SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Every week, a guest draws a card from NPR's Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. Raphael Bob-Waksberg says working in animation allows him to dive into heavy topics without things feeling too dark. It is a skill he honed as creator of "BoJack Horseman." And he is putting it to use again with his new Netflix series called "Long Story Short." It tells the story of multiple generations of a Jewish family living in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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RAPHAEL BOB-WAKSBERG: So every episode is set in a different year with a different character as our POV character. So you get to the end of 10 episodes, and you feel like you've known them for a lifetime. And you're going to love them like you've seen a hundred episodes of the show, or you're going to love them like they're your own family.
DETROW: On Wild Card, Bob-Waksberg reflected on his childhood.
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RACHEL MARTIN: When you were bored as a kid, where would your imagination take you?
BOB-WAKSBERG: You say when I was bored as if there were times when I was not bored.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
BOB-WAKSBERG: But I had ADD as a kid, and I still have it as an adult. And I do feel like one of my superpowers is I'm always a little bit bored. Like, you know in "The Avengers"...
MARTIN: Why is that a superpower? Yeah.
BOB-WAKSBERG: Well, I'll tell you why.
MARTIN: OK.
BOB-WAKSBERG: When Mark Ruffalo goes, that's my secret, I'm always angry.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BOB-WAKSBERG: And he can, like, turn into the Hulk at any moment.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BOB-WAKSBERG: I do feel like I have learned to have multiple apps going on in my brain at the same time in any context or conversation. But, yeah, as a kid I think I had to learn at some point, in order to not be disruptive, which is always my first instinct was when I'm bored, I'm going to interrupt what is ever happening.
MARTIN: 'Cause it's boring, clearly.
BOB-WAKSBERG: Make a scene.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BOB-WAKSBERG: Yeah, this is boring.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BOB-WAKSBERG: But eventually, I learned how to kind of focus that inward and instead of making it everyone else's problem that I'm bored, find ways to occupy myself. So, yeah, I would - I used to draw little comics in class. Or I would, you know, make up little songs to myself, you know, think about the other things I was going to do that day.
MARTIN: So did you get in trouble a lot? I mean...
BOB-WAKSBERG: Yes, constantly. And I think, you know, a big part of it is I was funny sometimes. And what that meant is that sometimes I could get away with things. But sometimes I would push things too far or I would do things in the wrong way where they're not funny. And I never knew before I did something...
MARTIN: Which would happen, yeah.
BOB-WAKSBERG: ...Is this going to be funny enough that I'm going to get away with it?
MARTIN: (Laughter).
BOB-WAKSBERG: Or is the teacher going to get real mad at me? And so I was always mystified when I got in trouble.
MARTIN: Roll the dice.
BOB-WAKSBERG: 'Cause I thought, like, how is any different? And I think the answer is that time I didn't kill. I just wasn't funny enough.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
BOB-WAKSBERG: You know, this was my audience, you know? When you're a comic, you go to open mic nights. When you're a kid, you go to your class.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
BOB-WAKSBERG: And all right, yeah, not everything's going to land right away. Sometimes you got to try some stuff out. Now I know. All right, don't do that again.
DETROW: You can watch the full conversation with Raphael Bob-Waksberg by searching for Wild Card with Rachel Martin on YouTube. And you can watch Bob-Waksberg's series "Long Story Short" on Netflix now. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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