Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Raphael Bob-Waksberg – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes
Raphael Bob-Waksberg (born August 17, 1984) is an American comedian, writer, producer, and voice actor best known for creating BoJack Horseman, Undone, and Long Story Short. Explore his biography, creative journey, philosophies, and standout quotes.
Introduction
Raphael Matthew Bob-Waksberg is a multi-talented American comedian, screenwriter, producer, actor, and voice artist. He is most widely known as the creator and showrunner of BoJack Horseman (2014–2020), a ground-breaking animated series that blends humor, pathos, and existential reflection. Beyond BoJack, Bob-Waksberg co-created Undone (2019–2022) and is behind Long Story Short (premiering in 2025). His work is celebrated for its emotional depth, cleverness, and ability to mix comedy and melancholy.
In this article, we examine his life, creative evolution, influences, and memorable lines—and reflect on what lessons one might draw from his path.
Early Life and Family
Raphael Bob-Waksberg was born on August 17, 1984 in San Mateo, California, U.S. He grew up in Palo Alto, California, alongside his two sisters, Becky and Amalia.
His family has deep roots in the Jewish community. His mother and grandmother ran a Judaica gift and book store called Bob & Bob Fine Jewish Gifts and Books. His father, David Waksberg, worked to help Russian-speaking Jews emigrate to the U.S. and later served as CEO of Jewish LearningWorks, a religious education center.
Bob-Waksberg has often described comedy and storytelling as part of his family’s culture. He recalled dinner-table jokes and competition among family members to be funny, an environment that nurtured his early comedic instincts.
As a child, he was nicknamed “Raizin,” a playful moniker he kept until his early 20s.
He also grew up near Lisa Hanawalt, who would later become a key creative partner in his work; they lived only minutes apart and went to nearby schools.
Additionally, Bob-Waksberg was diagnosed with ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), which impacted how he experienced school and focus.
Youth and Education
In high school, Bob-Waksberg’s academic performance was sometimes hindered by ADHD, but he found refuge and expression in theater and comedy. His early passion for characters, dialogue, performance, and storytelling took root in school drama and sketch work.
He went on to attend Bard College in New York, studying Theater & Performance (or related liberal arts) and focusing on writing and dramatic craft. During his time at Bard, he was roommates with Adam Conover (later known for Adam Ruins Everything) and also co-founded a sketch comedy group called Olde English.
It was in college and early post-college years that Bob-Waksberg built both his writing voice and his connections with collaborators like Lisa Hanawalt.
Career and Achievements
BoJack Horseman and Its Impact
Bob-Waksberg is best known for creating BoJack Horseman, which premiered on Netflix in 2014 and ran through 2020 for six seasons. In BoJack, anthropomorphic animals and humans inhabit a world both absurd and deeply human. The series became lauded for combining dark humor with serious explorations of mental health, identity, regret, addiction, and meaning. Bob-Waksberg served as showrunner, writer, executive producer, and even voice actor for recurring roles. Through BoJack, he earned critical recognition, including multiple Critics’ Choice Television Awards and Emmy nominations.
Undone
In 2019, Bob-Waksberg co-created Undone with Kate Purdy for Amazon Prime Video. The show is known for its use of rotoscoping (animation over filmed footage) and for engaging with themes of memory, trauma, identity, and the nonlinear nature of time. Bob-Waksberg contributed as writer, executive producer, and voice actor.
Tuca & Bertie and Other Production Work
Bob-Waksberg also worked as executive producer and writer on Tuca & Bertie (2019–2022), an animated series created by Lisa Hanawalt, which built on the stylistic and tonal affinities between their collaborations.
Additionally, he has engaged in script doctoring — for example, contributing to The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (released in 2019).
In 2019, he published a short story collection titled Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory: Stories.
Long Story Short
In 2024, Netflix announced that Bob-Waksberg and Lisa Hanawalt would reunite to create a new adult animated comedy-drama titled Long Story Short. The series premiered on August 22, 2025. It centers on a Jewish family in the Bay Area, explores time jumps, family dynamics, identity, and how memory shapes us. Bob-Waksberg described the show as more personal (though not strictly autobiographical), shifting from the satirical commentary mode of BoJack into a more introspective space.
In interviews, he has emphasized that crafting Long Story Short involved deliberate choices: layered dialogue, overlapping conversations, and an approach that expects the audience may miss details—inviting re-watching.
Historical & Creative Context
Bob-Waksberg came of age in an era when animated television was expanding its emotional and narrative ambition. BoJack Horseman premiered at a time when streaming platforms were becoming major players in original content, and audiences were open to more experimental, adult-oriented animation.
