Reddit AMA Recap: Bojack Horseman producers

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NETFLIX, INC. BOJACK HORSEMAN

 

Recently, the producers of BoJack Horseman took part in a Reddit AMA to talk up the debut season of Netflix’s original animated series. And while  the producers were rather mum on details for season two, they spilled a LOT on the development and conceptualization of the first season in terms of character designs, voices, pitching, the whole nine. Check out some of the answers down below:

On how Lisa Hanawalt (production designer) and Raphael Bob-Waksberg (show creator)  started working together on BoJack

LH: It just kind of happened, Raphael is an old high school friend and when he created the show he asked me to work on it! I still don’t know much about animation so I’m lucky to be working at Shadowmachine with an enormous team of talented animators to help me know my ass from my elbow.

RBW: 1) I’ve been friends with Lisa since high school and have always been looking for something I could do with her. She’s been drawing these animal people for years and I liked coming up with stories for them.

 

How the show was pitched

RBW: I wrote the first two scripts, and off of those scripts Tornante and ShadowMachine produced a ten minute fully animated presentation, attaching most of the actors who ended up working on the show. Off of that presentation I got a meeting with Netflix where I pitched out the entire season, one episode at a time, and we left them with a document describing everything I’d talked about at the meeting.

This version of the show is the best possible version I think. I had some other more watered down versions prepared to pitch to other networks, but I’m really glad we landed on Netflix and they let us go as dark as we wanted.

Netflix really liked my pitch. I went in and pitched the entire first season, one episode at a time. If they had any trepidation about my lack of experience, they didn’t tell me. My other two EPs Steve and Noel Bright (also from Tornante) have done a great job of helping me run my first TV show and I made a concerted effort in the first season to only hire writers who had MORE experience than I had.

A big part of the pitch of this show was this is a world where actions have consequences, where characters grow and change, or try to change, and relationships shift. There will definitely be more of this in season two, but we’re also talking about new ways we can be surprising with our characters and our storytelling.

LH: Raphael did all the pitching so I was VERY lucky to not have to directly experience that process. I was still living in NY and working on the original designs and presentation episode remotely at that point. Our show was very close to getting picked up by a network tv channel and then they dropped out at the last second, and in hindsight we’re so glad! Netflix couldn’t be a more perfect place for BoJack. I cope by assuming that nothing I do will ever be picked up/developed/finished or become successful in any way, so I’ve been pleasantly shocked by every step of this process. I’m still in shock.

 

Initial reactions to the series:

RBW: People have all sorts of different reactions. There is no wrong or right way to enjoy the show (if you are enjoying it). I think the show is very funny, but I know not everyone likes dumb animal puns as much as I do. I think this was a tough show to market, because it changes so much over the course of the season, and part of the fun is discovering that. I don’t know what I would do differently if we could do it again, other than maybe giving critics more episodes to review.

LH: I felt a little frustration at first, like, “eeeeek just watch more of it! it’ll subvert your expectations I swear!” but we also knew to be patient and let the people it was created for discover it. Some people will watch one minute and give up and that’s okay. A lot of people go into things with preconceived notions and that’s also okay.

I think we’re doing something really special and interesting with this show that’s different than a lot of the stuff that’s come before it (even if it feels familiar at first). Obviously, your mileage may vary, but this show is very personal to me — Netflix allowed me to really make the show I wanted to make, unadulterated, and I used that to really talk about the things that I thought were funny, or interesting, or weird, over twelve increasingly dark episodes. I think if this show fails, it’s not for lack of trying — we’re definitely not aiming for the middle here or watering things down to appeal to a mass audience. I can’t speak to your personal tastes, but I know I would always rather see something personal and weird and honest, even if it doesn’t always connect for me, than something that’s been market-tested to death, and I can promise you that this is the former.

On the binge watch model that Netflix employs

RBW: The coolest thing about their model to me, moreso even than the idea of people watching all the episodes together, is the idea that people are going to watch all the episodes IN ORDER. This is something I think we as audiences take for granted, but you CAN’T take it for granted when you’re working on a show for a more traditional network. Traditionally, every episode needs to work as an entrance to the series even if you’ve never seen the show before. But here, we got to know that nobody’s going to watch episode 7 unless they’ve already seen episodes 1-6, so we didn’t have to constantly reintroduce the characters and the premise, AND we could have the characters and the premise CHANGE. This influenced EVERYTHING we did, from background stuff, like the burnt ottoman and the Hollywoo sign, to setting up jokes and stories in early episodes (like Vanessa Gekko, Dr. Hu, the Beast Buy receipt) that we knew would pay off MUCH later.

