Wild Card with Rachel Martin - Raphael Bob-Waksberg doesn’t forgive, but he forgets

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Raphael Bob-Waksberg says working in animation lets him get away with things. He’s able to dive into heavy topics, like grief and faith, without his stories getting too dark or saccharine. It’s a skill he honed as creator of “BoJack Horseman” and he’s putting it to use again with his new series “Long Story Short” on Netflix.  To listen sponsor-free and support the show, sign up for Wild Card+ at plus.npr.org/wildcard See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Are you good at forgiveness? Yes, I think I am. New card. No, I'm just kidding. I think I am. Really? There's more to say there. You know, people say, like, I forgive, but I don't forget.

I'm the opposite. I don't forgive, but I do forget. So that eventually turns around to forgiveness because I've stopped fixating on it. I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wild Card, the show where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life. Questions pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one question back on me. My guest this week is Raphael Bob Waxburg.

There's a line about grief on the show where one of the characters says to the other, it isn't a straight line. And I think that has been so much of what I have had to grapple with through my experiences with grief. Raphael Bob Waxburg makes animated TV shows that are weird and they are funny and deep, which happened to be three of my favorite qualities in any form of entertainment. His first series, Bojack Horseman, was about a half man, half horse, in an existential crisis. Now he is back with a brand new show called Long Story Short. There are big themes, religion and identity and grief, but it never feels heavy.

And the end result is an animated story that feels very real. I am so happy to welcome Raphael Bob Waxburg to Wildcard. Hi. Hi, it's great to be here. I'm so happy to have you here. What a treat. First three cards. Memories.

One, two, or three. I'm going to go with three. Three. Yeah. Let's skip to the good stuff. Three it is. When you were bored as a kid, where would your imagination take you? Oh, everywhere.

I mean, you say when I was bored, as if there were times when I was not bored. But I had ADD as a kid, and I still have it as an adult. And I do feel like one of my super-prud. powers is I'm always a little bit bored. Like, you know, in the Avengers? Yeah. Well, I'll tell you why. Okay.

When Mark Gruffalo goes, that's my secret. I'm always angry and he can like turn into a Hulk at any moment. Yeah. 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. And I have also learned to view it as a positive because it's happening whether I like it or not. Right. And so I call it a superpower.

But yeah, as a kid, I think I had to learn at some point in order to not be disruptive, which was always my first instinct, was when I am bored, I'm going to interrupt what is ever happening. Because it's boring, clearly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 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 I would, 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. I feel like I'm never a hundred percent giving attention to the thing that I'm in at any given moment. always part of me is thinking about something else. So did you get in trouble a lot? Yes, constantly.

Yeah. Because of that. Well, sure, because of a number of things. I think, you know what? I think I didn't always know the best way to filter those instincts. And then I think, you know, some teachers didn't always know the best way to handle me. And I think, you know, a big part. part of it is I was funny, uh, sometimes. And what that meant is that sometimes I could get away

with things. Uh, but sometimes I would push things too far or I would do things in the wrong way where they're not funny. Um, and I never knew before I did something. Is this going to be funny enough that I'm going to get away with it? Or is the teacher going to get real mad at me? Uh, and so it's always mystified when I got in trouble. And I thought like, how is this any different? And I think the, The answer is that time I didn't kill. I just wasn't funny enough. And that's something you got to learn. You got to read the room, man.

So it was like an internal motivator. Yeah. You need to hone your material. Yeah, but I had no, 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. And, all right, yeah, not everything's going to land right away. Sometimes you've got to try some stuff out.

Now I know. All right. Don't do that again. Okay. Three more cards. One, two, three. Let's do one this time. One.

What's an experience from childhood when you realized your parents were only human? This is actually one of my first memories. I think I was maybe two or three. It was at least two and a half because my little sister was born already. She was a baby and I was a toddler. And I remember I was climbing on my mother. She was sitting down like in the stairwell and I was climbing on her. And I think my little sister was also climbing on her or just being a baby or something.