He draws on influences such as The Simpsons, Seinfeld, The Larry Sanders Show, and other series that mix humor with human complexity. His collaboration with Lisa Hanawalt (art direction, character design) and with writers like Kate Purdy marks a synergy between visual style and narrative voice.
The shift in Long Story Short toward a more intimate, emotionally grounded story reflects not only Bob-Waksberg’s personal evolution but also changing tastes in animated storytelling—where viewers increasingly appreciate complexity, authenticity, and soulfulness.
Legacy and Influence
Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s influence lies in several domains:
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Elevating Adult Animation
He helped push animation beyond jokes and genre tropes, proving that cartoons can carry deep emotional resonance and explore depression, regret, identity, and existential themes. -
Bridging Comedy & Pathos
His style demonstrates that humor and melancholy need not be antagonistic; they can coexist, enrich one another, and tell more nuanced human stories. -
Narrative Innovation
Tools like nonlinear time, layered dialogue, and experimental visual forms (e.g. rotoscoping in Undone) showcase his willingness to challenge conventional storytelling. -
Collaborative Vision
His long relationship with Lisa Hanawalt and other creative partners shows how visual, thematic, and narrative elements can be woven in close alignment. -
A New Emotional Honesty
By centering vulnerability, flawed characters, and emotional complexity, Bob-Waksberg has inspired creators to aim for honesty rather than perfection. -
Genre Crossover
He bridges television, literature, animation, and comedy, showing that a creative identity need not be siloed.
As Long Story Short becomes part of his oeuvre, his legacy is still in formation—but already marks a turning point in how we think about animated storytelling for adults.
Personality, Talents, and Creative Ethos
Bob-Waksberg is thoughtful, introspective, and attuned to paradox. He consistently embraces complexity—emotional, moral, structural—in his work.
He has said that much of his creative impulse is guided by internal contradiction: the tension between things that seem opposed, the spaces between what is said and what is left unsaid. This tension is central to BoJack, with characters often living in paradox.
He values collaboration and surprise: he does not want to fully control his creations to the point of eliminating others’ voices. In interviews, he has said he wants to be surprised and delighted by collaborators’ contributions.
His writing style often features overlapping dialogue, elliptical storytelling, and emotional undercurrents that reward reexamination.
Though he has shifted toward more emotionally centric narratives, he has not abandoned wit, satire, or structural playfulness. Long Story Short is said to balance sincerity with structure and formal intricacy.
He is vegan, a detail sometimes mentioned in biographical accounts.
In terms of public stance, he has expressed caution about AI art, emphasizing the human effort in creative work and noting his desire to draw lines in how automation intersects with art.
Famous Quotes of Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Here are several quotes that reveal his views on life, creativity, identity, and emotional complexity:
“It’s not what we do that makes us who we are. It’s what we don’t do that defines us.”
“You had every intention of being depressed forever… but as it turns out, there’s work to be done, meals to eat, movies to see…”
“I was thinking about family, time, and identity … all my work is personal in that way, sometimes in ways you don’t even realize.”
“We don’t want AI art.” (As a statement about Long Story Short’s values)
“I want it to feel handmade … in the writing, too, we want it to feel personal.”
These lines show his preoccupation with absence, intention, emotional weight, human agency, and the artist’s struggle to craft meaning.
Lessons from Raphael Bob-Waksberg
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Embrace Contradiction
Bob-Waksberg’s creative voice thrives on tension—not needing to tie every loose end, but allowing ambiguity. This is a powerful lesson in resisting oversimplification. -
Artistic Risk Is Worth Taking
He shifted from the satirical BoJack to a more intimate mode in Long Story Short, showing that evolution is possible and necessary, even at the risk of audience discomfort. -
Collaboration Strengthens Vision
His long partnerships (especially with Hanawalt) show that shared vision plus mutual respect can yield work richer than any one person alone. -
Emotional Depth Matters
Creativity that aspires to connect—not just amuse—resonates more deeply—and endures. -
Value the Human in Art
His stance against wholesale automation (e.g. AI art) and emphasis on handmade, human-inflected craft suggests that preserving the human voice is crucial. -
Persistence & Reinvention
From a small sketch group to creating globally recognized animated shows, Bob-Waksberg’s path illustrates how persistence, iteration, and openness to reinvention pay off.
Conclusion
Raphael Bob-Waksberg is a defining creative voice in contemporary animation and storytelling. From BoJack Horseman’s tragi-comic brilliance to Undone’s emotional surrealism and Long Story Short’s family time tapestry, he continues to expand what adult animation can do.
He reminds us: depth, irony, grief, love, and laughter are not mutually exclusive—they can coexist. In his work, we see that vulnerability, structural daring, and emotional intelligence are not liability but strength.