How production happens

LH: From my perspective, first I get an early script draft and I read it feverishly because I can’t wait to see what happens next. I make a lot of loud noises while reading. I am viscerally affected by what happens to these characters! Then I always start sketching the new characters that seem like the most fun and save the more boring/background/extra characters for last. Backgrounds get fleshed out after storyboards and I get to do a lot of google image searching and create parodies of paintings I like, etc.

On how GroupLove became the end credits music

RBW: We asked a lot of bands to submit theme music, including Grouplove because we love them. Grouplove was the most enthusiastic about it, but their song felt a little too on-the-nose for the opening credits, like the Brady Bunch theme. We asked them to try writing a song that was maybe a little more opaque, so they sent us another song, and then another one, and then another one. (Most bands would not send us more than one song, WHICH IS FAIR, because this was all on spec.) But the more we listened, the more we actually really liked the first one, with the really literal lyrics. That’s when we realized that we could use it as an end credit song and its cheerful specificity would actually play really well cutting against some of our downer endings. I think it’s a great song and I’m glad we get to use it. Also, I think they are cool and I’m glad we get to be in business with them.

How Will and Aaron joined the series

RBW: Todd was a hundred percent NOT written with Aaron Paul in mind — in fact there are a number of jokes in the first couple episodes that people have pinpointed as Breaking Bad in-jokes that were not intended in that way at all! But our casting director is brilliant and thought Aaron Paul would be open to it, and lo and behold, he was! He’s been one of our biggest cheerleaders, which has been awesome. When we were trying to sell the show, he made a lot of phone calls and really threw his weight behind this. He is one hundred percent as gracious and lovely in person as you would think he is.

The story I heard about Will is that he got the script and liked it (we have the same manager, so I’m sure he talked me up), but wasn’t sure about it, so he showed it to Mitch Hurwitz and said, “Is this funny?” and Mitch said, “Yeah, this is funny. You should do this.” Mitch told me that story at a Netflix party and I’m sure he likes it because the story makes him look good, but I like it because that story makes me look REALLY good.

How Paul F. Thompkins joined the cast

RBW: When I was first writing the character I imagined a Patrick-Warburton-type. Not him per se, because he’s already in everything, but I love his big dumb lovable goofball voice. When we were putting the cast together, though, we realized that Will and Aaron both had very deep voices, so for Mr. Peanutbutter we wanted someone with more of a lilting quality that could cut against that. I’ve been a fan of Paul’s for many years and knew he would be hilarious. I am very proud that I could write this character for Paul. It’s a different type of character than what he normally plays– prior to this I don’t think anyone would think to cast him as a dumb popular jock type, but of course he is so good at everything. I hope he is getting a lot of new fans off of this.

How a Stephen Colbert character happened

RBW: He’s friends with Amy Sedaris from way back, so when we knew we were going to do a Princess Carolyn episode, we thought we should ask him! He was very cool! I expected him to just kind of do his normal Colbert voice, and I was delighted that he had thought about the character and had a more bullfroggy take on him.

Does Netflix offer any ‘network’ notes?

RBW: I don’t know what it’s like doing a show for a regular tv/cable network but I’ll say that Netflix doesn’t give a ton of notes, and the notes they do give all make sense. I’m not even trying to be an ass kisser. We’re tremendously lucky to be working with Netflix, creatively.

On sketching out the ending

RBW: We always knew the season was going to end with BoJack getting the Secretariat movie, but it wasn’t until I was actually writing the draft that I had the idea to actually see Secretariat. I would say the way we made it hilarious is we actually didn’t make it hilarious, we played it very straight. Sometimes the funniest most surprising anti-joke is drama.

There was a BUNCH more AMA, and you can read the rest here. BoJack Horseman’s first season is now available on Netflix, check out our review.

 

About John Schwarz

John is the Chief Editor and Founder of Bubbleblabber.com. While at first a part-time project, Bubbleblabber quickly grew into a full-fledged operation and officially became a company in 2014. When John isn't running a business full-time, he likes to go to concerts with your mother.