YMMV / BoJack Horseman

YMMV tropes for the BoJack Horseman series

YMMV Tropes with Their Own Pages

• Accidental Aesop
• Alternative Character Interpretation
• Anvilicious
• Crosses The Line Twice
• Genius Bonus
• Harsher In Hindsight
• Heartwarming In Hindsight
• Hilarious In Hindsight
• Ho Yay
• Memetic Mutation
• Moe
• The Woobie

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Other YMMV:

A-D

• Abandon Shipping: There were some Diane/BoJack shippers back when the show started but by the time it could have become a possibility with Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter's divorce in Season 5, the relationship had become so toxic and self-destructive pretty much the whole fandom was against it.
• Adorkable:
  • Emily is self-important, but with enough innocence that she'll gush about whatever idea she comes up with, especially when it involves her crush Todd. Also, don't mention her about any of her Dark Secrets; she'll get flustered and lie badly.
  • Surprisingly, Gina has her moments, such as when reacting happily to the fact she was even mentioned in a review of Philbert, or when being interviewed during Philbert's premiere party.
    Interviewer: Gina, I know it's early, but have you started writing your acceptance speech for the Emmys?
    Gina: Oh, stop. I'll probably just repurpose whatever I say at the SAG Awards. (audience laughs) Is that gonna read as cocky? Can you explain to your readers that I'm being charmingly self-effacing?
  • Lora's easily squeamish about being yelled at or just plain screwing up, but is quite productive on her own and an Hypercompetent Sidekick the size needed for Princess Carolyn.
  • Corbin Creamerman. He stammers a lot, is interested in vegetable oil, and is very sweet.
  • Heather is a manatee reporter who sings sea shanties.
  • Judah is normally presented as a stoic Hypercompetent Sidekick and can even come off as emotionless, but as you get to know him it becomes clear that he's just very inarticulate when it comes to expressing his emotions. He reacts with underplayed but genuine hurt when he's insulted, and his inability to express his feelings to Princess Carolyn is painfully cute.
  • BoJack himself, at least before his experiences turned him into a bitter, jaded has-been. Not just when he was an awkward teenager, but when he first got into comedy as well. His audition tape for Horsin' Around shows him laughing nervously and needing Herb to support him.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Sextina Aquafina finds her happy ending after her abortion campaign; she finds out she's pregnant for real and decides to retire while keeping the baby and pregnancy under wraps, releasing music on a scheduled basis. While the main Aesop is, "A pregnant person should have the right to choose what to do and they won't always do what's expected," the alternative one could be, "Know when your priorities change".
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Sexist websites like "Titpuncher" really do exist, and their followers are sometimes worse than how they're portrayed here.
  • One of the gangs Todd joins in prison, the Latin Kings, is a real gang.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: As yet another dime-a-dozen lewd, crude and cynical animated comedy for adults, the show certainly had a stigma against it on release. Coupled with the mediocre to outright bad reviews the first season got and it's a surprise that the show is as successful as it is today. Much of this is chocked up to positive word of mouth, as the initial reviews for the first season only covered the initial six episodes, meaning the main dramatic climax (and by proxy, the Signature Scene of the show in "The Telescope") weren't shown off to the reviewers.
  Raphael Bob-Waksberg: Funnily enough, we only sent the first six episodes to critics. Which, looking back, might have been a mistake. (laughs)
• Angst Aversion: Some fans who've followed the show since before it was popular have admitted to becoming so tired of its unapologetic depiction of depression and downright pessimistic social commentary by the time the final season came around that they outright avoided watching it out of fear that it would be too depressing.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • BoJack's inability to have healthy relationships or overcome his vices lasts the entirety of the show through a combination of aesop amnesia, a dearth of characters who show him any genuine compassion and even sheer stupidity on his part. By season five, there were complaints from some viewers that it was becoming less "realistic" and more redundant (compare that to Diane's arcs about her personal traumas, relationships, careers and activism, which take a variety of forms per episode) and that BoJack barely progressing as a person (or rather, not being allowed to reap the benefits of doing so) by that point was beginning to feel like a crutch to keep the show interesting.
  • Mr. Peanutbutter and Pickles's relationship issues drag over 2 seasons until they are resolved in "Sunk Cost And All That" after which there are only five episodes left. Not only there are multiple points where the storyline could have ended much sooner with the exact same result (like "Surprise!" where Pickles finds out about him sleeping with Diane or "The Face Of Depresion" where Mr. Peanutbutter realizes Joey Pogo can be a good match for even things out for the previous incident) but also the entire arc took a lot of time away from Mr. Peanutbutter's own character development (which many fans felt it ended up feeling rushed) for the sake of giving Pickles and Joey Pogo, two much more minor characters a happy ending.
• Ass Pull: Mr. Peanutbutter reveals the truth about Sarah Lynn's death, something BoJack kept carefully under wraps around his friends, because apparently BoJack got drunk and confessed it to him offscreen.
• Award Snub:
  • Kristen Schaal was nominated for a Creative Arts Emmy for her voice-over work in "That's Too Much, Man!", only to lose out to (another) win for Seth MacFarlane. About a year later, the show itself was nominated for Outstanding Animated Program for the episode "Free Churro", but it ended up losing to yet another episode of... The Simpsons.
  • The show was again nominated for Outstanding Animated Program for "The View from Halfway Down" (which was the show's last chance at an Emmy win)... and lost to "The Vat of Acid Episode". Even Rick and Morty fans agreed that BoJack should have won.
  • The only actor Emmy nominated for their vocal performance was the aforementioned Kristen Schaal with no love for any of the five consistently acclaimed main cast or any of the other excellent guests. In particular, many will say that Will Arnett was absolutely robbed for his work in "Free Churro".
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • It's unlikely you'll find a fan with a neutral opinion on Diane Nguyen. While most fans can agree that BoJack's behavior is widely uncalled for, it's not clear to the fandom whether Diane's actions are justified, even when the narrative seems to suggest they are. Many people love Diane as a relatable female character and consider her cynicism, stubbornness, and emotional distance to be interesting character flaws, and they appreciate her as the feminist voice of the show. Others find Diane unlikeable because they believe the show doesn't criticize her character flaws enough and they find her to be too self-righteous in her relationships and political endeavors. The most heated debates tend to center around whether she was more or less at fault in her relationship with Mr. Peanutbutter and whether her criticism of BoJack is hypocritical or warranted.
