After the overwhelming success of “Bojack Horseman”, creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg returns with “Long Story Short”, a animated series of the sitcom centered on a Jewish family from Northern California which will be presented on Netflix on August 22.
At the Annecy Animation Festival of this year, Bob-Waksberg sat with Variety to discuss the representation of Jewish identity by the program, why specific stories work best and the adoption of his new spectacle of a more anchored aesthetic.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Credit: Netflix
Variety: this show seems more concentrated than “Bojack”, based on a single family of a very specific culture. Did it seem risky or liberating?
Raphael Bob-Waksberg: I wonder about it. I say that not to say that you are wrong, but perhaps as a writer for Variety“Bojack” could feel more accessible and wide. But for the vast majority of our audience, who knows nothing about show business, Hollywood or Care, there was a certain fear that it was a limiting factor. And we have never moved away from the specificity of the jokes on the points at the rear or the differences between an agent and a manager, or references to Margo Martindale, who, I think, perhaps 80% of our audience did not even realize a real person. But I think people have found their own way. Through generalities and by specificity. Because it was so specific, it was real in a way, and people made their own relationships. And it really encouraged me to go, I would say, as specific in a different direction from this program.
And why did you choose this specific version for your new show?
I felt like I wanted it to be a specific family, and I wanted them to be Jewish and from North California, mainly because I am Jewish and northern California, so I could write authentically on this world and write to details in a way that I should just guess if it was like … You know, if I wrote on “King of the Hill”, for example. Once I write on a Jewish family in northern California, I wanted it to feel as real as possible. Like, they will speak of being Jewish.
I think there are all kinds of Jews, and so I don’t mean that a representation hurts it. But there are Jewish characters who do not comply with my experience, which is good, but I wanted to tell a story about the Jews who have the impression that being Jew is part of their life. It is not only an additional flavor label that you can launch. That’s who they are.
The character of the Girlfriend Outsider can certainly also help viewers in this world. Was it a way for the public?
Who cannot refer to meeting your partner’s family? Who cannot refrain from being abroad in an extremely insular setting where people have their own rules, their own standards? Again, you look at the specific, and people find their own path. If it seems true and thick, there will be universal things in there. People will also feel: “Oh my God is my story.”
Working within a culture that has very specific standards that are not well known in the dominant current give you more opportunities for comedy?
That’s right. I think that opens doors. Because “Oh is a joke that only our show could do”, right? I don’t want to pretend that there have never been any – like, I don’t want to say that we are innovating for a representation. I saw most of the Jewish shows. You have “Seinfeld”, “transparent”. I had just read an article in the New Yorker on one of the first major sitcoms, which is “The Goldbergs” [1949-56]On a Jewish family. And I think there were two successful programs entitled “The Goldbergs”, right? This is how stories that succeed on the Jews are.
But I have the impression that there are areas that we can explore that not all shows do. Even all Jewish shows do. Because everyone is different. So, to talk about the details of these characters and the way they identify themselves, and the people they are, and in a way by pressing this, not only on the Jewish angle but in some of the other ways that these characters identify, as you will see in future episodes. Thinking about the jokes and stories that only our show could make the impression, oh, that’s all, why would we do something else?
There are a lot of discussion in the identity industry right now. Was telling a personal story cathartic?
There are things that are personal that feel cathartic to express. But it was also true about “Bojack”. There are things that, obviously, there are a lot of this project that does not look like me. But there were things on this program that looked like: “Oh, it is an opportunity to express some of these feelings, some of these experiences that I don’t know how to articulate otherwise.” I think that if you are honest and you try to investigate and question something, I think the public will do it … You must assume that you are not the only one to feel this, right?
Visually, this show is very different from “bojack”. Why change?
I think a comic strip is a great way to think about it. Lisa Hanawalt made art for the show, and for “Bojack” too, and experienced: “What if we were making eyes for the eyes?” And then we did a lot of tests to see how expressive it could be. And in fact, it was very expressive. You can do a lot with that.
The universe itself is more visually to the land than “bojack” and not only because there are no animal people. I think in some ways, “Bojack” was a television program that was aware that it was a television program. The characters did not break the fourth wall, but there was a lot of irony in the joke. This kind of quality on her nose, “Hello, the actress of character Margo Martindale”. It was like on this new show, what happens if we abandon it as a crutch and we simply relied on the idea of similar, “No, it’s real.”
On the other hand, there are ways that this spectacle is many caricatures that “Bojack”, just in the movement of the characters and the sketch of the backgrounds. In design, we rely on more impressionist or expression. I never remember which one is, but what we apply.
The backgrounds are rare, but it works, in particular with such a story focused on the characters.
We really thought about it too. Let’s be intelligent on how we spend our money. In some ways, the show is very ambitious. We jump over time. We will see different designs of all these characters. We are constantly redesigning. We don’t have many home locations. Each episode could be its own pilot. So, given this, let’s not spend much time animating the background extras walking in the context, right? Define a precedent that sometimes people will be frozen in space. Sometimes I will suggest things with a scribble. We wanted to be deliberated on this subject and leaning into it so that it is intentional and not like: “Oh, they are cheap here.”
It is only in the last moments of the first episode that we can have a clear idea of what this program could be, but I am told that it becomes much clearer as the season continues. Do you worry at all that the public sticks to the series after the pilot?
One thing that I have been delighted with in these first conversations on the series of people who saw only one episode is the number of people who seem to obtain it only on the pilot. There is no longer to do on the show and how it works in subsequent episodes, but I have the impression that a lot of people … Because we have this little button at the end, this kind of tells you: “Oh, we are not only going to live in 2004 all this show.” So I can actually breathe a little, like, ok, I don’t have to worry just as much.
How do you balance the amount of information you give to viewers to keep them watching?
I heard the complaint that the showrunners nowadays become too luxurious with their narration, and you have to arrive at the end of the first season to obtain an index of what the show is. A lesson that I learned from “bojack” is that you cannot depend on your audience to stay. I really thought: “Oh, isn’t it fun? We will set up this kind of show and then at the end of the first season, people will go:” Wow, it’s this other type of show! “” And it didn’t even come to mind that people might not end if they did not like the first type. The objective is therefore to leave a small discovery in each episode, but to make sure that the public knows what he gets in a way that is exciting.
Doing programs for Netflix, you are no longer limited by diffusion of diffusion, but do you always follow a structured format?
One of the things I love in work in animation is that we are limited in a way that we would not be live. We have to animate each framework. So we can’t just shoot a bunch of movies, then modify it to what feels good. We often write for a long time, then we will modify in the radio and go to these 22 minutes, because this is what we have the budget to animate.
This discipline really made my shows much stronger. At the end of the day, I’m really happy that our shows are tight. The new show really takes advantage of it – it allows you to concentrate, it makes the spectacle denser, you ride stuff, putting jokes on the jokes. And I also write the show in Acts, even if we don’t have to do so. Structurally, it is simply useful to think of a first act, second act, third act. There is no advertising break, but it is always useful to write as there are. And I appreciate that we should not be slaves there. Sometimes the act break is in the middle of a scene and the scene continues. So I feel like I can get the most out of both worlds.
