'Long Story Short' Creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg Plans To Explore "Different Corners of the Universe" in Season 2

Tell me if you've heard this before: families can be complicated. It's such a clichéd thing to say, but there's a world of complexity to unpack with it. Some of the best TV shows have explored the intricacies of families, but none have done it in a way quite like the Netflix animated series Long Story Short. Told in a non-linear fashion, the comedy-drama show is centered on three adult siblings – Avi (Ben Feldman), Shira (Abbi Jacobson), and Yoshi (Max Greenfield) – as they experience life while looking back on their childhood and their parents, played by Lisa Edelstein and Paul Reiser.

The animated show is the brainchild of Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the showrunner behind hit series like BoJack Horseman and Undone. He's no stranger to unpacking mature themes like depression, generational trauma, and existential dread. In Long Story Short, he trades out the flashy backdrop of Hollywood for a deeply personal story about a Bay Area middle-class Jewish family that explores the people who shape us, all while making you laugh with zany, yet sharp comedy.

In celebration of Season 1, Collider spoke with Bob-Waksberg and star Lisa Edelstein about the reception they earned for Long Story Short Season 1 and what's ahead in Season 2. Plus, Bob-Waksberg described the safety he felt from his entire cast to tell a vulnerable, personal story. Watch the full interview in the video above, or you can read the transcript below.

Raphael Bob-Waksberg Reacts to 'Long Story Short's Season 1 Audience Reception

"I feel like the show has been caught so beautifully."

COLLIDER: What has it meant for you to see the reaction to Season 1 so far? By the way, congratulations on an excellent first season.

RAPHAEL BOB-WAKSBERG: It's been incredible. I mean, I think so much of what any artist does is personal and vulnerable if you're doing your job right. I think inherent in that is a risk of, what if I'm just a big weirdo, right? I'm always writing for myself, you know, very selfishly. What's the kind of thing that I think is funny? What do I think is interesting?

LISA EDELSTEIN: That's your greatest resource.

BOB-WAKSBERG: Because it's my only compass.

EDELSTEIN: Yeah, yeah.

BOB-WAKSBERG: I can't predict what other people are going to like, and so I'm just going off my own gut.

EDELSTEIN: That's right.

BOB-WAKSBERG: I do feel like some version of art is like throwing yourself across a chasm and hoping there's someone on the other side who's going to catch you. I feel like the show has been caught so beautifully. People are getting it in the way that we intended for people to get it. It's really nice to see people go, "Oh, I wouldn't think I would relate to this scenario, but this is just like my mother." Or, "This is nothing like my mother, but that's just like my wife. Oh, I understand this entirely, and this means something to me." Yes, and I think people are picking up what we're putting down. It's very nice to see.

Lisa Edelstein Knew She Was the Right Choice for 'Long Story Short's Naomi Schwartz

"He would have been wrong if I wasn’t in the show."

You just mentioned so much about what you write tends to be very personal. What was it about Lisa [Edelstein] that made you realize you had found your Naomi for this?

BOB-WAKSBERG: That's a great question. I don't know, other than I'd say she came in and made it feel less personal in a good way. She immediately took ownership of the character and felt like she understood this character maybe even more than I did, which made me feel like, "Oh, I'm in safe hands."

EDELSTEIN: I love that.

BOB-WAKSBERG: That she, I think, loved the character for all her hard edges and didn't sit in judgment of her. [She] just really understood what was funny about her and what was difficult about her without making her a caricature. And I felt like, "OK, I can relax. I don't have to explain who this character is because this woman gets it."

EDELSTEIN: Well, but it's the same thing you're talking about with writing. You have to come from your own body. That's the only place. It's the only resource you have, and it's an amazing resource. Everybody's body has a different thing to offer. When the right body walks in and has that life to offer you, you recognize it. It always felt really great to me, and he [Bob-Waksberg] would have been wrong if I wasn't in the show. [Laughs]

BOB-WAKSBERG: We had all of our actors read for us, which I couldn't believe. Some of them were less formalized than others, but I didn't think of them as auditions. I thought of it as like, "I want to test the chemistry." We recorded everybody and then played them off in different combinations. For Max Greenfield, I got sent an audio clip of him, and he said in his intro, "Hello, I'm Max Greenfield. I'll be reading for Yoshi, Avi, and Danny, but really I should play Yoshi. It's crazy that you'd be hearing anyone else to play this part, obviously." And I was like, "OK, this guy's pretty confident," and then I listened and was like, "Oh, he's right." [Laughs] He understands, it's the same with him and that character. He just gets this on a level more than I do. He's locking into something.

EDELSTEIN: That's interesting. You can step back because you know there's a living, breathing version of this character at that point.

Raphael Bob-Waksberg Teases the Future of 'Long Story Short'

"The scaffolding has been built. Let's explore the rooms of this house."

Looking ahead to Season 2, I know you're working on it right now. What themes have you been seeing arise from the story? What parts of time are we in?

BOB-WAKSBERG: What can I tease?

What can you tease?

BOB-WAKSBERG: We haven't even thought about how we're promoting Season 2 yet. We haven't had a conversation. How are we positioning this? But I'm excited that we get to go deeper. I feel like Season 1 is a lot about "OK. We got to introduce these characters. We got to make you fall in love with them." Now Season 2 is like, "Alright, you love them now. Let's have some fun." We get to go to different corners of the universe and kind of poke at them in different places and learn some new things. I had a lot of fun being like, "OK, the scaffolding has been built. Let's explore the rooms of this house."

EDELSTEIN: Exactly. You don't have to establish anything anymore.

BOB-WAKSBERG: You get to establish so much more.

LISA EDELSTEIN: I know!

BOB-WAKSBERG: You get to learn so much more about these characters.

Long Story Short is available to stream on Netflix.