And I grabbed my mom's glasses and her glasses broke and she started crying. Ah. Yeah. I mean, I was the parent of two very small children. And I remember it didn't matter what it was going to be, but everything is building. Everything's building to this moment of breakdown. And like the one thing that happens, like your glasses break or like some other little thing happens and just floodgates. You're just like, I can't even anymore.

Yeah. And so you were so young, but even in that moment you think you're like, oh, this lady has feelings. I might be backwards editorializing a little bit. That's my memory of it. But that is just realizing, oh, she is also a person who didn't want me climbing on her. Right. In that moment, that was not helpful. Right.

And a thing happened and now she's crying and I am somewhat involved in, I bear some responsibility. Yes. Has she told you about that? Like, was she really mad at you? I don't know if she would remember. You guys haven't discussed it. We have not discussed. Maybe she'll listen to this and she'll call me and say.

The great glasses. Yes. I'm still mad at you. Scandal. Thank you for acknowledging my pain. Okay. Next one. Three more cards.

One, two, or three. I feel like I got to go two now. I mean, you do you. There are no rules, except there are. But this isn't one of them. So you can do whatever you want. What if I was like four? Let's do two.

Okay. Who's an adult who didn't talk down to you as a kid? Yeah. Well, I had a theater teacher in high school named Mr. Shelby, Jim Shelby. He's a special guy. And I think he really got me. And I think he, I think the joy of being his student is I think most of his students felt like he got them. Right.

So I don't think we had a special relationship. I think he made all of his young actors feel special in some way. Not that I'm saying that. I'm like, is that true? All of his students? No, I'm sure there are students who actually, I know some students who didn't like him or didn't feel like they, They quite got what he was doing. But you felt that he got you and saw something clearly in you.

Yes, yes. I don't want to over universalize it. I shouldn't compliment him too much. No, I think he really got me and he really understood how to, you know, you focus my passions and instincts in the right direction and create rather than destroy. Has the trickle-down effect of having a teacher understand you, not talk down to you, has that affected your parenting style at all? You've got young kids? Yes, I think so. I mean, I try to treat my kids like their people. I try to be kind to them and listen to them and not necessarily assume that I know the right way for them to be or what they should be doing at any given moment. I try to give them autonomy. And be respectful.

Have any of them proven to be funny and or performative? Oh, yeah. My kids are hilarious. You want to hear a joke? Yes, of course I want to hear a joke. Yeah. All right. This is hot off the press.

This is a couple weeks ago. My kid told me this joke. He goes, knock, knock. Who's there? Interrupting cow. Interrupting cow who? Mooh. And I said, I hate to break this to you.

You didn't interrupt me. And he goes, no, because you're my friend, but other people I would interrupt. Oh. So I think he's a funny guy. He is a funny guy. And deeply thoughtful and kind. Yes, yes. And I'm glad to know I'm his friend.

That meant a lot to me. Okay, so let's talk about the new show, long story short. I started watching this with my 13-year-old who was immediately drawn in. And then I had to like move on with my life and do something else. in that moment. And we made a pledge, as people and families often do, to not watch it, except with one another, because we both loved it so much. That's dangerous. I totally cheated on him. I totally cheated on. I was the cheater. I was on the treadmill one day, and I was like, oh, why it won't know? And I just, I'll just tell him that I didn't. I'll rewatch this one with him.

But then I just, I just, I just, I just binged. Oh, no. So what happens? I mean, not in that moment, but I did watch all of them. I watched all of them without. him. Well, what happened with your son? I mean, he's not talking to me right now. No, I'm just kidding. He was bummed. But also, I was like, go talk to your dad. I'm famous for this. I'm sorry. I don't know what to tell you. Classic. Yeah, classic you. Don't trust me on this one. All right. But the point of the story is that both of us really, really loved it. It's so, so, so good. My question, there is a question, is how did you pitch this to the? the studio folks because it's not, I mean, it's like an animated family and they're Jewish and