  • Todd Chavez is relatively divisive as well, with some loving him as comedic relief especially due to the heavier subject matter in the show, along with being solid asexual representation, or find him and his shenanigans annoying or out of place in the show, and not as interesting as the other main characters. A major point of contention around Todd is the fact that a lot of his actions (unintentionally or not) can come up as much more destructive that BoJack's own like abandoning the clown dentists in the woods (and then instead of helping them make money out of them) or causing a potential war in Cordovia but are all Played for Laughs in contrast to the rest of the cast having constantly to live with the consequences of their actions, some feel that causes a Broken Aesop and makes him a Designated Hero every time he calls out BoJack or you think is justified given how much wacky and over-the-top his subplots are written. Finally, whatever his reasons for putting distance from BoJack starting from the Season 3 finale were justified or was Todd being too unfair to his friend, for something that wasn't that big of a deal (see Unintentionally Unsympathetic) in a time period where he was at his best behavior.
  • Pickles is either loved for being upbeat and eccentric and being Mr. Peanutbutter's Distaff Counterpart, along with being a generally sweet person, with many being upset that he proposed to her instead of telling her the truth about Diane, or disliked for the exact traits making her come off as annoying and childish. There are also those who liked her at first but grew to dislike her for taking too much of Mr. Peanutbutter's screentime in the last third of the show and hoped she would appear less.
  • There is no middle ground when it comes to Paige Sinclair and Maximillian Banks. Fans either love their screwball comedy schtick and banter with one another and see them as admirable Hero Antagonists for finally exposing BoJack's misdeeds to the public, or hate them due to finding it annoying, unfunny and out of place comic reliefs in a otherwise very serious portion of the story.
  • Pete and Penny became this after their surprise return in the final season. Fans noted both of them telled very manipulated versions of their prom night that twists BoJack's actions to make him look much worse while not mentioning their own willingness in participating in BoJack's actions that night and Penny's attempt to seduce him. Depending on the fan they come up as Unintentionally Unsympathetic individuals that refuse to take responsability for their previous screw ups or they are justified to feel like that, given BoJack wasn't acting like a proper adult and they were teenagers that didn't know better.
  • Yolanda is a minor example. Some fans see her as a Ensemble Dark Horse for being Todd's first asexual love interest and being a much more realistic representation in that subject that Todd (who falls in Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales), on the other hand you will find many fans who found her a dull static character, which the writers simply didn't know what to do with and unceremoniously writted off the show and just see her as a wasted opportunity.
  • Vincent Adultman's schtick as three kids in a trench coat that fools everyone, except BoJack who constantly points it out but is dismissed or ignored, is either funny or wore out it’s welcome very fast.
• Bizarro Episode: "INT. SUB" is an episode whose Framing Device is a conversation between Diane's therapist, Dr. Indira, and her wife, corporate mediator Mary-Beth, talking about a situation their clients are going through, because they can't disclose their identities, the show becomes bizarre as all characters assume new identities: BoJack becomes Bobo, the Angsty Zebra, Diane becomes Princess Diana of Wales, Mr. Peanutbutter becomes Mr. Chocolate Hazelnut Spread, Todd becomes Emperor Fingerface (a man with a hand instead of a head) and Princess Carolyn becomes A Tangled Fog of Pulsating Yearning In The Shape Of A Woman, as well as Priscilla Crustacean. Even secondary characters such as Flip become a dolphin called Flipper. Meanwhile, the plot has to do with BoJack becoming close with Indira while Diane tries to get some space from him while they try to figure out what they're meant to do with the giant submarine on set.
• Broken Base:
  • The subject of the series' end is a contentious one among the fanbase. A sizable and vocal faction believes that the penultimate episode, which apparently ended with the main character's death, would have been a better ending than the finale, which they decry as anticlimactic. A second faction insists just as vociferously that BoJack dying would "let him off the hook" too easily, and that the actual finale was the superior ending for forcing him to live with the consequences of his actions. A third, somewhat smaller faction would have preferred the happy ending BoJack would have gotten if the series had ended halfway through the sixth season. Debates on the topic periodically flare up on the series' subreddit the better part of a year since the show ended, and there doesn't seem to be anyone within the fandom who lacks a strong opinion.
  • Most fans agree that BoJack was at fault for trying to sleep with Penny at age 17, but whether Penny deserves any blame leads to heated arguments. One side believes that since Penny propositioned BoJack, even after he said no, she is also in the wrong, while the other side believes that the huge age gap leaves Penny too inexperienced and emotionally immature to be blamed for the situation and that BoJack was the only one at fault for not acting like a proper adult in the situation.
  • Another situation where most parties agree BoJack played some fault, but argue over how much the other person was to blame: Sarah Lynn's bender and eventual overdose. Some put more blame on Sarah Lynn since she had previously claimed she was only sober so it'd hit harder when she started using again and had explicitly asked BoJack to "call [her] when [he] wants to party", and much like BoJack, she was ultimately responsible for her own decisions. However, others blame BoJack for breaking her out of sobriety to wallow in his own sadness, particularly those who sympathize with the struggles of addiction. Almost all parties can agree, however, that what happened after the overdose is inexcusable on BoJack's part.
  • Speaking of BoJack acting like a proper adult, BoJack's actions a lot of the time place his mental age at young adult at best, having been emotionally stunted by both his shitty parents and the toxic nature of Hollywoo. The debate is whether that's even remotely an excuse for some of the crap he pulls.
  • Whether it was okay or not for Diane — a Vietnamese-American character — to be voiced by Alison Brie, who is white. Some say that as it's harder for Asian actors to break into showbusiness, it's irresponsible to give one of the rare Asian roles to a white actress. Others say that voice acting is not the same as live-action acting, and whether you match the physical attributes of your character matters far less in that medium. They also praise Brie for doing a fantastic job. For her part, Brie has since apologized for taking on the role.
