“If you never watch another episode of Bojack Horseman, make it this one.”
-David Trumbore, Collider
When I first saw the episode Free Churro of Bojack Horseman on Netflix, I was blown away by what was on screen. I wasn’t entirely shocked by the content itself (although the content of the episode is intense), but rather the surprising structure, concept, and overall audacity of the episode’s idea. Whereas Bojack Horseman came to be seen as a groundbreaking and fresh TV show in the mid 2010s, Free Churro proved to be something that could be used to highlight the phenomenon that is the series as a whole. Using Free Churro as a template, I’d like to explore how the concepts of media analysis prove how Bojack Horseman was created, why Netflix would be the ones to fund it, and why it became the critical success that it was.
Before I dive into the analysis of the episode and the show at large, I think it is necessary to briefly describe what the episode Free Churro is all about. The episode is found in the middle of the fifth season of Bojack Horseman, an animated adult cartoon about an anthropomorphic horse man who is a “washed up” actor in Hollywood. Unlike many of Bojack Horseman’s previous episodes, it doesn’t feature a large cast of talented voice actors. Instead, the entire episode is voiced by leading man Will Arnett and consists almost entirely of a twenty minute-long, uncut monologue. Bojack, in a funeral parlor, gives a eulogy for his mother who was abusive to him as a child and died a relatively bitter and unloving woman in her old age. The animated cartoon horse struggles throughout the monologue to come up with the right words to mourn a woman that caused him so much pain and anguish throughout his life, and explores what death means as a whole. It was met with much critical acclaim upon its release and the episode was nominated for an Emmy.
To start, I’d like to explore the concepts of vertical integration and “Netflix and the Streaming Wars,” as this is where the story of Bojack Horseman truly begins. When Netflix began in 1997, not many people thought the company would become anything more than the small DVD mail rental service it started out as. However, when Netflix switched to a streaming business model in 2010, things began to look different as they started to figure out how they were going to acquire the media that was streamed on their service. Originally, Netflix’s catalog included content from a wide range of producers (including content from producers who now have their own streaming services), but by 2013, “Netflix began investing its massive subscription revenues into producing original content [starting] with House of Cards” (Croteau & Hoynes 211).
The content Netflix chose to produce was very much based on the format of the new business model and the nature of the new streaming landscape. Under the “Working within Economic Constraints” section of Media/Society, Croteau and Hoynes conclude that because Netflix’s revenue was generated by subscribers and not advertisers like previous network TV, they were able to prioritize program quality and take bigger risks without the fear of alienating potential advertisers with the nature of the content. So, shows like House of Cards, an extremely dark and graphic political drama, and Bojack Horseman, the both hilarious and extremely depressing adult cartoon, became staples in their early catalog. These shows offered audiences things they had never seen before on network television and took big risks to do so, being funded by a company that hadn’t quite yet established itself as a stable producer of original content. In fact, Bojack Horseman was only the seventh Netflix original project (there are now more than two thousand), the first Netflix original animation, and was pitched to Netflix at a time when only three Netflix original properties had been released.
Free Churro highlights this fact specifically by including elements that probably wouldn’t be found on a regular network TV show. For example, a cute, anthropomorphic, animated character probably shouldn’t be talking about his abusive mother at her funeral under normal industry standards. Additionally, one would be hard pressed to find another animated TV show, or any TV show in general, that includes a Shakespearean-style, twenty minute monologue by a character standing still in one room.
Such a style of episode wouldn’t be found on an advertising-centric platform because the content wouldn’t have natural advertisement breaks or be fast-paced or engaging enough as to better prepare an audience for advertising. Plus, advertisers may be too alienated by the depressing nature of an abusive mother’s eulogy to find it an attractive marketing environment. Only a streaming service like Netflix, with their subscription revenue-based business model and their vertically integrated control of all aspects of production could allow for such a content risk to be taken.
Netflix saw an opportunity there to continually make higher quality programs without the pressure of including advertiser-friendly content. This idea contributed to what was dubbed as “TV’s New Golden Age” in the early 2010s, defined by major risks in content that wouldn’t feasibly be possible under the previous TV landscape (Croteau & Hoynes 227).
With that being said, the public’s tastes and desires also need to be taken into account. Media that is too wildly different from previous forms tends to be received coldly, so Bojack Horseman and Free Churro were purposefully made to not actually appear that different from previous forms of television media. In fact, they used pre established conventions of the industry as well as the “Nothing Succeeds like Success” mantra to create a product that looked conventional and familiar to an audience from the beginning but then became something unprecedented later on.
From the conception of Bojack Horseman, creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg was very intentional about what media he wanted to emulate in the show, both in narrative and visual aesthetics. He, himself, stated: “the pitch was that we were going to start with a wacky goofy cartoon show and it was going to start getting darker and darker so it [became] like a Girls or a Louie or even a Mad Men — those are the examples I pulled in the meeting to show what I wanted to do with it” (McDonnell). Therefore, Bob-Waksberg picked an art director, Lisa Hanawalt, with the purpose of giving the audience an impression of a lighter adult cartoon, achieving the “wacky” and “goofy” aesthetic he had described. Hanawalt, using her background as a comic artist and kids’ book illustrator, was able to implement her colorful and more “innocent” art style into a show that at its core was a depressing drama. So, from the beginning, with the influence of great adult animation like The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers, Bojack’s more intense nature was masked and made more palatable for the public and studios alike by packaging it like previous lighter, comedic, adult cartoon hits.
Therefore in Free Churro, the content and format of the episode subvert the conventions of those previous animation successes, but the art style, visual appeal and the overall “feel” of the characters in space are reminiscent of them. This is done to the extent that even a casual viewer unfamiliar with Bojack would assume it was one of those shows upon first glance.