they're religious and it's philosophical and isn't that a good TV show? I don't know. They clearly thought it was. Yeah, well, I, that, I mean, a lot of what you just said is how I pitched it, except I didn't end with, is that a good TV show? I think I think I probably landed a little more declaratively. And it's a good TV show. Yes, that's right. Here's the twist. It's good. It's Good. Yeah, you know, I said this is a show about a family. And we're going to love all these characters, but the kind of the, the gag of the show is going to be jumping around in time. And there is no home base. So every episode is set in a different year with a different character as our POV character. And kind of through this method, we really get to know this family really

well over the course of one season. 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 100 episodes of the show, or you're going to love them like they're your own family. That was, that was the, you know, the elevator pitch, I guess. Was the starting point the family and the characters, or was the starting pitch, you're like, I want to play in time. I want to, like, do this no home base. Like, we're going front and back. Yeah, I think for me, it kind of came from a lot of different places and then, you know, gradually weave together. When I look back at, like, what is the history of the original, you know,

germ of this idea. It probably started was, is there a story I could tell that jumps around in time that is longitudinal in its scope that follows characters over a long period and sees how they grow and change or don't change and don't grow, as the case may be. And grief is like woven through this show. I mean, it's very, very funny, but grief is like a through line. Yes, that hilarious thing grief. It's so funny. And I think a big question in the show also is, can you, your relationship with somebody change after they have died? Yeah. Or how do you repair some of those relationships that maybe weren't quite what you wanted them to be in

life? Is it too late to repair that within yourself, if not with the other person? Right. And how do you continue to learn things and understand things about that relationship, about that person, and about yourself in that relationship, even after that person has died? In a hilarious way. Of course! Yes, with jokes.

I need to give a shout out to your longtime collaborator. Lisa Hanowalt, who has come up with the visual world for this, for BoJack Horseman, for several other of your projects. I meant what I said in the intro, these themes could be overbearing and like too heavy. And there's something about the lightness of the animation. Yes. And so I think Lisa's art as well as Alison Dubois, who works with Lisa, they do an incredible job of, yeah, lightening up the world.

And that's very intentional. I think that's something I really learned working on BoJack Horseman is that on that show, I could go to these really dark, deep places. And in a live action show, some of those monologues might have felt indulgent or saccharine or modeling. And somehow in animation, you're able to take it in a little easier. Or maybe because you already are bringing the suspension of disbelief to the show, you can also have the suspension of disbelief in how tragic it got or how it really. You know, ruminative.

You could really let it take you where it wanted to take you. And so that, you know, what I might have thought before I made BoJack is like, well, you can't be too goofy or too sad. You got to kind of pick a lane. And in making that show, I found that, no, actually the opposite extremes really work together to create something new. And I think on this show also, you know, it doesn't get quite as Shakespeareanly tragic as BoJack did, nor does it get as silly. in cartoonious BoJack did, but we do go to some goofy places and some more serious places, and I find the way

those flavors work together, it really creates a feast. Okay. For the listener, these are a different color. They sure are. What color are they, Raphael? They're blue. That's right. They're blue. I'm glad I know that because now I can

fly a plane. If I got that wrong, I would not be... Well, that's the first step as far as I know. These cards are blue, and they represent the round insights. Insights. Three cards. Can I tell you, sorry to interrupt. I'm just thinking about being colorblind.

Can I tell you a joke that I always wanted to do on BoJack that we never got to do? Yeah, please. So one of the characters on BoJack Corresponden is Mr. Peanut Butter, who is a dog. Yeah. And at one point, we were going to do a beat where he realizes for the first time that he's colorblind because he's a black. because he's a dog. And what he was going to say was, oh no, I'm colorblind.

Now I can never fly an airplane or appreciate the subtle beauty of Schindler's List. Which I thought would be a funny thing. Why did you cut that joke? Well, because we cut the whole story point. Oh, shoot. We didn't have, we cut the whole thing about him realizing, but it didn't,

no part of that story is in the episode. Mr. Piazutter. And we cut jokes out of every episode. I mean, on the new show also, we write long. Yeah. And then in editing, we tighten and tightened and tighten and tighten. And there's these little beauties on the floor. And you have to revive them in podcast interviews.

