BoJack especially is a very dialogue based show. A lot of the comedy comes from conversations, and a lot of story comes from misunderstandings and people trying to connect with each other, and there was a really interesting challenge trying to write a script with no dialogue.
Raphael Bob-WaksbergIt was fun figuring out the science of the world as much as we wanted to figure out, and then playing fast and loose in other places. Which we do with our show in general. One of the things we love about the BoJack Horseman show is that we can always fall back on, "It's a ridiculous cartoon." And it is! It's a serious, relationship-based grounded character tragedy, but it is also a ridiculous cartoon.
Raphael Bob-WaksbergWe often ask, "Do we have enough humans?" Because it's always fun to come up with an animal in show, but it begins to feel like overkill.
Raphael Bob-WaksbergOne of the things I've found really interesting about the show is that a lot of people really relate to our animal characters, more than we thought they would. Part of that is, because they are animals, people project themselves onto them. If BoJack just looks like Will Arnett, people go, "Oh, I know who that guy is. That's a Will Arnett type." But because he's a horse, people can go, "Oh, I'm kind of like him in some ways."
Raphael Bob-WaksbergI am wary of repeating myself too much. In this age of Netflix, as a Netflix show, if you want to go back and watch a season 1 episode, you can do that easily. I'm not interested in repeating the same story beats over and over and over again. But part of the truth of BoJack story is about how much he repeats himself and these patterns that are difficult to get out of. I'm trying not to be evasive about that. I'm not using that as an excuse. I think that's convenient to fall back on as a TV writer: "Oh, it's a show about stagnation."
Raphael Bob-WaksbergThat's part of the comedy, too, is we do have jokes throughout of hanging a lantern on the absurdity of the world. Like, when BoJack's flying over the neighborhood, you see some houses have swimming pools in the backyard, and what does that mean? Why would there be a swimming pool underwater? But we thought it was funny.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg