team—mainly voiced by SNL current and former cast members: Taran Killam, Kenan Thompson, Bobby Moynihan, Bill Hader, Rachel Dratch, Cecily Strong, Will Forte; plus Rashida Jones, Paula Pell, Emily Spivey, Josh Meyers and fellow great funnymen and women.

While The Awesomes is part of the digital television revolution’s slate of streaming offerings, it’s hardly revolutionary—unless you count gay and lesbian superheroes and villains. Or the super villain character, named Whiskey “Richard” Dick, who has the power to render anyone (even robots) drunk. Or the super villain team known as The P.R.I.C.K.S.—an acronym for Primates Really Into Crime and Killing Sprees. Like many of the on-demand series, The Awesomes takes a while to hit its stride. But once the writers find the show’s sweet spot, it’s definitely worth checking out. Currently, all 3 seasons are available for binge viewing on Hulu.

As TV’s adult animation series continue to evolve, we are now entering into fresh territory that feels like a hybrid of the more wholesome, grounded The Simpsons and King of the Hill, through the naughty Seth MacFarlane oeuvre, transcending the Id Gone Wild shows, and reaching a higher plane in the latest iteration of adult animation: that not only runs roughshod over life, but questions the very nature of existence.

Digging Deeper

A natural way to show character complexity—that I rarely see in animation—is having them show different emotions. Characters are often stuck on one emotion, maybe two. Seeing the full range of emotions can add welcome layers to characters. BoJack Horseman has its main cast regularly go through the spectrum, though each character often has his/her own emotional norm (which is what usually happens to characters after they flirt with making a significant change … they back away from the fear of the unknown, and revert to form—which is, after all, just like life).

Futurama (1999–2013, from David X. Cohen and Matt Groening), animated comedy sci-fi, while fun and light-hearted, has a subtle darkness that pops up at times. It gets into its characters’ emotions; not as deep as BoJack Horseman, mind you, but there are moments of genuine sadness, joy, anger, and so on—beyond the typical comedy show. It has heart, and is one of the first animated comedy series that got sincere, a precursor of sorts.

Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s BoJack Horseman offers up the now requisite pop culture references and jabs at social and societal taboos, but the characters often question their own goals, feelings and ideals. Past, present and future. The characters seem to feel and speak from the gut, through instinct, in plain terms, without psychobabble or over-evaluation. The issues they examine are simple and all encompassing. “Can I be happy? Why do I want something? Why does getting what you want not satisfy you?” The outside world is also questioned in detail, through various angles. “Should you try to pursue your life’s dream when there is war and suffering in the world?” The depth is both internal and external.

BoJack explores sadness, which is pretty rare to see these days. The reviews call it depression most times, but I’d say it’s sadness. You could argue BoJack is clinically depressed, but I think the emotion is key, since that’s what’s universally relatable. Sadness is rarely talked about in our society; it’s almost taboo, at least in American culture. Inside Out, the excellent 2015 Pixar film, cleverly and profoundly explores sadness and why it’s important, going deeper than other animated movies and shows, but then Pixar always does. Still in a family friendly way, but poignantly and honestly. With social media there is such a pressure to keep up a “perfect” image. With a more “sensitive” and PC culture, sadness ends up being demonized or exaggerated. Prescription meds are very popular, including medicating children that act out slightly. Numb out, zone out, don’t feel too much. When I was a kid, sadness over the death of my father (heart attack, age 39) is what fueled my TV addiction. TV was my antidepressant.

The young, beautiful, happy, bouncy, package that is often presented on American TV shows can enhance these inadequacy issues exponentially. I think there’s a craving to see sadness more in our entertainment, expressed in a true way. BoJack Horseman gallops along to fill that literal and metaphorical void. That BoJack is a millionaire media celebrity doesn’t impair the empathy even slightly. He’s sad for reasons we all are. He loved someone and let her get away; he hurt his best friend by not standing up for him; he doesn’t do his best for people willing to go the extra mile for him. Sometimes, these sad moments work so well because the sadness has an upward swing, or elevating catharsis.

