Netflix's adult animated comedy BoJack Horseman featured an elaborate reference to NBC drama This Is Us in the former's sixth and final season, completing a subplot that had been brewing since season 5. BoJack Horseman has been known to showcase deep pop culture references, outlandish plotlines, and long-running bits, providing extra hidden gems of jokes that are destined to be timeless. The season 6 This Is Us reference is one such gag.
This high-effort joke manages to clearly refer to the NBC show without directly name dropping it. It starts in BoJack Horseman season 5, episode 9, “Ancient History,” when Mr. Peanutbutter approaches Princess Carolyn with a new movie pitch. His idea for his next film venture is inspired by a greeting card he found that reads “Happy Birthday Dad!” So, naturally, without any concrete ideas for plot or setting, he’s moved to star in a film titled “Birthday Dad.”
Later in BoJack Horseman season 6, episode 2, “The New Client,” Princess Carolyn is forced to rapidly and retroactively edit down Birthday Dad to ensure that there is equal screen time for male and female characters. Director Flea Daniels then angrily calls Princess Carolyn to tell her that the movie mixes up flashbacks with the real-time scenes, has convoluted relationships between characters, and is only 42 minutes long. The result is that Birthday Dad can't be released as a film; however, the ever-resourceful Princess Carolyn pitches Birthday Dad as a TV show to a desperate Pinky Penguin, who gratefully accepts — and the show becomes a hit. The premise refers to conventions of This Is Us, as the popular NBC show has a lot of interconnected characters, frequent flashbacks, multiple timelines, as well as a roughly 40-minute runtime. Birthday Dad is from then on effectively a parody of This Is Us in the BoJack universe.
In "The New Client," which is among the best BoJack episodes of all time, Princess Carolyn pitches Birthday Dad with various questions, relating to how convoluted the story became after it was edited to have gender parity: “How are all these characters related? When does the show take place? How does Birthday Dad die? These are mysteries we’ll tease all season.” This correlates with a major plot point in This Is Us: the mysterious death of the father of the big three, Jack Pearson. Also, the pilot of This Is Us takes place on the shared birthday of Jack Pearson and his kids, which aligns with the Bojack iteration, Birthday Dad.
Later in season 6, Mr. Peanutbutter mentions that Birthday Dad won a Nobel Prize for television, an award that was made up solely for the genius of that show. This is a reference to the many awards that This Is Us has received over the years and is also a nice wrap up to a multi-season, running gag of BoJack Horseman. The intricate allusion to This Is Us was definitely subtle, but surely a rewarding reference for any dedicated television watcher.
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