Champing at the bit: BoJack Horseman, voiced by Will Arnett.

Grown up life can be tough, with work to do and bills to

pay, but after a hard day there is nothing better than coming home and relaxing by settling into something easy to watch on the box.

Perhaps that’s why colourful adults-only cartoons are so popular. While stalwarts Family Guy and King of the Hill continue to reign supreme, Netflix’s first animated sitcom BoJack Horseman is proving it has the horse power to go the distance, with season three screening on Netflix.

Each snappy episode of this clever Hollywood celebrity satire, written and produced by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, is based on depressed, alcoholic humanoid horse BoJack Horseman (voiced by Will Arnett, Arrested Development), the original star of ’90s sitcom Horsin’ Around. BoJack’s career was fly-kicked to the kerb when the sitcom was cancelled.

Now a couple of lost decades later, he’s trying to make it big

again in Hollywood, with the help of human sidekick Diane Nguyen (Alison Brie) and feline ex-girlfriend Princess Caroline (Amy Sedaris).

However, this new path to stardom is vastly different from the old days, and navigating sex, drugs and rock’n’roll in his 50s, alongside Twitter and freeloaders like roommate Todd Chavez (Aaron Paul, Breaking

Bad), has some hilarious, and sometimes sad, consequences.

After a dark first and second seasons, filled with emotional confusion and self-inflicted misery from both the bipedal animal and human characters (with light relief from celebrity stars including Beyonce, Olivia Wilde, Lisa Kudrow and Liev Schreiber,

appearing as either themselves or as anthropomorphic animal versions), the third season starts brightly, finding BoJack on the cusp of regaining his super-stardom. He has a new film, Secretariat, set to hit theatres, and there’s even rumours of an Oscar nomination.

But like all good celebrity stardom tales, the path to success does not come without

its bumps. During a gruelling press tour, BoJack grows nostalgic for his old boozy, simple life and begins to self-sabotage the rekindled career he so badly wanted.

That is the beauty of this tragicomedy – while serving up plenty of on-point jokes, it also has a meaningful theme hidden deep in its core.

Bursting the real-life Hollywood glamour bubble, it focuses on the horrors of trying obsessively to get what you want and then finding it might not be what you need after all.

As Arnett said: “There are a lot of things [BoJack] gets right about Hollywood and a lot of things it gets right about life.

“If you look at all these characters where they started in season one and where they are now, I think you could potentially call this show: ‘Raphael has decided you’re not exactly who the f--- you think you are and here’s why.’

“There’s lot of truth there. It can be depressing and it can be sad but it can also be really fantastic,” he said.

So, if you like your evening entertainment humorous yet dark and thought-provoking, then look no further.

n BoJack Horseman, available on Netflix. Visit www.netflix.com.au.

Back in the saddle

Feature Story

Cartoons are no longer child’s play, and the new season of BoJack Horseman is definitely adults-only, writes Claire Henderson.

“That is the beauty of this tragicomedy – while serving up plenty of on-point jokes,

it also has a meaningful theme hidden deep in its core.”