!["Long Story Short" is the latest animated show from Raphael Bob-Waksberg. (Left photo courtesy of [K]overt Creative)](https://jweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/AAAABdqba9qaA-jxc8z3x0wB9FNFxt5w-copy.jpg)
Serendipity struck in Palo Alto last month when I bumped into the mother of Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the Bay Area–born writer and executive producer of the animated hit show “BoJack Horseman.”
I’m a big fan of his work. Like many, I watched “BoJack” religiously. I told Ellen Bob on the spot that I would love to interview her son about his new and very Jewish TV show “Long Story Short” that premiered on Netflix in August.
Long story short, he listened to his mother.
The name “Bob-Waksberg” is familiar to many in the Jewish community. Raphael’s parents have had long careers in Jewish life in the Bay Area. His mom was co-owner of the Palo Alto Judaica store bob and bob and has been executive director of Congregation Etz Chayim in Palo Alto since 2011. Waksberg is the former CEO of Jewish LearningWorks, which offers professional development and support to Jewish educators in the Bay Area, and from an early age was deeply involved in the movement to bring Jews out of the Soviet Union.
“BoJack Horseman” is set in an alternate world where humans and anthropomorphic animals live together. The title character is the has-been star of a ’90s sitcom.
“Long Story Short” features the Schwoopers, a boisterous Jewish family from Mountain View.
As someone who is new to the Bay Area, this first season felt like a kismet guide to understanding the Jewish zeitgeist here. While visually colorful and often playful (with animation by Lisa Hanawalt, who also worked on “BoJack Horseman”), the show isn’t afraid to delve into complex relationships, the intensity of bereavement and contemporary Jewish identity.
Bob-Waksberg, 41, now lives in L.A. but is coming to San Francisco on Jan. 28 to present an episode of “Long Story Short,” as well as other work, as part of a career retrospective at SF Sketchfest titled “The Bob-Waksberg Binge.”
He spoke with J. about his creative process, Judaism and connection to the Bay Area. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
“BoJack Horseman” takes place in Hollywood. “Long Story Short” takes place in a Jewish, Bay Area microcosm. What compelled you to tell the story in such a niche neighborhood and community?
One of the things I’m most proud of, with all of my shows, is when people tell me, “I didn’t think I would like a show like this, but I really do.”
With “BoJack,” one thing we found is that the show did work really well with all kinds of audiences, whether you were interested in show business or not, because it tapped into themes, stories and relationships that were universal. That was my goal on this show as well.
It’s the reason why I was not afraid to go into the hyperspecifics of the Bay Area or the Jewishness of it. I knew people would come into it with their own experiences, and though they might not get all the references or all the jokes, they would find their own way into the universality of the stories and the relationships.
In the new show, the JCC, the Rosh Hashanah grocery store rush and synagogues are all places where the texture and tension unfold. How has your experience in these spaces informed the writing process?
Because I grew up Jewish in the Bay Area, the show’s setting is the water I was swimming in. I’m from Palo Alto. I set the show in Mountain View, so it wasn’t purely autobiographical.
When I first developed the show and wrote the pilot, I was actually pretty noncommittal about the show’s setting. It was only through working with brilliant artist Lisa Hanawalt [“BoJack Horseman,” “Tuca & Bertie”] when she started drawing these houses that looked like Peninsula houses. And then I had the comfort of knowing what’s right or not right. If I were to set the show on Long Island, I’d be guessing. I just knew I could be more accurate about the details.
We have a map of the Bay Area in the writers room. The other writers tease me sometimes because they’ll try to create some story where one of the characters is popping over to another character’s house. I have to explain they can’t just pop by if they live in Mountain View, Oakland and Santa Rosa. They are intentionally living in different cities.
Animation is a medium seldom taken seriously, yet in this show you’ve been able to create these delicate, emotional moments about how different people process grief and grow.
I think you probably have readers who are maybe reading this interview who assume they wouldn’t like a family cartoon show. And I would appeal to them to give it a chance, because I think it might not be what you are expecting, and you might discover that you connect to it in ways you didn’t think you could.
“Long Story Short” is a deep dive into modern Jewish complexity, with Jews of color, queer Jews, patrilineal Jews and Jews who are questioning both ritual and belief. Why was that important to you?
The show does not speak for all Jews. It is of a specific milieu and subset. But even within that subset, I wanted to show various characters having different feelings about their culture, religion, upbringing, religiosity, etc. In order to accurately portray that, you need to go a little bit in detail. They are Jews, sure. But what kind of Jews are they?
It was also a correction to how religion is talked about and perceived in this country, which is primarily through a Christian lens, in which the more important facet of religion is faith and belief. That’s what defines whether you are a Christian or not. That has not been my experience of Judaism. So many Jews I know call themselves atheist or agnostic, if they even thought to label themselves at all. So I wanted to explore various debates and conversations around Jewishness that were not centered on belief.
I am finding now, as an adult who is looking for ways to recreate, adapt and improve upon the Judaism of my childhood for my own family, there’s a religiously rigorous but politically progressive strand of Judaism that I grew up with. I feel as though I took it for granted. I’m discovering it’s harder to find than maybe I anticipated, that it’s not the universal experience of Judaism. That particular combination feels uniquely Bay Area to me.
What parts of Judaism do you keep in mind while crafting the personhood of each character?
I’ve had my own challenges and discomforts with what I thought Judaism was or had to be. What I have found as I’ve gotten older is that the freedom in discovering or establishing for yourself what you want it to be is empowering. If you don’t believe Judaism is a mandate from God telling you exactly how you ought to be, that’s OK. It is there for you to get out of it what you want to get out of it.
That has been my search as an adult, to try to track my questions and create that version of Judaism for myself. I wanted to show some characters on that journey who answer those questions in different ways.
I would argue Judaism informs the thinking of each character in some way. Except perhaps, for the goofy, resident troublemaker Danny Wegbreit.
Danny Wegbreit was named after a childhood friend of mine, David Wegbreit. We went to the same summer camp, Camp Tovah at the JCC, and would get in trouble together. After the show premiered, I got an email from David Wegbreit saying, “I think I’m flattered?” and I said, “You should be!”
To anyone living in the Bay Area now, if you know a Wegbreit, please do not judge them based on my portrayal of Danny Wegbreit on the show. That is not an accurate depiction of the Wegbreits as a whole!