However, at its core, Bojack Horseman is not a light-hearted, entirely comedic adult cartoon like an American Dad or a Futurama. It’s so much darker and more dramatic than that, even to equate comparisons to Mad Men or Girls like Bob-Waksberg himself used. So, in order to ease the minds of studios upon pitching, the Bojack team knew they had to come up with another “weapon” to help sell the unconventional idea. This weapon is known as “Star Power.” By the time Bojack was pitched to Netflix and other studios, two crucial names were already attached to and excited about the project: Will Arnett and Aaron Paul. Not only were the eventual two stars of Bojack big name actors at the time, but specifically the shows and roles with which they were involved were particularly poignant. Let’s start with Will Arnett, Mr. Bojack Horseman himself. When Bojack was pitched in 2013, Will Arnett had made a name for himself on a cult classic comedy show called Arrested Development from the early 2000s. That wouldn’t mean nearly as much except for the fact that Netflix’s third original project was the renewal of Arrested Development for a fourth season after it had been canceled for nearly a decade. The buzz around Netflix’s massive investment, even though it wasn’t a critical success, had thrust Arnett not only back into the public eye but also into Netflix’s. Arnett’s knack for getting laughs helped to play up the lighter elements of Bojack Horseman, but his future co-star’s dramatic reputation was much needed in order to sell the darker one.
Breaking Bad is considered quite literally one of the greatest TV shows of all time (#3 by Rolling Stone, #2 by IMDB, #1 by Stacker) and Aaron Paul was a bonafide star in the early 2010s. At that time, when Bojack was being pitched and created, Paul was on top of the world, as not only was Breaking Bad breaking critical records, but had also reached the height of its popularity when Netflix acquired the rights to have the first three seasons on its homepage. According to the Bojack team, Netflix was very clear (and proud) about their primary role in Breaking Bad’s surge of popularity, so having Aaron Paul attached to Bojack again not only added buzz to the project for the public but also specifically for Netflix, making its pitch even more attractive.
Paul, known for his incredible dramatic acting and Arnett, known for his iconic comedic acting, provided Bojack with just the right type of “Star Power;” a dynamic duo that not only matched the dichotomous tone of the show perfectly, but also happened to already be “the leads in two of Netflix’s most high-profile shows” (McDonnell). The Bojack team intentionally used these stars to “combat uncertainty,” especially when the show they were pitching was unconventional in tone and message.
“Star Power” doesn’t have to just be associated with actors though. In the case of Bojack Horseman it became very clear early on that having the backing of a certain producer in Hollywood goes a long way. Michael Eisner, former head of Disney, happened to be the owner of the Tornante Company, who ended up producing Bojack with Netflix. The acknowledgement of his presence on the project early on opened a lot of doors when it came to the production and helped give the project an air of legitimacy around it, continuing to “combat uncertainty.” Casting director Linda Lamontagne noted: “It was not that difficult to get people [casted], because of the caliber of the project and the people involved. Michael Eisner’s name really goes far. I got great responses from agents and managers and talent” (McDonnell).
Free Churro’s “Star Power” comes directly from Will Arnett who upon the time of its release had established himself in dramatic acting as well, mostly through the role of Bojack Horseman in the earlier seasons. In an episode carried entirely by its writing and performances, Will Arnett almost single handedly brought the episode its critical acclaim, winning an Annie Award for his voice acting in what was described as “perhaps the apogee of [his] career” (Cwik).
Both Free Churro and Bojack Horseman are rich case studies into the nature of how television and content in the modern age get made. Concepts of media analysis such as “Using Stars to Combat Uncertainty,” “Nothing Succeeds Like Success,” vertical integration of production, subscription-based streaming services, and the control of advertising on program content, show how Bojack was not only conceived and funded, but also how it became such a success. In a world where generic TV was running rampant, new forms of media production and distribution allowed for higher quality content to be released into the world, and Bojack was at the tip of the spear.
Bojack Horseman Art Style
Still from “Free Churro” – the majority of the episode includes shots almost exactly like this
Examples of Lisa Hanawalt’s Art Before Bojack
References
Bob-Waksberg, Raphael. “Free Churro.” Bojack Horseman, season 5, episode 6, Netflix, 14 Sept. 2018.
Croteau, David, and William Hoynes. Media/Society: Technology, Industries, Content, and Users. 6th ed., SAGE Publication Inc., 2019.
Cwik, Greg. “Review: BoJack Horseman: Season Five.” Slant Magazine, 18 July 2020, https://www.slantmagazine.com/tv/bojack-horseman-season-five.
Doidge, Kristin Marguerite. “100 Best TV Shows of All Time.” Stacker, 6 Oct. 2022, https://stacker.com/stories/980/100-best-tv-shows-all-time.
Kariuki, Patrick. “How and When Did Netflix Start? A Brief History of the Company.” MUO, Make Use Of, 7 July 2022, https://www.makeuseof.com/how-when-netflix-start-brief-company-history/.
McDonnell, Chris. “How BoJack Horseman Got Made: An Oral History.” Vulture, 4 Sept. 2018, https://www.vulture.com/2018/09/bojack-horseman-oral-history.html.
Sheffield, Rob. “100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.” Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone, 29 July 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-lists/100-greatest-tv-shows-of-all-time-105998/.
“Top 250 TV Shows.” IMDb, IMDb.com, https://www.imdb.com/chart/toptv/.
Trumbore, Dave. “BoJack Horseman Creative Team on the Emmy-Nominated Free Churro.” Collider, 21 Aug. 2019, https://collider.com/bojack-horseman-free-churro-emmy/.