  • BoJack 's treatment of his mother in season four is polarizing, especially when viewers project their own family relationships onto the narrative. Some agree with the show's angle that her dementia renders his vindictive behavior, especially throwing her doll off the balcony, unnecessarily cruel, and that leaving her with a happy memory was the right thing to break the cycle of vengeance and abuse. Others, especially those with abusive parents, see BoJack's actions as cathartic, not caring about Beatrice's senility compared to the many years she treated BoJack horribly while lucid, nor the fact that she has a tragic backstory.
• Can't Un-Hear It: Just try to watch anything else with Will Arnett and not imagine BoJack saying everything. On the one hand, it makes his otherwise hilarious "BABE WAIT BABE!" scene in Hot Rod much sadder. On the other hand, it makes several of his other roles a lot funnier, especially Lego Batman and his guest appearance on shows like The Magic School Bus Rides Again, as well as the Reese's Cups commercials he narrated, not to mention the live-action stuff he did like Arrested Development and 30 Rock.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • After everything she's been through, Kelsey re-establishes herself as a good director when she tells several producers that a superheroine movie should feature what women actually go through: they have to work twice as hard to get the same positions that incompetent men do and are rarely celebrated for doing good. She ought to know, considering what happened with Secretariat. Even better, she insists on casting Gina in the movie, giving the lady a happy ending.
  • Diane did break BoJack's trust by leaking One Trick Pony without his consent. She gets some Laser-Guided Karma when working on her memoirs; Diane finds herself lost and drifting when reliving a traumatic childhood and her failed marriage.
  • BoJack driving his mother to another nursing home when learning she poisoned Hollyhock with amphetamines. The fact that she had dementia was no excuse, and he knows it even if she doesn't. While he parts ways with her peacefully, he set boundaries and those remained standing! To a lesser extent, BoJack was proven right when he told Hollyhock he couldn't take care of Beatrice. Being right just sucks sometimes.
  • Defied in Season 6's "Nice While It Lasted". BoJack's misdeeds finally get exposed, Sarah Lynn's death in particular, but it's undone by BoJack getting recognition for a movie barely a year later, him only serving prison for the more minor crime of breaking and entering, Sarah Lynn's mom making money off her death while the rest of the country forgets, and similarly abusive celebrities like Hank Hippopopalous ending the series off the hook.
  • It is played straight, however, when a drunk BoJack threatens Angela after learning she was bluffing about his career getting ruined if he stood up for Herb. While Angela manages to save herself and the deal they signed while pushing BoJack into a suicidal state she's terrified when he manhandles her and threatens to burn the contact in her fireplace. If BoJack really wanted to hurt her the scene establishes that he could have pushed her down and none of her caretakers were in sight; in the end, Angela's left alone, old and bitter with money and people paid to make sure she keeps breathing.
• Cliché Storm:
  • One of the reasons that critics dismissed it immediately was that its first few episodes seemed like another Family Guy wannabe. They changed their tune once word-of-mouth got out that it was actually a deconstruction of that show's most notorious assets.
  • The Horsin' Around Christmas Special. Heck, the whole Show Within a Show itself makes Full House look subtle by comparison. That's the joke.
• Common Knowledge: A minor example around BoJack's Moral Event Horizon. It is commonly believed that BoJack waited 17 minutes to call an ambulance for Sarah Lynn, but 17 minutes refers to the time between the fake 2-minute call between him and Sarah Lynn and the time he called the ambulance, meaning that unless he made up his plan at the spot and called immediately (which is unlikely given how intoxicated he was), BoJack took at least 20 minutes and possibly even more time to call the ambulance.
• Crazy Is Cool: Todd. Unlike the vast majority of the cast, he's just fine with who he is, doesn't have many hang-ups, and attracts all kinds of weirdness. Who else could click so well with Mr. Peanutbutter, change a documentary into a B-movie alien flick re-imagined as a box of bimonthly packaged snacks, host an impromptu party for a drug cartel, get away with copyright infringement when Disney sued him for making an unauthorized Disneyland theme park because they trademarked Disneyland with two I's, and reinvent himself as Toad Chavay, a guy so cool he can steal people's motorcycles?
• Critical Dissonance: At least for the the first season. The show initially received mediocre reviews from critics, but did great with audiences, leading Netflix to announce a second season. Which mirrors the reaction to Horsin' Around in-universe. A contributing factor may have been that critics were only sent the first six episodes of the first season, which was before the main dramatic arc kicked in and the show's true nature as a tragicomedy was revealed. Reviews for later seasons were much more positive, with it being a critical darling by its final season, as one of its final trailers likes to note. Compare the AV Club's reviews for season 1 to those of season 2 and season 3.
• Delusion Conclusion: Some fans who were disappointed with the series finale interpret it as a continuation of BoJack's dream from the previous episode, believing that he really did drown in his pool and the series finale is just his subconscious giving him closure with his friends before he dies.
• Designated Monkey: The show asserts itself as being a deconstruction of cartoon tropes but this often only applies to the title character. BoJack suffers greatly from his upbringing and the show never allows him to live down any of his mistakes. Meanwhile, most of the other characters are free to do tons of comedic acts of violence and selfishness without any angst or consequences.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Judah has a hard time understanding sarcasm and reading emotional cues, and admits himself that he often finds it difficult to engage in narratives. This has lead many fans to theorize he may be on the autism spectrum.
• Don't Shoot the Message: The series is no stranger to staunchly leftist politics and Hollywood controversies. However, the more overly political episodes "Brrap Brrap Pew Pew", "Thoughts and Prayers", and "Bojack the Feminist" have all earned their share of criticisms from abortion rights activists, gun control advocates and feminists, respectively, for leniency towards facts, trivialization of their causes, unapologetic proselytizing and tendency to drop the matters once they've said their piece about it, all of which are hugely at odds with the rest of the show's nuanced characterization and are considered the most poorly written episodes as a result.

E-N

• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Character Actress Margo Martindale, for the sheer violent insanity she exudes.