Yes, I was waiting for this exact moment to, uh, so your listener might be wondering, does he still have ADD? And the answer is yes, I do. I don't know. Yeah. We'll see. All right, blue cards. Let's take a look. One, two, three.

Oh, I already did one, two, and three. Now I've got to double back. Let's go back to one. Number one. Are you good at forgiveness? Yes, I think I am. New card. No, I'm just kidding.

I think I am. Really? There's more to say there. Yeah, I think... Well, I'm going to ask you more about it. I think it's something I've worked on. I think in the past I have held the grudge. How'd that work out?

Not great. I don't love it. Holding a grudge. It doesn't benefit me or the person. I think actually what I've gotten good at is deciding I'm going to hold a grudge and then forgetting to. So people say like I forgive but I don't forget. I'm the opposite. I don't forgive, but I do forget.

So that eventually turns around to forgiveness because I've stopped to fix it on it. You're like run into the person at a party or something and you start chatting. You're like, damn it. I was going to ignore you. I was mad at that person. Yeah. No, I really, I think I am very understanding. Am I very understanding?

I think I'm a regular amount of understanding that we are all humans and we make mistakes and sometimes we get in our own way or the ways of other people. Yeah. Okay. Three more cards. More? Yes. All right. One, two, or three.

Let's do three. In moments of conflict, do you step in or step back? Oh, back. Back? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not like a... I don't know if we need to get into this. I don't know. I don't know about this.

You're getting pretty aggressive right now. You're not... Let me solve this. I hear you saying this. I hear you saying this. Let's come together. You retreat. No, because I overthink. I think I kind of extrapolate.

all the different ways it could go wrong. And I think I step back in moments of conflict. I think that's my instinct. I'm sure it happens to you. I mean, you're the boss of a lot of people. And it's a creative pursuit. And I'm sure there are differences of opinion. And people are people.

And so there's going to be a lot of people conflicts. Well, that's what's, I mean, what's nice about being the boss is there's a hierarchy there. And so it's not really a conflict because I can say, no, I want to do it. way now or or that guy's right that that guy's wrong um so you know de facto you have to step in because you are well I wouldn't call that stepping in yeah that's like right like yeah I'd see like similar to my uh don't forgive but forget approach I think that's how I deal with conflict too

of like oh this feels really sticky let me uh let me work through all the different you know myriad possible ways this could go and by the time I'm done working through it every else has moved on. Okay. Last one in this round. One, two, or three. I'll do, I've lost track. I'll do two, I think, this time.

Are you good at knowing when something should end? I don't know. Am I? I feel like we are reaching the perimeter of my own self-knowledge here. I'm not quite sure. Fair enough. You could skip it? Am I, no, I want to, I want to engage.

I want to engage. I don't know if I have a good or interesting answer to it. I guess it's a yes or no question. So I could just say yes or no and leave it at that. But I won't let you. Technically. I could and you have no, there's no method by which you could stop me. It's true.

The rules don't account for that. It's true. Am I good at knowing? What was the question? Could you tell me again? Are you good at knowing when things should end? I mean, that could be in your actual. life or that can be in storytelling?

Yeah, I think I'm good at knowing when this line of conversation should end. I think we've reached the end of its how much interestingness we're going to milk out of me pondering this. So I'm going to say yes, I'm good and

that should end now. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to accept that or if I'm going to ask to... Judges will we allow it? Fine. We've arrived at the last round of this experience. Okay.

Okay. So it sounds like you are good at knowing when things should end. I really am. And now we're getting close. We're done. We're wrapping it up. Yeah. Okay.

One, two, or three. What's the category now? Beliefs. Beliefs. Okay. I believe I will take number three. However your feelings about God changed over time. They haven't changed in a while.

but when I was a kid I believed in God. I don't now. Is that the one inflection point? Well, I'd say it was a gradual inflection point. Your family was religious. Yes, but not in a faith-based way. Like, I don't, you know, I never experienced, I mean, this is the one, you know,

one of the things I wanted to show with my show, which is about a Jewish family, is I feel like a lot of the ways we talk about religion in our society is kind of viewed through a Christian lens. And I think, you know, mainline Christianity, faith is very much an important facet of it. And there's a lot of, you know, kind of emphasis on do you believe or do you have doubt or what does it mean to believe? And can you be a good religious person if you don't believe? And what is the point if you don't believe? And I feel like that was never, in my experience, a real tenet of Judaism.

