Raphael Bob-Waksberg has left behind the shield of talking animals in “Bojack Horseman” and “Tuca & Bertie” to deliver a deeply personal family animated sitcom called “Long Story Short,” a 10-episode Netflix comedy that plays more like a powerful short story anthology than a traditional season of laugh-inducing television. With his writing team, Bob-Waksberg jumps around chronologically in the lives of the Schwooper family, going almost randomly from character to character and time period to time period in each episode, telling self-contained stories that gain added resonance in the accumulation.
I can remember after the funeral of a beloved uncle, when I was just a teenager, sitting in a back room and hearing his brothers and nephews tell stories about him. “Long Story Short” has that energy, a melancholic yet joyous tribute through comedic storytelling to a family that may not be your own, but that isn’t all that far off either.
The Ben Stiller in this variation on “The Royal Tenenbaums” is Avi (Ben Feldman of “Superstore”), the oldest child of the Schwooper clan, which also includes Shira (Abbi Jacobson of “Broad City”) and Yoshi (Max Greenfield of “New Girl”). We will check in with these characters at various stages of their lives, seeing both a young Avi and one post-divorce; seeing Shira at a disastrous prom and as a mother; seeing Yoshi as an awkward troublemaker and becoming an Orthodox Jew later in life. All of these events are in the shadow of a figure that’s powerful to the storytelling, even when she’s absent, matriarch Naomi Schwartz (Lisa Edelstein), wife to the kind Elliott (Paul Reiser). Naomi checks a few boxes of the stereotypical Jewish mother in a comedy, but Edelstein voices her with such depth, and Bob-Waksberg gives her such unexplored interiority that when she’s passed away in episodes set closer to the present day, we can still feel her presence.
The Schwoopers have significant others, friends, and children, including Avi’s wife, Jen (Angelique Cabral), Shira’s partner, Kendra (a wonderful Nicole Byer), Avi’s daughter, Hannah (Michaela Dietz), and Yoshi’s idiotic friend, Danny (Dave Franco). Once again, the writing is unpredictable in how it will branch off to tell a story about any one of these characters. My favorite episode of the season offers some unexpected backstory for Kendra, the kind of developmental anecdote that allows you to see someone in a different light. “Long Story Short” introduces its cast and then spins off into their backgrounds just enough that we feel like we know them so much better when they’re reunited back in the present day in the eighth episode.
Co-animated by ShadowMachine, who worked on projects as diverse as “Tuca” and “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” “Long Story Short” isn’t the most visually striking show on TV. At times, it feels almost like it has an animation style simplified enough to be the sketches of one of the characters, something that Shira might have scribbled in a memory book. It takes some time to get used to the style, but it’s deceptively simple, able to open up in ways that live-action could never achieve. Animation also serves the purpose of time jumping, which would require recasting the voice actors of some of that “Irishman” de-aging voodoo if it were a traditional sitcom.
The voice acting is uniformly strong, especially Feldman, Jacobson, and Edelstein, who are all on the same comedic wavelength. Most importantly, the voice actors fade into their characters, never sounding like celebrities phoning it in from a recording booth. Greenfield, Byer, Reiser, and Franco are all excellent, too. It’s a case of a vocal ensemble clearly invigorated by excellent writing.
To be fair, some of that very good writing verges on being overly sitcomish, especially with the follies of the teenage Schwoopers, but there’s an empathy and tenderness to it that can’t be underestimated. So many shows feel cynically crafted by writers who barely stand their own characters; the team here loves the Schwoopers in all their flaws and wonders. You will too.
Whole season screened for review. Now on Netflix.