The sadness might lead to a lesson learned, acknowledging a problem to be confronted long term, or releasing stress. When BoJack admits he might never be happy, on live TV, it kind of feels like a weight is lifted, even if the problem is still there. It’s acknowledged, and that is a step forward to progress. That someone else listened is helpful, and makes him (and, by extension, us) feel less lonely. The goal might be unattainable, but progress is not. Even thinking about it is a huge step, where most people shut out those difficult issues that plague them, perhaps for their entire lives. Despite the sadness they all examine and admit, the main characters all decide to push forward. The pros seem to outweigh the cons. I think of the show as a glass 51% full.

BoJack is bright and crazy, which helps emphasize the sadness and depth through the sharp contrast and chemistry. After lots of comedy, often involving lying and zany plans gone awry, you get some hard, sobering truths. You’re not afraid to let the emotion in, because it’s raw, real, and you know you’ll be laughing again soon enough.

Most other shows might touch on this, lightly. Homer Simpson is a dumb, drunken lout who means well and loves his family. Issues with a bad father might be explored occasionally, and Homer’s alcoholism isn’t too hard to explain. Those more serious issues are not at the core of the show, nor are they the fuel for the comedy and occasional drama. The comedy comes from the dysfunctional family, but more their antics and consequences, not reasons and feelings. BoJack thrives more on the psychology behind it.

Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland’s Rick and Morty on Adult Swim (and streaming on Hulu) is currently in its second season, and growing more popular. My teenaged sons are both big TV animation fans, and Rick and Morty is easily their favorite. An R-rated mash up of Back to the Future and Doctor Who, it features an egotistical, crazy mad scientist (Rick) that drags his naïve teenage grandson (Morty) on adventures through time and into other dimensions of (outer) space. Both characters are voiced by series co-creator Justin Roiland—who can burp-talk better than anyone. The show crosscuts between Morty’s (mis)adventures with his drunk Grandpa Rick, and his “normal” home life with his veterinarian mom, hapless dad, and annoying older sister. It has Dan Harmon’s trademark subversive quips, and how can you not laugh when the school principal introduces himself to Morty’s folks as “I’m Principal Vagina—no relation”? Like BoJack Horseman, the show has been praised for being dark, yet emotionally sincere. Rick and Morty looks into its characters and has sad moments. Although it doesn’t go as deep as BoJack, its darkness comes from the idea the universe is “crazy and chaotic”—and people need to deal with it. Horrible things happen with no logic or consequences, and sometimes the sanest reaction is to ignore it or accept it as fact.

Bojack Horseman on Netflix

Raphael Bob-Waksberg:
Creator/Head Writer/Executive Producer/Showrunner

BoJack is a caustic, bitter, has-been half-horse/half-human TV star from a cheesy sitcom from the ‘80s and ‘90s called Horsin’ Around— a laugh-track-goosed “hit” series that was part Mister Ed, and part Full House— only BoJack (voiced to acerbic, befuddled perfection by Will Arnett) wears lace-up shoes instead of horseshoes. Having ridden the rollercoaster of fame and now stalled out, BoJack has money squirreled away to support his self-indulgent lifestyle and modern Hollywood Hills house equipped with a swimming pool and view of the Hollywood sign. He’s probably bipolar, and self-medicates with booze, insults, promiscuity, and an assortment of recreational drugs—anything he can get his hands (not hooves) on. In his daily existential struggle, he uses and abuses everyone in his path, and sometimes even feels bad about it. But mostly he feels bad about himself. If there were a Kentucky Derby for self-loathing, BoJack would win the Triple Crown.