  • Kelsey Jannings, the snarky director who works with BoJack in season 2. While she's abrasive and not the most pleasant person to be around, she's fair to those that earn her trust and is one of the few Hollywoo higherups that isn't Only in It for the Money. Fans took a liking to her and were sad to see her subplot abruptly cut off after she was fired, though she finally reappeared in season 6 where she's able to reboot her career by doing a superhero movie, but on her own terms.
  • Wanda Pierce and Ralph Stilton are among the most popular Love Interests of the show. The former due to her perky attitude, her voice actress and being seen as the closest thing to a healthy romantic relationship BoJack ever had. The latter is liked for his funny and sweet dialogue with Princess Carolyn and again, being the best relationship PC was shown to have.
  • The Jogging Baboon. He's a background character for pretty much the entirety of Season 2 and only has three lines of dialogue in one single scene. But those three dialogues happen to be one of the most beloved quotes to ever come up from the show, solidifying him as a beloved character despite his very small role.
  • Judah Mannowdog is also rather popular for being The Comically Serious and for his professionalism and loyalty to Princess Carolyn. His Love Confession to PC is considered one of the most Heartwarming Moments in the show as it was done in a way that only Judah would do.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Charlotte returning to the show and trying to either kill BoJack and/or ruin his life as a response to him and Sarah Lynn going to Penny's college before Sarah Lynn died was a constant fandom prediction. Charlotte's last appearance has her tell Penny not to take the risk of putting the full story out there, and her last interaction with BoJack is just a phone call telling him to leave them alone and that they don't want to be involved in any kind of scandal story.
  • Much fandom prediction around Stefani Stilton going to maliciously slander Mister Peanutbutter using GirlCroosh as an anti-man Propaganda Machine and was going to use Diane to make it hurt even more for him. This ended up not being the case and it was shown that her website was a normal feminist leaning website that includes a variety of stories, with notions of them all being man-haters being squashed by seeing that some of their articles are about male celebrities' attractive features.
  • Another popular theory before Season 6 stemmed from Diane's pseudonym being "Princess Diana" in "INT. SUB," which included a reference to the song "Candle in the Wind," a song re-written after Princess Diana's death. The last scene of the season, where Diane enters a tunnel but doesn't come out, brought to mind the princess's fatal crash in a tunnel. Therefore, many assumed this was all foreshadowing Diane being Killed Off for Real before Season 6, likely through a crash in that tunnel. This did not happen and Diane survived for the series.
  • With the final eight episodes lacking the show's typical single use of "fuck," some fans theorize that it's actually in Hollyhock's unheard letter to BoJack when she permanently ended her relationship with him.
  • Another theory based off the unrevealed letter is that it's Hollyhock's suicide note as an explanation for why she never appears again (though given BoJack doesn't react as strongly as if he'd read that his sister had died and the fact that she wasn't in BoJack's Dying Dream with the other people who died before his attempted suicide, the implication is more that she just cut ties with him for good.)
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Although minor, there are some who believe that half of the cast being made up of anthropomorphic animals is supposed to represent how some people can let themselves become animals in a metaphorical sense. It's actually just because the show's lead artist liked drawing animals without tails.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Midway through the first season, the Hollywood sign is altered to read "Hollywoo," and the town is referred to as thus for the rest of the series (until the final episode when it's altered again to read "Hollywoob" by mistake). Fans are persistent about this canon, so anything claiming the show takes place in Hollywood or showing the original sign unaltered will be accused of being a Shallow Parody (as both Family Guy and The Simpsons found out).
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Despite being mostly on friendly terms, with Rick and Morty, due to some of BoJack Horseman's fans believing their show to be the superior one in drama, character and writing. This was intensified when the latter show's got a third season and the fans became infamous for a number of memes and a few incidents of bad attitude.
  • Similar to the above, there's a mostly-amicable but steadily growing rivalry between fans of BoJack and fans of its sister series, Tuca & Bertie, mostly over which show has a better balance of comedy, drama and social commentary, the dour, bitter BoJack or the more upbeat, cheeky T&B, especially when it comes to feminism (despite its extremely feminist leanings, BoJack is still a show with a male creator/show runner while T&B was created by an almost entirely female cast and crew). The former's cancelation shortly before the premiere of BoJack's sixth season created a narrative that it didn't last for being "too happy."
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • The Time Skip in the finale — one year — and how everybody's life progressed while BoJack was in prison, especially Diane and Princess Carolyn who got married to Guy and Judah, respectively.
  • The series ends with Mr. Peanutbutter heavily implied to be the one friend who will stick by BoJack, and the two living together since the horse has nowhere else to go. So basically, the series ends on the ultimate fuel for friendship or shipping fics between BoJack and PB.
• Fanon:
  • When theorizing about Erica's species, the most common take is that she's a squirrel, which is why she always distracts Mr. Peanutbutter.
  • While the Grand Finale doesn't clarify it, most fans like to believe BoJack went back to living with Mr. Peanutbutter after finishing his sentence.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • An interesting case with the ending of the show: Some people found the penultimate episode so well crafted they wished the last one didn't come after. Others like to think the last episode is not canon but just an afterlife "coping mechanism" for BoJack and that he's actually dead. Still others think that episode 7 of season 6 was itself intended as a "happy ending" that anyone could stop watching at if they wanted to end the series on a happy note.
  • Mixed with Angst Aversion, while hardly anyone will deny that BoJack deserved consequences for his actions, there's some fans who prefer to ignore Hollyhock cutting ties with him out of feeling it was the one positive relationship in his life and think it ruins the well-loved ending of Season 4.
• Fetish Retardant:
  • Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter's graphic hate-fucking in "Commence Fracking." As it turns out, watching a human woman being penetrated by a humanoid dog is a lot more disturbing than the implications might have you believe.
  • The flashback in "A Horse Walks Into a Rehab" where BoJack walks in on Butterscotch having sex with his human secretary. We don't see much of the action, but we do hear Butterscotch talk about his sheath as a very unpleasant Furry Reminder.
• First Installment Wins: Not with the series itself (it got better during season 2), but out of Netflix's original animated series (which also include F is for Family, Big Mouth, and Paradise PD), BoJack is easily the most critically acclaimed and popular.
