{"id":603610,"date":"2026-08-25T00:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T00:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/603610\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T00:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T00:04:09","slug":"bojack-horseman-exists-thanks-to-this-lighthearted-60s-family-sitcom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/603610\/","title":{"rendered":"BoJack Horseman Exists Thanks To This Lighthearted &#8217;60s Family Sitcom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            &#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<\/p>\n<p>                                             &#13;<br \/>\n                                                    &#13;<br \/>\n                            &#13;<br \/>\n                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"gallery-image \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/intro-1786641538.jpg\" data-slide-url=\"https:\/\/www.tvline.com\/2240778\/bojack-horseman-exists-60s-family-sitcom-mister-ed\/\" data-post-id=\"2240778\" data-slide-num=\"0\" data-slide-title=\"BoJack Horseman Exists Thanks To This Lighthearted '60s Family Sitcom: \" width=\"780\" height=\"438\" alt=\"BoJack Horseman sitting on a lounge chair on his balcony with his arms on his knees\"\/>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                    Netflix<\/p>\n<p>During its six-season run, animated series &#8220;BoJack Horseman&#8221; developed a reputation known for its wacky yet charismatic comedy paired with the fact that it was a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tvline.com\/2162465\/sad-tv-shows-make-you-cry\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">sad show guaranteed to leave you in tears<\/a> \u2014 which is why it might come as a surprise that one of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tvline.com\/lists\/netflix-best-original-series-of-all-time-list\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the greatest Netflix series<\/a> only exists because of a particularly lighthearted 1960s family sitcom.<\/p>\n<p>In 2010, &#8220;BoJack&#8221; creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg was taking meetings with Steven Cohen, a producer at The Tornante Company and future executive producer on the series. After some back and forth, Bob-Waksberg came in for another conversation with five project pitches ready to go,\u00a0including one for &#8220;BoJack.&#8221; Tornante was an entertainment and media investment firm owned by former Disney CEO, Michael Eisner, who jumped into the end of that meeting.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In a one-minute hallway conversation, I was told three ideas. One of which being: &#8216;This one is about an animated show about a living &#8216;person&#8217; who has a body of a man and a head of a horse,'&#8221; Eisner explained to <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/aimMg#selection-1685.0-1689.82\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Vulture<\/a> in 2018. &#8220;Thinking that sounded interesting, original, and theatrical in this century \u2014 yet harking back to my youth of &#8216;Mister Ed,&#8217; the talking horse from the early &#8217;60s \u2014 I simply said, &#8216;Yes, let&#8217;s do that one.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                BoJack&#8217;s creator used Mister Ed as an influence for the series<\/p>\n<p>                                             &#13;<br \/>\n                                                    &#13;<br \/>\n                            &#13;<br \/>\n                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"gallery-image \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/bojacks-creator-used-mister-ed-as-an-influence-for-the-series-1786641539.jpg\" data-slide-url=\"https:\/\/www.tvline.com\/2240778\/bojack-horseman-exists-60s-family-sitcom-mister-ed\/\" data-post-id=\"2240778\" data-slide-num=\"1\" data-slide-title=\"BoJack Horseman Exists Thanks To This Lighthearted '60s Family Sitcom: BoJack's creator used Mister Ed as an influence for the series\" width=\"780\" height=\"438\" alt=\"Mister Ed posing next to Wilbur Post, who is smiling proudly\"\/>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                    Hulton Archive\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Getting in the room with former Disney CEO, Michael Eisner, was far from an easy feat \u2014 and certainly one that couldn&#8217;t happen without cause.\u00a0&#8220;That was the meeting to say, &#8216;This is a project we want to do,'&#8221;\u00a0Executive producer Noel Bright told <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/aimMg#selection-1697.83-1697.419\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Vulture<\/a> in 2018.\u00a0&#8220;&#8216;We believe in the idea, we think it&#8217;s great, and you should hear it \u2014 and you should hear it directly from Raphael.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Raphael Bob-Waksberg seemed to really understand the line of thinking that connected &#8220;BoJack&#8221; to &#8220;Mister Ed&#8221; for Eisner, which led him to imagine the series in terms of what Mister Ed might do behind the scenes and away from the camera.\u00a0The idea of delving into who a Mister Ed-style character is at his core allowed &#8220;BoJack&#8221; to go deeper on serious adult issues like regret, addiction, and ambition. Aside from having talking horses in their leading roles, the two series couldn&#8217;t have been more different. But one thing &#8220;BoJack Horseman&#8221; and &#8220;Mister Ed&#8221; \u2014 a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tvline.com\/2138739\/60s-tv-shows-could-never-be-made-today\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">1960s show that could never be made today<\/a> \u2014 share is their innate, undeniable sincerity, something that&#8217;s connected them in spirit all the way to Michael Eisner&#8217;s green light.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; Netflix During its six-season run, animated series &#8220;BoJack&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":["post-603610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}