His wisecracks, delusions of grandiosity, and narcissism would be insufferable if not for the biting Hollywood satire at the core of the show. And we also come to understand that the reason BoJack so desperately craves fame—and making a triumphant comeback in the big screen role of Secretariat—is to fill the gaping emotional void in his life. Yes, BoJack had one of the worst childhoods imaginable. His parents (also horse people, naturally) were both negligent, abusive drunks. In flashback scenes, we can’t help but feel empathy for poor Young BoJack. With such monstrous parents, if we didn’t feel for him, we’d be inhuman.

If you’re wondering, where’s the comedy? Trust me, it’s all in there—with whip-smart one-liners and clever, cringe-worthy puns that fill me with joy. Visually, the animation is colorful and simultaneously crudely drawn and ingeniously designed. Season 1, Episode 11 (“Downer Ending”) features BoJack’s most daring visuals, paying homage to Fantasia and Peanuts’ Charlie Brown and Lucy. At one point during his prolonged drug trip (brought on as a remedy for writer’s block), BoJack peers into the mirror and sees a real horse staring back at him; the next thing he knows, he’s just a pencil sketch that gets erased. He and I were blown away.

BoJack’s freeloading all-too-human housemate Todd (voiced by Aaron Paul) sleeps on his couch and is his frequent albeit reluctant sidekick. BoJack’s shyster talent agent (and former girlfriend) is a pink cat named Princess Carolyn (Amy Sedaris) who pauses during one of their phone chats to cough up a hairball; his main love interest is the human ghostwriter of his memoir, Diane (Alison Brie)—the vertex of a love triangle with BoJack’s affable nemesis named Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins), also a former TV sitcom star, who happens to be a preppy, yellow Labrador and the star of his own reality show, albeit short-lived, called Peanutbutter & Jelly which sadly never made it past the pilot presentation stage. However, he does make a comeback in Season 2 as the host of Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities What Do They Know? Do They Know Things? Let’s Find Out! BoJack’s true “soul mate” (yes, he still has a soul) is Diane, but she has the good sense to keep their relationship strictly professional. Nevertheless, in one episode, BoJack gifts her the “D” from the Hollywood sign as his sign of affection. Oh, and, in Season 2, there’s also BoJack’s new girlfriend: a human-sized owl (Lisa Kudrow) who recently woke up from a 30-year coma—and returns to her career as a broadcast network executive; the running joke is that she’s ideal for the job because she’s so out of touch.

Neil Landau: How did you come up with such an off-the-wall, out-of-the-box idea, Mr. Bob-Waksberg? Yes, I love hyphens almost as much as I love puns.

Raphael Bob-Waksberg: Me, too! Who doesn’t love a good pun? The idea really came from 2 places at once. My friend Lisa Hanawalt is an artist who had been drawing these “animal people” for a while. It’s kind of her thing, and posts them on her blog, drawing little comics with them. I’d long wanted to collaborate with her on something. And so, I started looking at these animal people and thinking, “What are the stories that I would want to tell with these characters? And what are the roles that I would see in this world?”

The second part of it was, I moved to LA from New York, and I didn’t really know many people. I rented this huge house in the Hollywood Hills with 5 other guys. And I was told that it used to belong to Johnny Depp, and that it was the second or third highest elevated house in all of Hollywood. I had this tiny closet of a bedroom in this gigantic house that was not dissimilar to BoJack Horseman’s. After moving in, almost immediately, I got in a car accident, so I couldn’t get down from the house. I was stranded up in this castle. I just remember looking out over the city, and feeling on top of the world, but never more alone and isolated. So, the idea kind of came out of that feeling. And the idea for the premise of the show was about a guy who’s gotten everything and every opportunity, and still can’t find a way to be happy.

NL: Did you know at the beginning you were going to delve into the deepest, darkest recesses of some of your characters’ psyches?

RBW: I think you always kind of write to your own interests and abilities. Although I didn’t start with that, this is what it ended up being. When I tried to write stuff that was really dark and edgy, and he doesn’t give a shit, it always ended up being lighter and leaning towards the humor. And when I tried to write stuff that was fun, and bouncy and with a punch line, it always ended up getting a little darker. You kind of always end up being who you are. As the first season reaches its climax, it gets darker and darker and darker, and the reality was, “Oh my god, I care about these characters. When did that happen?” So it ended up being a dramedy. The other big inspiration was that because it was so wacky, we could go even darker with it—which I loved.

