After living for years in the tragicomic world of “BoJack Horseman,” creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s next two projects split the difference: he served as executive producer of “Tuca & Bertie,” which also starred anthropomorphic animals but wore its humor with a lighter touch, and he co-created “Undone,” a surreal drama about a young woman grieving her father’s death who can suddenly move through time.
Now Bob-Waksberg is back, melding some of those ingredients – the lighter touch and the focus on family across time – with “Long Story Short.” The new series, which premieres Aug. 22 on Netflix, melds laughs and pathos in its joke-driven exploration of a Northern Californian Jewish family, the Schwoopers, and their ups and downs. The show jumps around in time, covering decades of the family’s triumphs and tribulations. And more tribulations. And some more tribulations.
The parents, Elliott and Naomi, are voiced by Paul Reiser and Lisa Edelstein; their three children Avi, Shira and Yoshi, are handled by Ben Feldman, Abbi Jacobson and Max Greenfield. Nicole Byer voices Shira’s wife Kendra Hooper (and yes, their kids have the last name Hooper-Schwooper), and Angelique Cabral is Avi’s girlfriend/wife/ex Jen. (The show packs a lot into just a few episodes.)
In addition to a deep dive into family dynamics, Bob-Waksberg fires off endless rounds of verbal and visual jokes – a poster outside Avi’s daughter’s school advertises performances for “Waiting for Godot, Jr.” and another episode features the Babka Streisand Bakery, while Shira and Kendra’s boys constantly pester their moms to be allowed to watch what sounds like “Paw Patrol” but when Kendra finally gives in we see it’s a much stranger show called “Papa Troll.”
Bob-Waksberg recently discussed via video the humor, the stories, the time jumps, and the animation style. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. Does writing about characters who are people, specifically Jews from Northern California like your family, instead of animals as you did on “BoJack Horseman,” make you feel more comfortable or more vulnerable as a creator?
Certainly more vulnerable. I don’t think I would have been ready for this without the success and experience I’ve had. I don’t think I could have made this show right out the gate. There’s a narrative personalness and a sincerity that is a little scary for me as a comedy writer.
But I like to do things that scare me. That was part of the appeal, knowing some of the crutches I’ve used in my past work – irony, meta commentary, parody – are crayons I’m not gonna use on this show. Pushing myself out onto that tightrope has been thrilling.
Q. Those people and much of the humor are very Jewish. You’ve said the specific makes it ring true, but did you have to balance how far to go with the details and jokes that other people may not get?
Sometimes there’s an over-cautiousness on the part of storytellers, who feel they have to explain everything. I love being thrown headfirst into a world and not catching everything. I grew up on “The Simpsons” and half the movie references would go right over my head. I’m not expecting everyone to catch every reference or know every joke. There’s stuff in the show that some other writer put in that I didn’t get.
This is very specific, but there’s a universality to the stories we’re telling, and I think people will find their own ways in. I want it to wash over you a little bit. And I have faith that our audience won’t be lost.
Q. What’s important about the small details, whether they’re for laughs, like the “Waiting for Godot Jr.” sign, or for pathos, like how we see Shira watching Avi’s face watching his daughter dance on stage instead of the performance?
There’s a lot of texture in the show that maybe goes unnoticed on first watch, but has an effect, things that signal to the audience what kind of show this is. You don’t always pick it up with the front of your brain, but it does affect your enjoyment of it. And I want this to be a show people re-watch and get more out each time; some of those small things are telling the audience, “Watch this again, there is more to discover here,” hopefully without being distracting or confusing.
Q. It feels funny in a more straightforward way than “BoJack,” with more laughs per minute.
In retrospect, we remember how heavy and serious “BoJack” was, but it was actually a very goofy show. I’m not getting defensive, saying, “Wait a second, BoJack was funny,” but the cultural memory of it has become this traumatic story of the tragedy of BoJack Horseman. It was that, but also it was three boys stacked on top of each other under a trench coat or a talking horse who goes underwater with a helmet on his head so that he can walk around.
This show is more funny in the sense that there are a lot of like funny characters being funny and “yes-anding” each other and tagging each other’s jokes. There’s less laughing at the characters and more laughing with the characters.
Q. What does this different animation style bring to this story?
We wanted it to feel loose and hand-drawn. Sometimes artists start with loose designs, but they tighten up and go through the animation machine and turn into cartoon characters, and they lose a bit of their charm. We wanted to avoid that; to say, you see that weird little flourish or that weird line that doesn’t quite connect? Let’s hold on to that.
The characters don’t have to be on model every frame and can make weird faces or, you know, fall into bizarre angles. It’s a little wonky. We have scenes where extras are kind of frozen in place because we wanted to make it feel storybook-y.
It feels like this is a thing that has been crafted for you, the audience.
Q. Why create a show that constantly jumps in time across the decades?
I was talking with Kate Purdy, who I created “Undone” with, about ideas, and maybe because “Undone” was so interested in moving through time, we kept coming back to that idea of telling a story longitudinally. And I was already thinking about these characters and this family. So it felt natural to use that time-jumping format to provide a larger context for our audience to understand these characters, to feel like they really knew them much faster than you would by watching something chronological or that stayed within a limited scope of time.
By opening things up, you see these characters’ hopes, dreams and fears, and then you see them come true or not, and you see the ramifications. You see inside jokes form and small conflicts grow into larger rifts.
My hope is that you feel like you’ve watched this family’s home movies and pored through their photo albums. You grew up alongside them. In a way, hopefully, you’ll feel like you’re a part of this family.