If I told you about an American TV sitcom in which the vain and egotistical hero was formerly the star of a much-cherished TV sitcom (“Horsin’ Around”), now over the hill and bored with his lifestyle and the fact that nobody will employ him, he is badgered by his exasperated agent into writing his memoirs, you’d yawn and say you’d heard it all before – and you’d probably be right at that.

Now imagine the same basic plot line in the form of an adult animation with one really clever conceit.  The hero is an anthropomorphic horse (ie. on two legs and equipped with every other known human attribute), and the parallel universe in which these events unfold is one in which anthropomorphic animals live along with human beings, thus enabling the creators to satirise not only the behaviour of animals but to use those characters to satirise categories of human behaviour.

If that is not brilliant, I don’t know what is.  Question is though: will it sustain a whole series?  After all, very many TV sitcoms flatter to deceive, by which I mean their ideas and jokes run out of steam, the characters become irritating and show zero signs of development, and the whole enterprise looks like an old nag that needs shooting – at which point the broadcaster will either stop it in its tracks or at least withdraw the budget from a second series.

In this case, the broadcaster is Netflix, the series is created by Raphael Bob-Waksburg, numbers Aaron Paul and Will Arnett as executive producers and co-stars; guest voiceovers artistes include the likes of Stanley Tucci, Naomi Watts (playing her own alter ego), JK Simmons and Anjelica Huston; regular cast includes Amy Sedaris, Alison Brie, Paul F Tompkins and many more.  In short, this is a series that has clout, and backing AND apparently has won funding for series 2.

That the hero is a horse is not particularly relevant, equine showbiz being not that different to the human variety, so we gather.  But every horse, sorry star, needs his sidekicks, and in this case Todd Chavez (Paul), a drifter who came to a party and never left; Princess Carolyn (Sedaris), a pink anthropomorphic cat, BH’s agent and sometime girlfriend; Mr Peanutbutter (Tompkins), the hero’s anthropomorphic golden retriever frenemy, boyfriend and later husband of ghost writer and Vietnamese-American competitive love interest Dianne (Brie.)  Maybe not what you would choose but a closely-defined set of characters off whom the ego-rich guilt-ridden Horseman can bounce.

Since the plot isn’t anything particularly special, the secret has to be to charm the socks off the audience and, most important of all, make ’em laugh.  You can forgive a lot of clunkiness if the script leaves viewers rolling in the aisles, such that it builds up a cult following and gets the word of mouth.

The script of BH undeniably has some great gags, supplemented by visual funnies and the occasional surrealistic flight of fancy.  The style of humour reminds me more than a little of the winning formula employed by Family Guy, namely one third each biting satire (here on Hollywood lifestyles and the bloated egos that come with it), puerile belly laughs aimed largely at the adolescent viewers, and for the adults watching, just a touch of delicious dry humour – the sort that often goes unnoticed but is the funniest of the lot.

Series 1 comes out as an amiable and watchable ensemble, in which most jokes are aimed at the title character for the many flaws.  You won’t be surprised to hear that a good number of gags fall flat on occasion, taking the script and entertainment value with them, but hey spray on enough and some will stick.  Worked for Airplane!

But thankfully there is more to Bojack Horseman than wall-to-wall artificial laughter.  The writers, bless their hearts, have tried to include some light and shade in the form of human drama, dealing with conflict and managing failure, which some might argue is the secret of anyone’s success, some cod philosophy, and even a bit of sex thrown in for good measure – though some might suggest that inter-species relationships is a little too close to bestiality, even if the beasts in question are anthropomorphic!

The real test was whether my son would fall for it, as most American audiences apparently did.  To date he is not hooked, just as I was not hooked – but at least I watched the whole of series 1!