‘Long Story Short’ Creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg On ‘BoJack’ Lessons, Judaism, And What To Expect From Season 2

BusinessHollywood & Entertainment‘Long Story Short’ Creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg On ‘BoJack’ Lessons, Judaism, And What To Expect From Season 2ByJosh Weiss,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Josh Weiss is a writer covering the nexus of pop culture and Judaism.Follow AuthorJun 09, 2026, 05:41pm EDTLong Story Short (L to R) Abbi Jacobson as Shira Schwooper, Ben Feldman as Avi Schwooper and Max Greenfield as Yoshi Schwooper in Long Story Short. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2025COURTESY OF NETFLIXPhilosopher George Santayana once said that “family is one of nature’s masterpieces.” What he failed to mention, however, is that family can also be one of nature’s awe-inspiring disasters at the same exact time.Those Schrödinger-esque sentiments just about sum up Netflix’s Long Story Short, the latest animated hit from BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg. The critically-acclaimed series (in fact, it holds a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes) serves as a captivating, hilarious, gut-wrenching, warts and all portrait of the American-Jewish “Schwooper” family (a combination of Schwartz and Cooper if you were wondering) over several decades.“I was thinking about my family in new ways,” Bob-Waksberg recently told me over Zoom. “My relationship with my parents, my relationship with my spouse and children; and my own identity. Am I a son or am I a husband and a father now? And what does that mean? These are all things I was chewing on.”Employing memorable design work by Lisa Hanawalt and the same absurdist-meets-earnest approach that made BoJack Horseman such a rousing success, Long Story Short emphasizes just how messy life can be—from overbearing parents to religious expectations to grief—with an all-star voice cast: Paul Reiser (Elliott Schwooper), Lisa Edelstein (Naomi Schwartz), Ben Feldman (Avi Schwooper), Abbi Jacobsen (Shira Schwooper), and Max Greenfield (Yoshi Schwooper).Despite the fact that the characters are Jewish,...