NL: Had you ever seen Mister Ed, the 1960s sitcom featuring a talking horse? What were your influences?

RBW: I don’t know if I’ve ever actually watched a whole episode of Mister Ed. But there definitely is a genre of comedy that comes from behind the scenes of a silly thing, but taking it kind of seriously. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is a big influence, definitely—that idea of, what if ‘toons interacted with real people? And if we took them seriously, what do they do when they’re not being cartoons? You know, Greg the Bunny, The Muppet Show, or the Muppet movies. They’re puppets, but also in the real world. Formally, that’s always been interesting to me, taking silly convention and treating it seriously and pretending, “Okay, yeah, if Mister Ed existed in the real world, and he left the set and would continue to be a talking horse, what would that be like?” And, growing up, I always liked behind the scenes Hollywood stuff, The Larry Sanders Show was a big influence, certainly.

NL: BoJack Horseman is a satire of show business and fame and phoniness, and the reason it has so much bite is because it’s so true. A bit exaggerated, but painfully true.

RBW: That was the big thing for me. I think the best comedy comes from truth. I also think the best comedy comes from sadness. I find it rewarding to have characters struggling with stuff, and that can be very funny and dark at the same time.

NL: For BoJack, it definitely comes from a place of desperation, which is so relevant to sustaining a career in this business. How did you get from idea to series order?

RBW: I first pitched the show to Tornante—which is [former Disney CEO] Michael Eisner’s production company. They were looking for young writers, and my manager sent them a play I’d written—and they loved it. So I met with a development exec at Tornante, and we kind of hit it off. And so I developed BoJack with them for 3 years.

NL: And you had artwork at that time?

RBW: Yes. I went in with some of Lisa’s drawings, and then they were like, “All right, let’s hire Lisa to actually design these characters in the show.” Then we got some cast attached, and I wrote a script. And then I wrote a second script. And then we made a presentation, a kind of combination of those 2 scripts, but a 10-minute, fully animated thing, because Netflix doesn’t make pilots. Well, that’s not exactly why; we just thought the more we can put together before we take this out to pitch, the stronger the pitch will be. It definitely helped that we also had the cast attached.

NL: How did Will Arnett and Aaron Paul get involved?

RBW: It’s hard to say, exactly! We just have a great casting director, Linda Lamontagne, who thought this would be good for Aaron, and he was finishing up Breaking Bad at the time. I think the idea of doing something much lighter and totally different appealed to him. And, you know, it was an easy ask because, initially, it was just 10 minutes of his time to record his voice for this thing that may or may not go anywhere. But he was the first to sign on. I think Amy Sedaris and Will Arnett came on together because they’re old friends and it helped both of them to have the other one involved.

NL: Will Arnett and Aaron Paul are also credited as Executive Producers. Are they also involved creatively, beyond their voices?

RBW: Yeah, they helped sell the show. Will Arnett is friends with [Netflix Chief of Content] Ted Sarandos. Breaking Bad is a huge hit for Netflix, in addition to AMC, so Aaron Paul called them up and said, “You should do this show!”

NL: And Aaron Paul’s character, Todd, was always designed as a full human?

RBW: Right. For some reason, I always pictured slacker Todd as all human.

NL: But all the characters, human and animal, have real problems.

RBW: Yeah. Part of the pitch for the show was that even though it’s this crazy cartoon with talking animals, we’re going to ground it and it’s going to take place in a real world, with consequences—which you don’t see in animation that much. You can see a little. But the idea was that it would start out as a very typical, animated cartoon for adults, in the mold of other shows the audience has seen. And then it was just going to gradually get darker and darker, so that by the end of the season, it was basically a dramedy, like Louie, but in this crazy, cartoon universe.