I mean, I think there are people who believe in God. But I don't think that's the most important thing or what makes somebody a religious person. And so it was not pounded into me that, like, God is real. And, you know, you have to believe in him or this is all going to fall apart. So if it wasn't God, then what was it? Well, but it was. But, I mean, but God. was still kind of in the fabric of all of it.

I mean, we told these stories about God. It was never explicitly stated to me, like, these are just stories. Don't, you know, chill out about it. And so it did take kind of my own exploration. And I think it was very much, you know, on me to decide for myself what I believed and didn't believe. And then for a while, I didn't identify as an atheist either

because I found atheists very annoying online. Just the way. The certainty of it all. Yeah, or just not like, again, it's like, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, this combining of faith with religion in a way that I felt really didn't apply to me. So I think, I think what I saw from atheism was kind of this reaction to religion. But when they were saying religion, even though they said it's about all religion, it really meant focused on a kind of religiosity that I never. belonged to in the first place. And so it didn't speak to me.

I think like Jews, there are a whole bunch of different kinds of atheists who go about things in all kinds of ways. So could you find just another brand of atheism? Maybe I'm a reform atheist. I'm not Orthodox atheist. Maybe that's, you know, if I could find a good atheist shul, that's probably where I'd want to go. No, because again, like, these kind of these conversations around theology were never very interesting to me personally. And they didn't kind of get to the heart of what was interesting

to me about religion. But religion is interesting to you. I think so. But it wasn't, I mean, you made a whole show about a family and how it's reckoning with. Right. But so for me, I think what's interesting about religion, and again, this is kind of the Judaism that I grew up with that I practiced is it's about community. It's about history. tradition, it's about family, perhaps a little bit of morality. That's probably in there somewhere too. But it's not central. Not central.

No, I think it's culture more than it is anything else. And that I think is what I hold dear in my own religious practice is the cultural aspect of it. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Next three questions. One, two or three. All right. We'll do question one this time.

Okay. When do you feel connected to people you've lost? Well, so again, I think religion is one way I stay connected. I think, you know, I do these things that, you know, I don't necessarily believe that they can see me or that there's a God who can see me doing these things. But I do these things and I remember them. Rituals. rituals, yes, I light the candles. I eat the chala.

I look for the chmets before Passover. I do these things that I shared with the people that I love, or that I know they did long before I was born. And it connects me to them. And it feels like I am part of a thread. And that continues through my children. and I do them with my children and I remember the people that I've lost.

I loved the episode in the new show where the family, the troopers are grieving because their mom has died, the matriarch of the family. And grief is so complicated, right?

Everyone has a different way that feels very urgent in the moment of how to mark this moment. And Avi, the older brother, sees this pin that used to be his mom's, and it's going to be hard to get back, but he's obsessed with getting this pin back. And I'm so related to that. And also the rest of his family, it's like, forget that. Let's just go be together with our other brother who's miles away. Let's go find him. Let's just hang out together and have Shabbat service, and that's what mom would want.

And it is illustrative of the value of those rituals, the being together, but also how wild grief can be and how something that from the outside or in hindsight can seem so random or inconsequential and in grief, it can be the only thing. The only thing that matters is like getting this brooch back and like nothing else will satisfy my particular. longing for this person in this moment? Well, there's a line about grief on the show in a different episode where one of the characters says the other, it isn't a straight line. And I think that has been so much of what I have had to grapple with through my experiences with grief that you can't just read the idiot's guide to and expect you're going to hit all the steps in the right order and then you'll be done with it.

that it does kind of double back and bubble up in surprising ways and make you into an irrational person sometimes. And that's okay. That's part of it. I think through that irrationality, we also remember and we grieve. And I think that grief is that connection. But I love that about that family because so often it can be attention in families. Like this person's not grieving the right way. And this person's doing something that it doesn't make sense to me at all. And they're leaving us behind. And it just felt like you created, you teased out those differences and in the end, everybody still like is accepting of all the different manifestations of people's grief. It was well done. Yes. That's right. Was there a

particular loss that you leaned on to write that storyline? No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say there was one. Yeah. So, we are one question away from being at the end. What if I skip this one? That would be a pretty anti-climactic one day. I would. I was just like, skip. I'm sorry, see you later.

