I 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-WaksbergIn a certain way, sometimes it does feel like we say goodbye to a character, and we don't want to bring them back unless we have a good reason. We left the door open if we wanted to use him more. I always think it's better to leave the audience wanting more.
Raphael Bob-WaksbergI think you can imagine everyone has ankle weights on, or technology, and there's a reason that people aren't floating around. But I also liked this idea that in this world, people forgot they can swim. The modern world weighs you down, there's always emails to check, you've gotta go to your job and pay your mortgage. You're not really thinking, "Oh, yeah, I can swim around." BoJack discovering it is a big deal, and kind of fun.
Raphael Bob-WaksbergI want each season to feel new and special. I don't want it to feel, "Oh, more of this." That's something that's easy to do in the first three seasons, and harder to do as you go. I'd rather err on the side of blowing up everything and being like, "Why did you do that? There was more story to tell there," and moving the family to Mexico like on Weeds, instead of people going, "Oh, we've seen this already. We're tired of this."
Raphael Bob-WaksbergIt's a fun show, BoJack Horseman to do, and that gets around. It's easy, especially for a lot of actors who don't do a lot of voiceover. No makeup, no wardrobe, they really just come in, the lines are right there, we goof around for a half hour, and I think it feels like, "Oh, yeah, this is why I got into this business: to play around and have some fun." There's no paparazzi, most of them don't do any promotion for the show. it's the fun part of acting, without the other stuff.
Raphael Bob-WaksbergJessica Biel is a really interesting case. She actually called us after the table read and said, "You guys should go meaner." She pitched us, and said, "Look, I know there are a lot of things to make fun of me about. I don't want people to think you're pulling punches. Please, dive in." We asked, "Could we tell a joke about your friend and mentor Stephen Collins?" And she said, "Well maybe not so much in that area. As long as the jokes were about me, I'm game for everything."
Raphael Bob-Waksberg