When I pitched the show, I pitched the whole first season, episode by episode. Here’s how things are going to grow and change over the season. They could really see, Oh yeah, this is getting darker, and stranger and weirder. I really did try to cater the pitch for Netflix, and so I thought, What makes a good Netflix show? And, for me, it’s about these long arcs, and these serialized stories, and I feel I wouldn’t want to make a show for them that reset at the end of every episode. And I feel like audiences wouldn’t want that either. I feel like people who watch Netflix are used to something more serious than that.

NL: BoJack Horseman is your first produced TV series, and you’d never worked in animation before, is that right?

RBW: Before BoJack, I hadn’t done much, yeah. I wrote a script on spec that Sony then made a thing out of and then I developed another show for NBC, which didn’t get picked up. But I did get staffed on someone else’s series, and then got staffed on another show, and so by the time this show happened, I was ready to run a room. And I knew what it meant to be a TV writer, which I didn’t know at first … On my first staff writer gig, I’d never even seen a television outline before. But I learned how to do it while we were developing it, which was right as one job was ending, and we were like, “Right, let’s get to Netflix. Yeah, let’s do it.” And we found the place that fit perfectly.

NL: Why was/is Netflix the right fit?

RBW: Being an Internet streaming service and blank slate, Netflix is unlike other [linear] networks that are always looking to fill certain boxes. “Oh, we need a family show this year, we need a comedy show this year,” and then end up buying something and maneuvering it to fit in that box. And with BoJack it really is, “We want to help you make the show you want to make.” And every note they give is very supportive of that. Which makes a lot of sense, right? Because if I’m making a show that I don’t like, then I can’t guarantee anyone’s going to like it! And just really from a workflow perspective, we were working so fast on BoJack, especially with the tight production deadlines for the first season. Once they bought the show, they wanted all 12 episodes really fast.

Netflix is also different because all the episodes are available at once. Everyone can watch on their own schedule, if they want to watch one, they can watch another one right away. It’s a great model, but it also adds the pressure to make a show addictive, right? Because when a show’s on every week at 8 o’clock, even if you’re DVRing it, you know, “Okay, the show’s coming up, I’m going to watch it now!” But if it’s on your own schedule, if you don’t feel driven to watch that next episode, you could never watch it. I have shows just pile up on my DVR and, if I haven’t caught up yet, I’m never going to watch them! And that was one of the big notes we got from Netflix really early on. It wasn’t until the second half of the first season that the show got super serialized. It was like, “What can you do to push people to the next episode? What little cliffhangers can you do? How can you make this kind of push people more?”

You don’t want to do that phony—“Oh my God, what’s gonna happen …?”—and then in the very next episode it gets cleared up immediately, on to the next story. You want to still feel like things have stakes and are organic. Because I think the audience will get sick of that, too. So you have to come up with new ways to happily push people to the next episode.

Another thing that’s really nice about Netflix—which I actually did not think about at all until we were working on the show—is the idea that not only could people watch on their own schedules, but you have an almost built-in guarantee that everyone’s going to watch the show in order. With our show, there’s very little chance that someone’s going to watch Episode 6 before they watch Episode 5. Because the way it works is, they’re all right there, watch them in order. And that gave us so much freedom because you don’t have to reset things every episode—which leaves more room for more character evolution.

NL: And for guest appearances: Sir Paul McCartney, Henry Winkler, and “Character Actress Margo Martindale”—did you write their roles knowing you could get them to play themselves?

RBW: We started asking people if they would be on the show, either as themselves or a character. And we said, “If you pass, we’re going to get an impressionist … and you’re going to like it less!” [Laughter]

NL: One of the things I love about the show is that it breaks all the rules, and defies our expectations of what’s going to happen next.

RBW: We got a note early on, I think around Season 1, Episode 7, about Princess Carolyn, and Episode 5, about Diane’s family, when the Netflix execs were wondering about making those “special episodes.” And I said I wanted every episode to be a special episode! Everyone’s got their favorite episode, and I never wanted any to be like, “This is the normal episode.” We never wanted to make people comfortable. Rather, “How can we make people more uncomfortable?”

