Here's how 'BoJack Horseman' landed an amazing cameo in season 2
Netflix's original animated series "BoJack Horseman" has landed some huge names to lend voices to the show. During its short run, it has gotten Oscar-winning actor J.K. Simmons to play a tortoise and Naomi Watts to play herself.
In the fourth episode of season two, entitled "After the Party," it landed its biggest star to date.
In the episode, Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins) throws his wife Diane (Alison Brie) a surprise party, despite the fact that she hates both surprises and parties. The party is immediately ruined after they get into a big fight.
Throughout the episode, it's hinted that Paul McCartney is hiding inside a giant birthday cake.
Throughout the entire episode a potential McCartney appearance is teased, but you don't think much of it.
Then in the episode's final moments, long after the party ended, McCartney actually bursts out of the cake, but no no one's around to see or know he was there.
He has a few quick lines.
"Surprise!" McCartney sings.
"Hello? Anybody? This is Paul McCartney. I came all this way to jump out of a cake? Honest. With a new suit on. Aye-yai-yai," he says before the episode ends.
It might be hard to believe, but as revealed in the credits, that is, indeed, former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney:
"BoJack" creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg was so uncertain McCartney would actually lend his voice to the show, that he had a backup cameo of sorts planned.
"A lot of our celebrities who kind of play themselves ... we don't really know who its gonna be," Bob-Waksberg told Business Insider. "It's kind of an 'insert celebrity here' situation. Someone's gonna be in that cake and jump out. We talked like 'Who's the celebrity gonna be' and at first we had Kevin Bigley who did a lot of voices on our show. He kind of did an impression of Michael Bublé which is really funny. And then we got this email from Linda [Lamontagne] our casting director saying 'Hey, I think we can get this guy [Paul McCartney].' And I was like, 'No way! I don't believe you! We're sticking with the Michael Bublé impression.'"
While Bob-Waksberg had his doubts about whether or not McCartney would actually come on the show, casting director Linda Lamontagne used the word "tenacity" when describing how she eventually got McCartney to appear on the show.
"It's the material ... it's the script ... the scripts are so good on this show that they [McCartney's company] did respond." Lamontagne told Business Insider. "It took a little bit and we sort of had to wait it out for when we could get him and we were fortunate to be able to record him when he was in New York."
It was a cameo so surprising that even Bob-Waksberg didn't know it was going to happen until the last second.
"I was driving to work one day and I stopped for a smoothie and I was waiting for my smoothie and I got a call from Noel Bright, our executive producer, who said, 'Hey, did you get that email this morning?' And I said, 'No, what email?' And he said 'Yeah, he's [McCartney's] recording today. He's calling in in five minutes. You need to get over here.' And so I ran out of the smoothie place, got into my car and raced to the studio." recalled Bob-Waksberg.
Bob-Waksberg eventually made it to the office on time to record McCartney (he describes the musical legend as "a real sweetheart").
Typically, "Bojack Horseman" is made in Los Angeles. When they use voices of actors who live in other cities, they will typically go to a studio in whatever city they live in and Bob-Waksberg will direct them over the phone. However, they bent the rules a bit for McCartney.
"With him, because he's such a big star, we actually sent a guy with a microphone to his house. That's some real special treatment." said Bob-Waksberg.
Season two of "BoJack Horseman" begins streaming on Netflix on July 17.