• Franchise Original Sin: Episodes of later seasons have taken some flack for relying too much on political and religious strawmen, but such strawmen appeared in earlier seasons as well. However, the show rarely devoted much time to these caricatures in early seasons: for example, "Hank After Dark" had some rather unflattering stereotypes of "Manosphere" members, but they were only touched on relatively briefly, and the episode's ire remained squarely targeted at celebrities who do terrible things and those who refuse to let said celebs be held accountable.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Rick and Morty, another animated show for adults that blends dark and surreal comedy with even darker drama and reflection on the human condition.
  • A burgeoning one with Aggretsuko, whose second series was, like BoJack, distributed by Netflix, and stars talking animals, including protagonists with very skewed, simplistic views of the world having that shattered, and a very unapologetically frank look at the difficulties of some aspect of the real adult world.
  • Also with fellow Netflix original F is for Family due to both shows being adult animation that avoids shock value as well as both being dark comedies with a lot of character development and covering similar themes such as feminist issues, abusive parents, dysfunctional families, and drug abuse.
  • Shockingly, despite both being polar opposites tone-wise, with Bluey as both fanbases are aware of the others' show, BoJack fans note that watching Bluey comforts them after the former breaks their heart, while on the other side, Bluey fans state that the former was a great show while referencing the "What is this a crossover episode?" line when BoJack is brought up, and this crossover parody image had an emotional response in both Bluey and BoJack's subreddits.
• Growing the Beard: This is one of the best television-related examples of this trope. Many fans agree that the first few episodes, while funny and fairly decent, are a bit slow and impactless. The Character Development strongly hinted at really starts to get delved into after episode 4, the show really gallops out of the gates. It wound up being the best-reviewed show of 2016 after season 3 debuted, and ended its six-season run as one of the most critically adored shows of the decade.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Many agree that BoJack is Will Arnett's best acting role yet. Before BoJack, Arnett was known for playing narcissistic and idiotic characters. While BoJack still contains a lot of narcissism, he also is a very emotional character. Special mentions go to BoJack=s 22 minute monologue spanning the entirety of the episode "Free Churro", nailing all the complicated and nuanced emotions that [=BoJack felt about his mother's passing, as well as a great performance with Secretariat's poem in "The View From Halfway Down", perfectly capturing the sheer terror that Secretariat felt as he realized what it was like after jumping off the bridge.
  • Stephanie Beatriz is best known for her character Rosa Diaz in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. As Gina she plays an ambitious actress that wants to build her career but is resigned about her prospects, and sings a showstopper "Don't Stop Dancing" in BoJack's dream". Much later she accurately conveys PTSD after Gina tries to build her career after Philbert.
  • Kristen Schaal is known for her bubbly persona, which equally extends to her characters in Gravity Falls and Bob's Burgers. Seeing her play the same bubble character Sarah Lynn as a child, who then grows up to be a drug-addicted sex-idol that cheerfully talks about dying young, shows the range of her talent. It especially kicks in when Sarah Lynn gets an epiphany when she is watching her stepfather accept an award on her behalf, and she admits that she hates what she has become. It goes even further when her dream-self sings a Dark Reprise of "Don't Stop Dancing" to BoJack and it comes out as raw, intense, and tragic.
• Hollywoo Pudgy:
  • Hollyhock's got a bit of a girth, but considering her type of body, it's barely noticeable. Doesn't stop her from becoming self-conscious about it among all the skinny Hollywoo girls. Nor did it stop Beatrice from secretly slipping her some weight-loss pills. By the end of the season the pills have resulted in her visibly losing weight and her clothes not fitting properly along with eventual amphetamine addiction.
  • As a child Beatrice is said to be overweight by both her father and her bully, but due to Generic Cuteness and the fact that said father and said bully are established to have unreasonably high standards when it comes to feminine beauty anyway (right in line with the Idle Rich during that time period), she doesn't look like it.
• It Was His Sled:
  • The show's nature as a Deconstructor Fleet Dramedy was originally a surprise. The entire advertising focused on the comedic moments that make the series look like your standard Animated Shock Comedy and the critics only got to watch the first six episodes which are the point before the series got the Genre Shift. The purpose of this was that once audiences actually watched the show they will be surprised with how much Better Than It Sounds the series actually is. Nowadays, BoJack Horseman is the poster boy of angsty television for Western Animation, so unless you are you talking with someone firm in the Animation Age Ghetto, is very hard to find anyone that doesn't know the show's dark and depressing nature.
  • Sarah Lynn's death was seen as a shocking and tragic moment for the show: now many people, even those outside the show's fandom, knows about this.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Raphael Bob-Waksberg admitted that part of the reason that led him to making Todd asexual was based on the stereotype that asexual people are too innocent or childlike for sex. However given he pulled a major Author's Saving Throw in the following seasons by giving Todd a serious arc involving his asexuality, the character became a icon among the community despite the stereotypes. Ironically, very few fans seem to care much about Yolanda, who's another asexual character that lacks those stereotypes.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Fans have taken to believe the series is a tragedy with comedy elements and such, it can only end with BoJack or someone else in the cast killing themselves. While this is far less jarring than other examples (the series is a dramedy and a very dark one at that), it ignores the underlying message of life being cruel and uncaring, but still worth living by going for the cliche of "Tragic Hero ruins everything and dies". Of course, it's not unanimous, as this poll and this post reveal. Even after the show concluded on a bittersweet but mostly optimistic note, some fans have chosen to believe that the final episode is a Dying Dream or some kind of alternate reality.
  • A number of fans have taken Mr. Peanutbutter's attitude to be the ultimate example of how to be, with his Anti-Nihilist tendencies and love toward everybody winning people over. This has led some to even refer to him as someone who can do no wrong and is clearly superior to BoJack in every way. What people forget however is that while the show portrays Mr. Peanutbutter as being way happier than BoJack because of his way of being, it doesn't make him any less unhappier or functional. Rather, when something bad happens, Mr. Peanutbutter is less than prepared to deal with it, with any negative emotion or response being shoved to a corner. His excessive forgivingness also makes people think of him as an idiot and can often bring bad consequences, his whimsical behavior has caused friction with people, his wife Diane especially, and bad investments which drain him of money and trust from others, his passive-aggressiveness can reach Kick the Dog status at points where the objects of his ire don't really deserve it and he can be overbearing in his desire for everyone to be happy. Granted, like BoJack, Mr. Peanutbutter has enough shades to present this in a more sympathetic light, but like him, his attitude is not an answer, just another example that neither extreme (cynicism or idealism) is healthy.
