Long Story Short is a new adult animated sitcom from BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg. The series revolves around the Schwooper siblings as they experience the highs and lows of their existence. An interesting aspect is that the show jumps back and forth in time focusing on different stages in the characters’ lives. We recently spoke with Bob-Waksberg about incorporating the shifting time points.
He said, “I thought it would be a great way to tell a long story short I guess is the way to put it. There’s a lot I wanted to say about this family and I thought the best way to get it quickly is to jump around to kind of see their whole lives and envelop the audience in these relationships, in these narratives.”
“Kind of help them draw these lines of oh, when they were kids, this happened so when they’re adults they’re like this,” Bob-Waksberg continued. “These are the ways they’ve changed. These are the ways they’re the same. I don’t know how many seasons of the show I’m going to get. I don’t know how much time I’m going to have with these characters so I wanted to make the most with what I had.”
As with any comedy, Long Story Short has over-the-top moments. However, there is still a realness to each situation. That led us to ask Bob-Waksberg how much of the series is autobiographical. “I’d say a regular amount,” he said. “I don’t know? It’s fiction but we’re drawing on observations, relationships, stories that I have. That my writers have.”
He added, “The actors come in with stuff too. I remember Lisa Edelstein, who plays the mother Naomi, came in for the first record and said, I hear her talking with this accent because that’s how my mother used to talk. Based on that actor choice, we said okay, I guess Naomi is from New York. That affected the story that we told, right? It adds so much to it, but that wasn’t the voice I heard when I was writing it. It’s hard to draw a line that this is from this and that is from that but there is this ooze of inspiration.”
Long Story Short premieres Friday, August 22, on Netflix.