NL: The more uncomfortable, the better?

RBW: I think you do have to be careful, a little bit. With a lot of TV shows, if you start too weird and out there and crazy, people are like, “What is that?” But then we did lose some audience in Season 1 because they didn’t stick with this and thought it was something they’d seen before. It’s really a tightrope. I think for some people, the instinct is, we can’t make this too silly, because we want to be able to take our characters seriously. And my theory is kind of the opposite: the crazier and the weirder and the sillier you go, the more serious you can go. And you can actually have characters talking about real emotional problems and it doesn’t feel as indulgent or maudlin as it would in more straightforward, live action show—because it’s this silly, cartoon horse.

NL: So first you figured out the first season by yourself, but then hired a writing staff to flesh everything out and share the workload of the scripts and punch-ups?

RBW: Basically, yes. I did have the loglines for all 12 episodes from my initial pitch, and then in the writers’ room, you really hammer things out. There were a couple of episode ideas that we had to throw out and start over, and some were added.

NL: Do you break stories on whiteboards and then assign individual episodes?

RBW: It’s important to me that the writers feel some ownership over their episodes, and so I would tell them early on, “This is going to be your episode,” and I let them run the room, for that episode. Because a lot of them had much more experience than I did, and so I’m not going to stand in their way. I’m running between other stuff anyway, and so it’s helpful to go, “You guys work on this, I’ve got to go check on the edit,” or “I’ve got to work on this other script.” And I’d come back and be like, “What have you got?” and they would run me through it. And I’d be like, “Oh yeah, I don’t love this beat so much,” or “This feels a little unmotivated … can we change this to this?” They would go off and outline it, and we would all give our feedback. And they would write a draft, and we’d all sit around a table and give our feedback, and they would write a second draft. And then I do a pass on every script.

NL: How involved is Netflix? Are you submitting outlines for them to approve?

RBW: Actually, no. They don’t look at outlines. For both seasons I’ve done a big pitch at the beginning of the season. And then for every episode I get on the phone and talk [to the Netflix executives] for 20 minutes. And the reaction to that is almost always, “Sounds great. Can’t wait to read it.” Occasionally, they’ll be like, “A little concerned about this part of it—just make sure you don’t do this,” but in general they’re like, “Yeah, great.” And then we write the script and we send it to them, and we get a handful of notes. But we’ve never had to throw out a script or re-break a story or anything like that.

It definitely feels like Netflix trusts us to make a good TV show. I feel like we’ve earned their trust with what we’re giving them, and I feel like they’re happy with the results. The show I pitched is the show that we’re making, and I’ve been on broadcast network shows, where I feel the network bought one show and they were trying to turn it into another kind of show.

NL: Do you break story according to A, B, and C stories?

RBW: Sure. We usually lead [the A-story] with BoJack. Occasionally, that’s not the case, and then we try to justify why that is. For example, the episode that mainly focused on Princess Carolyn; the network notes were like, “Where’s BoJack?” And we had this idea to have a cardboard cutout of BoJack in the office, which we’d see when walking around, to spark stories! Or the “Chickens” episode, where BoJack is in the B-story. And a big part of the B-story is how BoJack doesn’t like being in the B-story. They’re like, “The story can get on without you, relax,” and BoJack’s like, “Oh really?”

But the first season, when it starts, it’s really all about BoJack, where he’s come from, what he’s doing. Then we move to Todd and where he’s from, and then BoJack’s relationship with Diane, and then BoJack’s relationship with Mr. Peanutbutter and where he’s from, then Princess Carolyn. And then we evaluate: which characters haven’t we serviced in a while? Who hasn’t gotten a good story, let’s see … BoJack and Todd haven’t had a good story for a while; let’s get BoJack and Todd together? A big part of the ethos of the show is BoJack’s not happy, and so we keep thinking through those things that are going to make him happy. And how does he work through that and how do we resolve that, as he’s still not happy?