  • A number of fans have taken to using the show to help rationalize their awful behaviour instead of improving themselves. This is actually mentioned throughout Season 5, as the creators were horrified to learn that Harvey Weinstein was a fan of the show, and needed to make it more obvious that BoJack wasn't to be emulated.
  • There are a minority of fans who believe that BoJack should have gotten together with Penny, arguing that she was technically old enough to consent (at least by New Mexico law), although it died down after "That's Too Much Man" revealed how much the event traumatized her.
  • Princess Carolyn's attitude near the end of Season 1's "Say Anything" is often cited as an inspirational feminist moment where she's able to get over her emotional hardship and focus robotically on her work. This disregards that Princess Carolyn's arc is in part about how it's okay to be open about her negative emotions and allow people to help her rather than shut herself off from the world to be a "strong independent working woman."
  • Many fans debate which characters are inherently evil or good, despite the show relying heavily on Grey-and-Grey Morality and portraying its characters not as bad people, but people who do bad actions, which they could stop doing if they truly care about others or themselves.
  • Fans often quote the "My husband/mother is dead, and everything is worse now" line from "Free Churro" with "my mother" replaced with something great that is no longer around, such as a beloved celebrity or a cancelled TV show. The point of the quote is that Beatrice hated Butterscotch and BoJack hated Beatrice, and losing them isn't sad because they lost something good, but because they lost the chance to get anything good out of the relationship. The rest of the quote goes, "...because now I know I will never have a mother who looks at me from across a room and says, 'BoJack Horseman, I see you.'"
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Hank Hippopopalous crossed this line before the beginning of the series, considering what he did and has kept doing to his assistants is just the tip of the iceberg in how much of a despicable scumbag he really is.
  • Deliberate Values Dissonance aside, if Joseph Sugarman didn't cross it by having his wife lobotomized to keep her emotions in check after their son's death, he definitely crossed it when he threatened to do the same to his young daughter.
  • Jessica Biel crosses it when she burns Zach Braff to death during the crazy events in "Underground" and proclaims herself a priestess to worship fire as a god. Played for Laughs, yes, but still...
  • Even considering her sympathetic backstory, as revealed in "The Old Sugarman Place" and "Time's Arrow", Beatrice Horseman cements herself as a horrible person even when suffering from dementia when it's revealed that she has been secretly drugging Hollyhock's coffee with amphetamine pills so that she'll lose weight, which nearly kills her, an act that Beatrice gloats about with a cruel smile. After he finds out, BoJack gives up on his mother entirely and drives her to the shabbiest Bleak Abyss Retirement Home he can find.
  • Flip seems to be sleazy but not evil; he takes Diane and Princess Carolyn for granted but treats his actors the way Alfred Hitchcock or Stanley Kubrick did. Then he crosses it by asking a cameraman to film BoJack choking Gina for real, rather than intervening. It says something that the next episode has Philbert canceled and Princess Carolyn leaving Flip in disgust.
• Narm Charm: The fact several main characters have animal heads and humanoid bodies, as well as pet-like names like Mr. Peanutbutter and Princess Carolyn, seem like they'd be distracting for such a dark show, especially for emotional scenes that incorporate Furry Reminder elements (i.e. Mr. Peanutbutter in "After the Party" talking about how he waits for Diane to come home like a dog waiting for its owner). However, the solid writing, voice acting, and scene composition more than make up for this, with the animal jokes providing much-needed levity to balance out the drama.

O-W

• Older Than They Think:
  • This isn't even the first Black Comedy-Drama produced by ShadowMachine. The first would be season 3 of Moral Orel.
  • An animated work about humans and anthropomorphic animals coexisting in a story of how difficult and ruthless the celebrity life of Hollywoo can be? Turner Entertainment did a more child-friendly version 17 years prior with Cats Don't Dance. Funnily enough, while BoJack Horseman treats its younger cast as Children Are Innocent, the adorable child star in Cats Don't Dance turns out to be an Enfant Terrible.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Anjelica Huston as Angela Diaz, the TV executive who convinced BoJack not to walk out on his show when Herb is fired for being gay. She does get a significant role in episode 14 of season 6 however.
  • Lin-Manuel Miranda as Beatrice's kind older brother Crackerjack, only seen briefly before going off to die in World War 2. This incident completely shook up her family and set the stage for the tragedy and abuse that would plague the family for the next 70 years. He also gets a more significant role in season 6's "The View from Halfway Down," albeit only a dream version of him.
  • The baboon jogger who gives BoJack jogging advice (which also serves as life advice) at the end of season 2. Said speech is his only line of dialogue after a season of being a background character, but the advice is so simple and poignant^note "Every day, it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day. That's the hard part. But it does get easier." that it's become one of the most popular quotes from the show.
• One True Threesome: Shippers (as rare as they are in this particular fandom) actually enjoy a BoJack/Diane/Mr. Peanutbutter polyamorous relationship. That was until Diane and PB's divorce in season five.
• Play-Along Meme:
  • Horsin' Around, the sitcom that BoJack starred in during the 90s, will often be treated as a real show by fans. Video clips of it usually have comments about how much they loved the show and how nostalgic the video makes them feel.
  • After Todd and Princess Carolyn sold tickets to BoJack's house in "Live Fast, Diane Nguyen" by pretending it's David Boreanaz's house, fans often "mistake" BoJack's house for Boreanaz's house.
  • Margo Martindale will always be referred to as "Esteemed Character Actress and Fugitive From the Law Margo Martindale," even when discussing her real-life roles.
  • The entire fandom unanimously pretends that Vincent Adultman is a real, singular adult. Any implication that he is three kids in a trench coat will be met with people feigning confusion.
