Lux Absio Bervatum

Sunday, September 14, 2014

BoJack Horseman

This BoJack Horseman Netflix series is pretty good. It reminds me of Ugly Americans in that the people aren't always human. (The animation style is a little similar too.) Only in Ugly Americans they focus on those differences; it's part of their history. Half of what makes that show fun is seeing how they reconcile these non-human characters with actual history (e.g. Lincoln going on to become a big celebrity after his death and zombification). But in BoJack Horseman the differences are only used for quick gags (like a cow waitress milking herself to serve a customer).

I haven't seen them all yet, but I think one of the conceits of BJH is that every animal has a human body (with rare exceptions, like the armadillo lady who curls into a ball when startled). Even when a human is shown riding a horse the horse has a human body and carries the guy piggyback. It's kind of neat how they don't address all the ramifications of that. Like, how would American culture be different if nobody had pets? In a way it's more surreal than Ugly Americans.

* * *

The amount of effort they put into this jury summons that's on screen for, like, 1 second is awesome.


Haha, ahh


* * *

Mr. Peanutbutter is such an enjoyable character because he just LIKES everybody. Like you can imagine a happy golden retriever would. Whoa, it just occurred to me that his character might be a reference to the dog (Comet?) from Full House. Since that's the show Horsin' Around and Mr. Peanutbutter's House were aping. Which, now that I think about it, also explains why BoJack imagined he had gone on a bender with John Stamos.


* * *

Ha, I saw this IANTSE logo on a character's T-shirt and I thought it was a reference to the logo on They Might Be Giants' album Flood. But as it turns out, the logo on Flood is a reference to the logo for IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees). I'm surprised I didn't know this.