The Hilarious, Downtrodden and Impactful Legacy of Bojack Horseman
A few months ago, I was looking for a new animated show to watch that could simply make me laugh and bring a smile to my face. I was given a recommendation from an old friend who suggested I watch BoJack Horseman and without a second thought I dived right down the horse’s mouth.
The concept of an alcoholic, middle aged television actor (who also happens to be a horse) struggles with his depression surrounded by a ridiculous, colourful cast and often dramatic anthropomorphic animal and human characters may not sound like comedy gold, but that is exactly what Raphael Bob-Waksberg presented to Netflix. And I want to thank my friend for introducing it to me as it is easily one of the most refreshing, challenging and dark animated adult comedies I have seen for the longest time.
Throughout each season, we see BoJack as he goes through different Hollywood projects and substance-charged adventures across America as he tries to find happiness while trying to come to terms with a life full of depression. From avoiding or unintentionally ruining big breaks from his headstrong agent Princess Carolyn, or his ghost writer Diane encouraging him to open up about past mistakes during his big time in the spotlight on the fictional 80s sitcom Horsin’ Around, or trying to keep his innocent and clueless roommate Todd from achieving his own goals, the show has presented viewers a brilliantly diverse range of characters.
As the show’s protagonist, BoJack is always conflicting and engaging to watch as his relationships with everyone around him changes his behaviour and attitudes, but the conflict always comes from him as the source. He opens up to Diane emotionally for the first time, but is willing to wreck her and Mr. Peanutbutter’s wedding for his own happiness. BoJack ruins a potential relationship through a despising act while narcotized, but volunteers himself to therapy to confront his alcoholism and drug addiction. He even works hard to make the film he is starring in as his childhood hero the best it could be, only to be confronted with changes from producer Lenny Turteltaub. His personal growth and relationships are what makes BoJack a brilliant character to watch as his ups and downs are more dramatic and emphasised than most animated protagonists. Without restrictions from television channels and networks, the creative team are able to explore areas of human emotion and psyche that most people would not be given to do.
But what exactly went into the creation of the show and who were the people that drew and animated the cast to life?
After completing his studies at Bard College in New York, Raphael Bob-Waksberg moved to LA in the hopes of breaking into writing for the silver screen. He developed concepts for different television shows that could be potentially pitched while hoping to use the artist Lisa Hanawalt to draw up the designs for the characters that inhabited them. They have remained good friends since middle school and have worked together and separately throughout their careers.
Their hard work paid off after Bob-Waksberg attended a meeting with the producers from the production company Tornante and after continuing to communicate back and forth, it eventually led to his opportunity to pitch up to five potential ideas. And out of those five was one which was the infancy of BoJack Horseman. With his treatment in one hand and Lisa’s concept art in the other, Bob-Waksberg was given the opportunity to pitch to Michael Eisner, the head of Tornante.
The project was greenlit and they worked alongside ShadowMachine to make a pilot; which was developed throughout 2011 and 2012. During these two long years Lisa joined the team after initially rejecting an offer, Bob-Waksberg became a staff writer for other television shows and an all-star cast were coming together that were made up of Will Arnett (The Lego Batman Movie), Alison Brie (Community), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) and Amy Sedaris (Star vs. The Forces of Evil). Their hard work for this one pilot paid off as Netflix was interested enough to pick up a first season. However, they had only less than a year to get it completed and ready for a summer release as the streaming service were looking at new and original productions to stream exclusively on their platform.
Despite the seemingly difficult task ahead of them to complete the twelve-episode order, the animators alongside Hanawalt and the writing team alongside Bob-Waksberg managed to get all twelve episodes fulfilled and in time for a summer release in 2014. Tornante and ShadowMachine’s efforts paid off as the first animated series under the Netflix Original banner and after a strong critical reaction, it got renewed annually throughout the rest of the 2010s and led the way for other mature animated shows under their banner including F is for Family, Big Mouth, Disenchantment and Love, Death & Robots.
However, despite a healthy five seasons, continuing to gain strong praise and winning some awards along the way, Netflix decided to cancel the run of the series in 2019. The reason why seems to be unclear and it left fans devastated to why this beloved and successful show was now stopping in its tracks. But the streaming platform did give Bob-Waksberg notice for a sixth and final season to wrap up BoJack and the supporting cast’s stories. At the time of writing this article, it’s unspecific why Netflix decided to cancel one of its popular animated shows under their Originals banner. But while it may not continue, the animated shows that followed it will, without the stead leading them.
While fans will have to wait and see how the final episodes will end everyone’s story arcs, it’s hard to say exactly what the show’s legacy will be after January of this year. Perhaps the writers will force BoJack to return to his seemingly never-ending escape from depression or it will finally see our favourite horse have a happy and warm closure.
But the most important element that any viewer will take away from it is the exploration into human emotion and the freedom for writers to create dark humour without the restrictions of traditional television networks and channels. The freedom that Netflix and other streaming platforms are able to potentially offer both the creative team and audiences has opened wide to some of the most unique, shocking and expressive pieces of entertainment to come out in the past few years. And BoJack Horseman was one of the first titles to give mature viewers an animated show to rival some of the most popular titles that had dominated that particular market for so long with an iron fist.
If you have never watched this absurd yet intriguing comedy, this is now the perfect time to give the show a chance and I hope that it can grab your attention as it did for me. You will never feel the same way for any animated human, animal or horse as you will for BoJack.
To hear more about the origins of the show have a listen to our interview with production designer Lisa Hanawalt in episode 25 of the Skwigly Podcast (stream below or direct download):