• Pop Culture Holiday: Both fans and Word of God celebrate January 31st as "Halloween in January," named for the business venture Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter invent in the Season 1 finale. It was also the release date of Season 6 Part 2.
• Popular with Furries: Obviously given the show's universe where humans and anthropomorphic animals coexist, Interspecies Romance is socially acceptable, and a handful of lesser-known species are anthropomorphized as well. That being said, there's a decent amount of furry fans who like the show but have criticized the lack of detail with the animal characters' anatomies (most of them are just animal heads tacked onto normal human bodies) and wish they had more animal features like tails.
• Questionable Casting: Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank as the Justin Bieber-esque Joey Pogo. The joke kicks in when you remember where Hillary Swank started her career (playing a boy very convincingly in Boys Don't Cry).
• Realism-Induced Horror: Enters this territory quite frequently, most frequently with its fairly realistic depictions of abuse, addiction, and mental illness, which helps further the show's central themes of how celebrity can be damaging (particularly for someone who entered stardom very young) and how trauma can often be passed from one generation to the next.
• Sacred Cow: The series is considered one of the greatest animated shows of all time, if not one of the greatest shows in general, due to its' depiction of mental illness and deep cast of characters. Saying that it is bad will get you torn to shreds (except for the art/animation, which most people agree isn't anything to write home about).
• The Scrappy:
  • Joey Pogo doesn't have many defenders, as he doesn't have much character besides being a played-out pop singer parody who acts like a watered-down, more annoying younger version of Mr. Peanutbutter. It doesn't help that he's a part of Mr. Peanutbutter and Pickles' arc and thus takes screentime away from Mr. Peanutbutter's final character development, which is generally considered to be rushed.
  • Stuart doesn’t have any fans either, as he’s an in-universe inferior replacement to Lora and especially Judah, being completely useless and apathetic at his job and generally snobbish and obnoxious.
  • Tracy, Princess Carolyn's adoption agent and who is very heavily implied to be Stuart's long lost twin sister, is exactly the same as him, being openly rude and sarcastic to Princess Caroyln through her adoption journey, although she somewhat has a Freudian Excuse that she was lonely growing up because her mother worked all the time, advising Princess Carolyn to not adopt if she’s too busy for a baby.
• Self-Fanservice: Mr. Peanutbutter seems to get the most positive feedback when it comes to fanart. His cheerful attitude towards every character basically means it's free range as far as shipping goes, and his already-athletic physique doesn't hurt either.
• Signature Line:
  • The first use of Precision F-Strike in "The Telescope".
  "Get the fuck out of my house."
  • Unusually, the simian jogger giving BoJack some solid advice when he fails to jog in "Out To Sea".
  "It gets easier. Every day, it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day. That's the hard part. But it does get easier."
• Signature Scene: The final scene of "The Telescope" is widely agreed to be where the show found its voice and solidified its themes of challenging the idea of simple redemption, closure, and unearned forgiveness, as well as kicking off the Myth Arc of whether BoJack is truly capable of change, and becoming a better person. It also establishes the show's deliberate restraint on the word "fuck" to one use per season when and only when BoJack has permanently ruined a friendship.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: It's generally agreed that the first three episodes are mediocre at best and that things really start picking up when the character development and reoccurring arc jokes kick in around episode four.
• Spiritual Successor: The Season 4 episode "Ruthie" is considered by fans one to How I Met Your Mother's praised "Symphony of Illumination". Both episodes have a different framing device than others, focusing on The Lancer of the show and their future descendants; both are also extremely sad and emotional episodes in which the Framing Device turns out to be false. Robin finds herself unable to have kids and was telling the story to herself, imagining her children to cope with it and Ruthie telling a story about Princess Carolyn to her class is actually just a make-believe scenario that Princess Carolyn used to feel better after her fifth miscarriage.
• Squick: Sarah Lynn and BoJack having sex during one of her binges. BoJack has known her since she was three, and their relationship is decidedly father-daughter afterwards. While seemingly played for laughs, the grossness of the situation would be called out in later episodes and especially in Seasons 5 and 6.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Sarah Lynn's hit song "Prickly Muffin" is this for the Britney Spears song "Toxic".
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Throughout Season 5's takes on "MeToo", we never get an update on Hank Hippopopalous, after his episode was noted to have been made an unusually fast Unintentional Period Piece by the rise of the movement, especially due to the downfall of Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein, the real life people he's based off of. Not even Season 6 brought it up, despite bringing back Vance Waggoner to tackle the issues of cancel culture.
  • In Season 5, BoJack causes a car accident in order to get more pain pills to fuel his addiction. The show doesn't acknowledge the fact that this was the first time BoJack has knowingly and willingly put other people's lives at risk for his own benefit.
  • In the latter half of Season 6, Pickles dumps Mr. Peanutbutter for Joey Pogo, leaving Mr. Peanutbutter to deal with not having a romantic partner for the first time in decades, leaving him to seek therapy and even write a memoir. However, the bulk of this happens either in very brief intervals (Pickles dumping him is practically done as a throwaway gag via text message) or offscreen, which is especially disappointing since Mr. Peanutbutter has been more resistant to change and growth than any other main character and yet we barely get to see his process of actually admitting fault and bettering himself.
  • Some fans feel like the show would have been better if it'd been a straight drama with some comic relief rather than a comedy that takes a lot of dramatic turns, the conceding opinion being that the particular brand of self-aware comedy it starts on is decent on it's own but doesn't bode well with the melodrama it eventually evolves into, and is nowhere near as compelling.
  • Flip's treatment of BoJack in "The Light Bulb Scene" is clearly a form of sexual coercion, a rare instance of male-on-male abuse in a show that largely focuses on misogynistic abuse. However, the impact this would have on BoJack is never addressed, and despite the season's themes of men in Hollywoo abusing their power, Flip's toxic behavior is never treated as anything serious.
  • The explanation in "Chickens" of how meat works in the BoJack universe is one of the few times the show properly explores the ramifications of a world of intelligent animals coexisting with humans — certain species of animals are dumbed down and enslaved on farms until they're killed for food. The concept arises all sorts of fascinating Fridge Horror, but is never addressed again.