NL: Do you get the whole voice cast together and do table reads?

RBW: Yeah. Then we do rewrites based off that.

NL: And then do the voice tracks, and then that gets sent to your animation studio?

RBW: Yes. So, we work with the animators at ShadowMachine, which is also where we all write, and where the people record the voices, so it’s all kind of on top of each other. Lisa designs the characters right there. So yes, we record all the audio, and then we put together like, a radio play, which is what it sounds like, the whole show, but just the voices and the sounds. Then we usually send that to Netflix, and Netflix gives their notes on that. And then we look at thumbnail drawings and create some animatics. We do really tight, specific animatics, so Netflix can really get what’s happening. It’s not a lot of, “Yeah, this kind of thing will happen,” but you really see the different expressions. Then we send it off to Korea, where it gets animated. And then we get it back from Korea, and do a pretty thorough retake process on that, to bring it up and make sure everything looks good. We have a bunch of animators in America too, who tune everything up. That’s the basic process.

NL: And you edit in LA, so if you want to do pickups, you have some flexibility with that?

RBW: Yes. One of the nice things about animation is you can pick anything up. With animation it’s like, “Oh, I know we wrote this scene in the restaurant, but what if it were in the apartment, instead?” It’s like boop-bop!—they’re all in the apartment now! You can’t do that in live action, and it’s kind of spoiled me, for anything else! I’ve become drunk with power!

NL: How do you feel on the day the whole new season becomes available for streaming?

RBW: Terrified. Before the first season it was really scary. I was hoping people would get it. And then they did, which was really cool. And for the second season, I could be more confident because I was like, “People know what the show is now, and people who didn’t like it aren’t going to watch Season 2, so who gives a shit?” you know? But both times, it’s scary and exciting. One of the really cool things about this new world we live in is you do get to see people’s reactions. And that’s awful and I kind of wish I didn’t, but I also enjoy watching people watching the episodes. Like, “I’m on Episode 2 now, having a lot of fun!” “Episode 5 now, this is wacky.” “Episode 11—oh no, I’m sad now!” [Laughter]

NL: Any lessons gleaned from Seasons 1 and 2 that changed any of your strategies going into Season 3?

RBW: In the first season of BoJack, you can feel the arc, a little bit, of the show that I felt I should be making, and the show that I really wanted to make. Which is more emotional, and darker and sadder and weirder. This was imposed by nobody but myself, but I felt, If I’m going to sell this show, it has to feel like shows you’ve seen before. And I feel like, once we kind of get the audience comfortable, then we can go off in these strange and weirder places, and the audience will be on board already. And what I found was the reaction was kind of the opposite. Because, actually, when it starts, people are kind of like, Oh, okay, I’ve seen this before. I’m kind of bored. But then the people who stuck around were like, Oh actually it turned into this other thing, and it’s totally fresh and different and weird. And it gets much sadder and more emotional, and more sincere, and it becomes this different thing.

For Season 2, we kind of hit the ground running with that. And it has that texture through the whole thing. And for Season 1, we’d be like, All right, this is a pretty heavy moment. Is there a joke here we can use to undercut it? Now, much more, we’re more confident at letting those moments sit. And feeling, No, our audience likes that. Our audience is ready for that. We don’t have to hold their hands; they can take that sad moment. And we definitely did that in Season 1, too. But we’re doing more of it in Season 3. And more confidently, I would say.

NL: Because you have humans interacting with animals, do you have specific rules—dos and don’ts—in the writers’ room?

RBW: We do. I think, like any show, it evolves as we go forward and discover stuff. So, in the first season, we had an informal rule of No fish, or underwater animals; or no animals that couldn’t breathe air. So we have whales and seals, but the underwater animals would presumably live underwater. And we kind of cheated a little bit one episode: there’s an electric eel, but we mostly avoided it. And then when we were working on Season 2, we were like, That’s silly. There are so many fun animals we could see but can’t, so in Season 2 there’s a lot more fish. But one thing we had to really remind everyone at all points is that in this world, all of our animals are anthropomorphized. They’re all upright, walking, talking animals.

