2 l May
30 - June 5, 2021
Northeast Oregon TV Weekly
BY JAY BOBBIN
Lisa Kudrow lends her voice
to the animated comedy series
“HouseBroken,” premiering
Monday on Fox.
Lisa Kudrow gets ‘HouseBroken’
as an animated poodle
Even a cartoon poodle has to have friends,
as Lisa Kudrow realizes.
With one of television’s most enduringly
popular sitcoms to her credit – “Friends,” of
course – along with “The Comeback” and
“Web Therapy,” the actress-producer tries
something different in returning to weekly
humor. She speaks for the central character
in the animated Fox series “HouseBroken,”
premiering Monday, May 31.
Kudrow’s Honey leads group therapy
sessions for neighborhood pets and strays,
most of whom reflect traits also likely to be
recognized in humans. While counseling
such peers as a commitment-phobic tortoise
(voiced by Will Forte) and an OCD-
afflicted terrier (“Veep” Emmy winner Tony
Hale), Honey has her own troubles via her
arranged marriage to a St. Bernard (Nat
Faxon). Sharon Horgan (“Catastrophe”) and
Clea DuVall, who voice other characters, are
among the show’s executive producers.
“I just saw the cast and said, ‘Yeah! I want
to be in that group,’ ” the pleasant, lively
Kudrow explains. “It was just such a funny
idea, pets getting together to have therapy.
Honey isn’t qualified to be a therapist,
but her human is one.” Noting her “Web
Therapy” past, Kudrow muses, “I’m going
to be typecast.”
As for “HouseBroken” animals mirroring
real-world situations, Kudrow cites one
whose “humans are separating, so he’s going
back and forth between them, and he’s
anxious.” Kudrow was a bit anxious herself
in determining how Honey should sound,
and she allows she made what she terms
“the wrong choice” initially.
“I had to go back and re-record,” she
says, “because I thought, ‘Oh, that would
be really funny.’ And then, it wasn’t. She
sounded a little too superior; maybe I was
bumping into what I did in ‘Web Therapy.’
The thought was that she’s a poodle and
thinks she’s a little better than everybody
else, but it didn’t work at all. I had to
adjust.”
Kudrow agrees “HouseBroken” is an
ideal job in the time of the coronavirus
pandemic. “We got to do table reads over
Zoom,” she reports, though she laments
that in mostly recording by herself, “You
don’t get to chat or exchange moments
while getting coffee. Nat Faxon and I got to
record together ... and good luck to whoever
is putting that together, because I just
laughed every time he spoke! Clea also came
to some sessions and read with me.”
Reunited recently with her “Friends”
colleagues to record a long-awaited HBO
Max special, Kudrow has been a guest voice
on such other animated series as “The
Simpsons” and “King of the Hill.” She notes
that with the timing of “HouseBroken”
specifically, “it was helpful to know, ‘Oh. I
have something I have to do.’ It was really
nice to be busy with something.”
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