Bob-Waksberg: 'Long Story Short' Cuts Deeper Than BoJack
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- Raphael Bob-Waksberg debuts Netflix animated comedy-drama "Long Story Short," which he calls his most personal story yet, following the middle-class Jewish Schwooper family across decades of nonlinear storytelling
- The Schwooper family is voiced by Ben Feldman, Abbi Jacobson, Max Greenfield, Lisa Edelstein, and Paul Reiser, with Bob-Waksberg using "Everybody Loves Raymond" as his writers' room touchpoint, capping each episode at 30% cartoonier than the sitcom
- "Long Story Short" is Bob-Waksberg's most Jewish-forward work, including a Black Jewish character and a plotline in which Yoshi becomes a modern Orthodox Jew—a change Bob-Waksberg says opens a family rift that different viewers read from opposite sides
- Bob-Waksberg insists the show is "light, fun and hilarious" and "not a therapy session," explicitly pushing back on interview coverage that frames his shows as anxiety-inducing and asking that the comedy be recognized as primary
- Compared to BoJack Horseman, the new show feels smaller and more intimate, yet Bob-Waksberg says it cuts deeper because viewers project their own mothers and siblings onto a non-celebrity, non-horse family
Why it matters: Bob-Waksberg's explicit pushback against the "emotional labor" framing is itself a tonal statement: he wants "Long Story Short" judged as a comedy first, not as therapy. The Everybody Loves Raymond benchmark—grounded, Jewish-family-scale storytelling—signals a deliberate shift away from BoJack's operatic scope, betting that relatability to viewers' own families will land harder than Hollywood satire.