NL: You’re not going to have a mixture of an actual real world animal that can’t talk—although there is that very brief shot of a real horse when BoJack is tripping on hallucinogens near the end of Season 1.

RBW: Right. If people are eating chicken, they’re eating chicken. That’s a person, right? So one example that we got through that we’d missed is, in Episode 3, Sarah Lynn has a party and has all the lemurs over. And one of these lemurs has a skirt on, which looks like a whale pattern. Little whales, spouting stuff up. And we’re looking at it, in animation and I go, “What are those shapes?” Because that shape doesn’t exist in our world. There is no whale that has fins and flippers like that, that swims around. That’s fictional, that’s not a thing! You know, Princess Carolyn’s dress has a fish pattern, and we’ve kind of justified that as “Oh, it’s just a fun pattern. It’s not actually what fish look like, because fish don’t look like that in this world.” And there were a few other things like that where we kind of have to spot it and go, “No no no, that’s not right.” There’s a scene where they go on a merry-go-round, and there were horses, and we were like, “No, no, that’s not what horses look like!” And so we replaced it, with horse people— on all fours—things like that.

We don’t have weirdness on top of weirdness. And we don’t have ghosts or aliens. It’s not an “anything goes” cartoon universe. It’s very specific. The show takes place in the real world, except for the fact that there are all these animal people. And that does change everything. You kind of think backwards, “Oh yeah, that means that this would have happened like this, and this would have happened like that.” But I don’t want it to feel like it’s Superjail! or Adventure Time. It’s not a crazy cartoon world where there are all sorts of talking things—no. This is the real world, except there are animal people. The metaphor I always use is: our show has 2 feet. And one foot is in the real, grounded emotional world, and one foot is in the crazy cartoon, wacky antics world. The theory is the farther you go with one; the farther you can go with the other. Because we have these silly, cartoon animals and they’re talking and it’s fun. Then when they’re saying these things, you can get away with more honest, open conversations. You can go to these more real, darker, emotional places. Whereas I think a more traditional live action show would feel like, “All right, we get it, he’s sad. Enough already. Get over it, guys.”

Another thing I think a lot about is the more universal your characters look, the more people can transpose themselves onto them.

NL: For decades, the traditional, live action sitcom and the traditional animated show, basically had characters that never evolved. But now, the expectations of the viewer are changing, and it’s changing the storytelling.

RBW: Yeah, more and more it’s about building characters that audiences care about, more than building funny jokes. And our [writers’] room is really based around story and character first, and then we kind of punch it up and add jokes later. But it’s rarely about, “What’s the funniest thing that could happen here?” It’s mostly about, “What’s the most interesting thing that could happen here?” And sometimes, it is the funniest thing. Sometimes the most interesting thing is to be funny. But oftentimes it’s like, “No, how can we subvert our audience’s expectations, how can we not do what people think we’re going to do?” And a lot of that ends up being really funny.

NL: You get a little laugh, but there’s pain under it. I salute you for not being afraid to mine that.

RBW: I created a show that’s very personal and very close to me. And not everyone’s going to like it, and other people who feel like, “Oh my God, I didn’t know there was a show that could speak to me like this, that felt this way about the world, and here it is!” That’s so rewarding. And now, I’m looking forward to Season 3 coming out, so I can continue to disappoint all those people.

NL: Not at all! You’re running a hit show. Everyone loves it.

RBW: They’ll all turn on me! Every single episode I make is just a new opportunity to alienate more people.

NL: And it all circles back to you, and your experience feeling isolated in the big house in the Hollywood Hills. Art imitating life, imitating art. Very meta. And, I hope, BoJack’s rants are as cathartic for you as this interview.

RBW: It’s been a great therapy session for me. Thanks.

[Laughter]