10 Behind The Scenes Facts You Didn’t Know About BoJack Horseman

There are a lot of animated shows but there aren’t a lot of animated shows like BoJack Horseman. Often praised for its art style, comedy, and stellar voice cast, the Critic’s Choice Award-winning show truly stands out in a league of its own.

There are a lot of things that go into making such an interesting and unique show so naturally, and there’s a lot that fans either miss or wouldn’t know about the show without being told. So here are 10 behind the scenes facts you didn’t know about BoJack Horseman.

10 Off-Screen Friendship

Something you may not know is that BoJack’s creator, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, and the show’s Production Designer, Lisa Hanawalt have actually been close friends since high school and that a large part of the motivation for making the show came from the two of them simply wanting to work with each other. Some character designs have even been based upon some of their former classmates, such as Sextina Aquafina whose look was created when Bob-Wakserg asked Hanawalt “Oh, so you remember that girl who was in our English class senior year of high school? Draw her but as a dolphin”

9 Netflix’s Decision

Based on how well the writers wrapped up the show’s final season, many would assume that the decision to end the show was made by the creative team after feeling that the show had reached its natural conclusion. However, that wasn’t the case at all. The decision wasn’t made by the show creators who believed the show could have gone on for “a couple more years” but rather by Netflix who felt it was time for the show to end. The decision coming from Netflix was confirmed by Todd actor, Aaron Paul, who said that there was nothing the show’s cast and crew could do about it after expressing his love for the show and the character.

8 Let’s Find Out

The 8th episode of season 2, “Let’s Find Out” sees BoJack appear as a celebrity guest star on Mr. Peanutbutter’s new show Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let’s Find Out! and is often regarded as one of the show’s best and funniest episodes.

The concept for the episode was actually based on an unused Curb Your Enthusiasm spec script by BoJack writer, Peter Knight which would have seen Larry David as a contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire alongside Ron Howard. When Howard admits that he doesn’t know who Larry David is, David later pretends to not know Howard and intentionally blows the game. The script plays much similarly in BoJack except with Daniel Radcliffe in place of Ron Howard.

7 Vincent Adultman

Actress Allison Brie plays Diane Nguyen on the show. In addition to Diane, Brie also provides the voice for several of the show’s side characters such as the Cow waitress and Candy Rabitowitz. One of the side characters Brie plays also happened to be one of the most popular ones of the series. Many may be unaware that Brie also plays Vincent Adultman. Vincent is a recurring character that claims to be an adult but appears to be three kids in a trenchcoat. Ever since the character’s introduction in the episode “Horse Majeure,” he has been a fan favorite and while he didn’t get a chance to appear in the final season, we can only imagine what he’s up now.

6 Opening Theme

BoJack‘s opening is easily one of the most recognizable aspects of the show, often considered unskippable by viewers despite Netflix providing them with the option to. The unique saxophone-infused funk played behind unbelievable visuals that portray BoJack drifting through life as it constantly changes around him is as much a part of the show as the episode’s contents. While the visuals are a part of the magic, it wouldn’t nearly be as great without the amazing theme music. What is interesting is that the theme was created completely by accident. The track was first composed by The Black Keys drummer, Patrick Carney and his uncle, Ralph Carney when the former decided to test a Roland Jupiter-4 synthesizer and was more to make sure that everything worked well.

5 Table Reads

Although BoJack is an animated show, it differs from other shows like it in numerous ways. One of the biggest ways it differs occurs during the preproduction stage. On most animated projects, since the voice-over work is usually done separately, there is often no need for the actors to meet in person. BoJack did things differently, although the voice acting was recorded separately, there were still table reads that occurred before each new season began. The reasoning behind having them take place was to help the actors get a better understanding of how the characters would interact with each other before having to record their lines alone.

4 Celebrity Appearances

Considering the show takes place in a version of Hollywood, it often features appearances from various celebrities like Jessica Biel and Daniel Radcliffe, among many others. While lots of those celebrities are voiced by themselves, just as many are not due to actors declining to be on the show for various reasons.

According to Bob-Waksberg those who decline the offer to be on the show often meet much crueler fates than those that agree, citing Andrew Garfield as an example. Garfield, who was played by Paul F. Tompkins, who also plays Mr. Peanutbutter, was introduced in the first season of the show as Sarah Lynn’s boyfriend. We later see him fall into a pit at the end of the season, a fate the character may not have met had the actor agreed to appear on the show.

3 Background Character

It is in no way uncommon for a show’s creator or director to put themselves in their projects and Raphael Bob-Waksberg is no exception. On the show, Bob-Waksberg voices several minor characters including Sarah Lynn’s dad, Simon and the hilarious assistant-turned-President of the company, Charley Witherspoon.

While these appearances of the creator are more obvious, especially since his name appears in the credits, many may not realize that there are more times that Raphael has secretly appeared in the show. In every single episode there is a man wearing a red flannel and a flat cap, often silently hanging out in the background. That unnamed character’s design is based on Bob-Waksberg. Despite not saying anything, it’s a constant nod to the shows creator.

2 Career Change

Fans of the show know that the primary setting is the fictional land of Hollywoo which serves as a sort of parody of real-life Hollywood but that almost wasn’t the case. And while BoJack is best known for being a former television star, that was almost different as well.

When he began pitching the show, Bob-Waksberg was told that there were too many shows centered around and focusing on Hollywood and that people were starting to get tired of them. Because of this criticism, he re-wrote the pilot changing BoJack from a washed-up actor to a washed-up racehorse.

1 The Rules

As is the case with many shows, BoJack has it’s own set of universe rules that the show must abide by in order to remain consistent. Since the show is based around a fictional world full of anthropomorphic animals, a question some viewers may have when watching is where the line between human and animal is drawn in the design process. One thing that you may not notice unless told is that, in the show, none of the characters have tails. Even characters like snakes, who are basically 90% tail, will stand on two legs instead and use their arms to hold things in the BoJack universe. This allows all the characters to have a unified design style despite technically being apart of different species. Another one of the rules of BoJack is that all the animal characters are human-hybrids and none of the characters have pets, something that would make the universe the characters inhibit significantly more awkward, a decision that was made early on, with the show’s creator describing it as a “world of Goofys, not Plutos”

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