I'm like, I got it. The pressure's on. I got to answer this one. Especially now that I'm saying out loud that I got to answer it. Now it's be even more disappointing if I don't. Right. One, two, or three. Let's do three for the finale.

Let's go big. What does it mean to live a good life? I don't know And scene I mean Does anyone I mean I think I'm not going to

I'm not going to let you get away with that one You're there's inherent in your work Yeah I think this is the question That I am struggling with Through all my work I think if I knew the answer I wouldn't have to write anymore

I'd be done I would go live my good life But I think it you know I think it boils down To being kind to people like when you go hiking through the woods to leave this place a little better than where you find it.

I think it's about holding the door open for the people who come after you. I think it's, as I said, to be kind. I mean, I think that's what it boils down to. Kind and righteous, I think, to speak out against injustices. I think to do what you can to make the world better

and I think it is hard because we don't always know how to do that. Yeah. But I think that's what I think that's what living a good life is. The trying. You know, I've, I've, one thing I've, I've, I say to my kid, when I drop him off at school in the morning, as I say, you know, today I want you to be kind and curious and brave. And I think those are, you know, you could, you could replace those three adjectives with anything else. but those, I think, if you try in your life to be kind and curious and brave, I think that's a good first step.

We end the show the same way every time with a trip in our memory time machine. Okay. So this is it. You just pick one moment from your past. It is not a moment you would change anything about. It's just a moment in which you would like to linger a little longer. Which moment do you choose? I mean, this maybe is a cliche answer, but I feel like it's hard for me to want to be in any moment other than where I'm at right now, like the vast accumulation of my experiences.

And any time, if I were to think about going back to another moment in the past, then I have to think, well, that means that this hasn't happened yet or that I haven't gotten to experience the joy of that or the heartbreak of that. And so I feel like this is a dodge because I understand what you're asking. But I feel like... No, but I think this is an interesting answer. I don't want to go back and re-experience other moments. I think I would want to change things. I think even the moments that I'm remembering with the rosiest of glasses, if I were to actually experience them, I'd go, oh, this isn't quite as nice as I remembered.

Or like, oh, I might want to fix that or change that. And so I'd rather have the memory. I'd rather live now in the present with the memories of all that I've experienced. Does that mean that right now is where you want to be with me? This moment. There's nowhere else I'd rather be right now. Or no when else. This is the time.

This is the place. But I do think that's an interesting answer from a person who made a show about memory and how it also changes when you look back at it. You know what? I'm an interesting guy. It turns out. It turns out. How about that? Rafael Bob Waxburg, his new show is called Long Story Short. It's on Netflix right now. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for doing this. Thank you.

Okay, so now that we're at the end of this episode, could I ask you to do us a huge favor and go rate and review our show? We would so appreciate it. It's really easy and it's a super helpful way to support Wildcard by getting more people to find it. I would specifically like to thank C3 Anchored, who wrote. I look forward to every episode of this podcast. I always try to answer the questions along with the guests and think about how to have these conversations with others. I take a trip every time in the memory time machine to linger a little longer with my husband on a sailboat in the Caribbean, a magical time I cherish, especially since he passed away.

Thank you so much for that note. It means a lot that you were willing to share that memory with us. To everyone else, please share what you like about our show by rating or reviewing it in your podcast app, do it now. Today's episode was produced by Lee Hale and edited by Dave Blanchard. It was mastered by Patrick Murray and Jimmy Keely. Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sangweni, and our theme music is by the one and only Romteen Arablewey.

As always, you can reach out to us at Wildcard at npr.org. We love hearing from you truly write us. We'll shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. Talk to you then.