Review: BoJack Horseman on Netflix

This equine-centric cartoon isn’t for kids. It’s inappropriate, weird, and wonderful.

All screencaps © Bojack Horseman/ Netflix

BoJack Horseman, Netflix’s most recent original series, is a cartoon for adults about a has-been actor (who happens to be a horse-man) trying to create a legacy for himself in a version of LA where about half the inhabitants are animal-people. Due to the fact that BoJack is pretty much a failure at life, comedy ensues.

Not gonna lie–the horse-man thing is a little weird.

But the show has a star-studded cast, including Will Arnett (Arrested Development) as BoJack, Amy Sedaris (Strangers With Candy) as his agent/on-and-off fling, and Alison Brie (Community) as his memoir ghostwriter–and their comic skills shine. Even if some of their jokes are probably completely unintentional.

I started cracking up during one scene in which Princess Carolyn (BoJack’s feline agent/on-and-off-lover) is arguing about how he didn’t want children.  This was totally not the point of the scene…but how many times have you seen this look, and then your horse goes from 0 to 60 in the opposite direction?

The show doesn’t specifically cater to an equestrian crowd. In one episode, BoJack throws up from compulsively binge-eating an entire machine full of cotton candy at a quinceañera he unwittingly hosts for a family of mobsters at his palatial Hollywood home. Obviously, this is impossible. He probably would have colicked instead.

But despite equine factual inaccuracies, if you have a twisted sense of humor, this show will definitely not disappoint. Seriously, where else do you have the chance to see a Navy SEAL (portrayed by a seal, of course) irate over muffins, parties full of lemurs who just want to get crunk, as well as surprisingly cogent commentary on the consequences of celebrity culture all in one series?

And there are just lots of little visual jokes that are silly but still made me giggle–from subtle things in the background (see Lululemming, above) to  all of the employees at Penguin, the publisher of BoJack’s memoir, being rotund, nervous penguins who overspend on marketing terrible teen novels.

The animation style is almost exactly like Ugly Americans, another off-kilter cartoon, though as far as I could find out, the animators are different. But if you liked Ugly Americans, you’ll almost certainly like BoJack.

Go Riding!