  • While the relationship between Princess Carolyn and Judah gets a decent amount of focus, the sudden transition to a romantic relationship happens largely off-screen. Due to the Time Skip, we don't see anything between the Love Confession two episodes before the finale and their (industry) wedding in the finale. Most fans assume their relationship could have been further explored had the show gotten another full season.
• Ugly Cute: Because of the show's art style, none of the characters look very appealing, but there are exceptions. BoJack himself is a strange-looking horse with a body of an overweight middle-aged man, but some of his expressions and the fact that he is such a Jerkass Woobie can make him look pretty cute. That's not even mentioning the smile he gives at the end of Season 4. Just look at that goofy face.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Whenever real-existing celebrities appear in the show, they tend to have added laugh lines, dimples, wrinkles, etc., all in bold black lines. Daniel Radcliffe and Jessica Biel, in particular, are two very attractive people in real life, but their good looks don't translate into the style of the show very well. And that's not getting into how Only Six Faces tends to be firmly in play for the humans. Lisa Hanawalt, the show's lead designer, admitted herself that Furries Are Easier to Draw for her.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Nobody expected Katrina to return at the end of season 3.
  • While several side characters returned for Season 6, possibly the most shocking one was Pete Repeat, especially since his return brings some shocking information for Hollyhock to learn...
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While the show likes to balance sympathetic characters with unsympathetic actions, Todd's anger at BoJack for sleeping with Emily is supposed to put Todd in the right, given that Todd's intense "The Reason You Suck" Speech delivers one of the core philosophies of the show. However, most fans don't agree that BoJack sleeping with Emily was really that bad, given that it was a mutual and consensual decision as opposed to the Questionable Consent involved in some of BoJack's other trysts. Todd also hadn't dated Emily since high school and had even turned down her sexual advances (because, as he realizes later, he's asexual), so his anger over her sleeping with BoJack comes across as oddly possessive. In the next season, Todd does admit it was less about Emily herself and more that it was the last straw in a line of shitty behaviors, but since BoJack has done much worse to Todd, it looks like an incredible overreaction, and Todd's attitude towards Emily still never gets pointed out.
• Unnecessary Makeover: Diane's Season 5 post-divorce haircut, a short layered bob style with a shaved undercut, has had a divided reception among fans, with detractors thinking it doesn’t fit her or they don’t like the style, or they just didn’t like that it changed at all. Both sides including the show itself also bring up jokingly that it brings out how long her neck is, as when her hair was long it was worn partially parted over her shoulders and obscured this detail.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Joey Pogo's androgynous pop star looks and voice by Hilary Swank had several fans assume he was a butchy woman in the trailer. Even after his actual introduction, some fans were confused about his gender.
• Watched It for the Representation: The show is extremely popular within asexual communities, with many viewers having checked out the show entirely due to hearing that one of the main characters is asexual. For many ace viewers, Todd was the first canon asexual they'd ever seen on screen.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Oh look kids, an animated series where anthropomorphic animals co-exist with humans in a quirky environment. Must be family-friendly, right? Ho ho ho... not even close. Not only does this series feature various references to drugs, sex, mild violence, occasional profanity and various additional adult themes, but there's also that fact that there are certain episodes kids either wouldn't care about or wouldn't understand. There's even a warning on of the info forms saying it's "not for the little ones", yet its colorful appearance continues to deceive some adults.
• Woolseyism:
  • In "Our A Story is a D Story," when the leader of the skinheads sees Todd wearing a Latin Kings banner, he asks, "Why in the name of Pat Buchanan are you dressed like a Latin King?" as a Take That! at the conservative American politician. In the French dub, Buchanan is replaced with the conservative French politician Marine Le Pen.
  • In the Japanese dub of "The Telescope", due to the language differences, Herb doesn't get the once-per-season Precision F-Strike. Instead, his simple reply of "Okay. I don't forgive you." is changed to, "Like hell I'll forgive you." Additionally, "Now get the fuck out of my house" is changed to "Now off you trot. Get out", adding a Stealth Pun amidst one of the most dramatic moments of the season.
  • Wanda's signature "When you look through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags" line in "Yes And" was replaced in the French dub (since this usage of "red flag" isn't an expression there) with a local phrase meaning the same thing, plus a Furry Reminder:
  Wanda: <In the night, all the cats are grey. Being nocturnal, I thought I'd be able to tell the difference.>
  • In "Surprise!" BoJack asks Diane who her new boyfriend is, and when Diane says, "Guy," BoJack responds, "Fine. What's your guy's name?" The French dub replaces this with a pun on Guy's name and gui, which means "mistletoe," as both are pronounced like "gee" in French. This roughly translates to a different gag that still keeps the Who's on First? joke.
  BoJack: <So what's his name, your new match? The one who's going to kiss you under the mistletoe?>
  Diane: <Guy...>
  BoJack: <Yes, the plant that's hung over doors at Christmas>!
  • Also in "Surprise," Pickles screams, "Here's a makeup tutorial: we are never making up!" Since French doesn't use the expression "make up," Pickles in the French dub instead insists Mr. Peanutbutter stop his mascara-rade (a pun on "masquerade").
  • The German dub renames Horsin' Around to Ich glaub mich tritt ein Pferd, a German expression literally translating to "I think I am being kicked by a horse" that one says in response to something surprising. This double-meaning works for the wacky sitcom surprises and the actual show, which is full of less pleasant surprises for the characters.
  • Meow Meow Fuzzyface's French name is "Miaou-Miaou Minou Mignon," which translates to "Meow Meow Cute Kitty," keeping the joke of his original name while fitting it into the show's penchant for tongue-twisters.
  • The Russian dub refers to Horsin' Around as Rzhom s Koniom, "(we're) neighing with the Horse". In Russian, "to neigh" is also a coloquial term that describes laughter that is loud, obnoxious, and/or prompted by stupid or low-brow humor. So a reference to Horsin' Around being a comedy, a pun on BoJack's species and a subtle reference to the often-implied low quality of the sitcom all at once.

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