PAGE 2 • TV
THE BULLETIN • MAY 27 - JUNE 2, 2021
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 much-
anticipated 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.”
Guide to the TV grids
TV Ratings:
‘G’: General audience
‘Y’: Young children
‘7’: Children over 7
‘14’: Children over 14
‘PG’: Parental guidance
‘M’: Mature audience only
PA: Parental advisory
DVS: Descriptive video service
EI: Educational/instructional
D: Dialogue
L: Language
S: Sexual situations
V: Violence
Common symbols :
HD scheduling, please
note:
’:I n stereo
Å: Closed captioning
iTV: Interactive TV program
N: Program is new
Schedules are based on standard-
definition (SD) channels. High-
definition (HD) channels may vary
by three hours when a West Coast
programming feed is not available to
your TV provider. Please refer to your
provider’s interactive TV guide for
detailed HD channel schedules.
For a list of cable and over-the-air
channels by zip code, as well
up-to-the-minute TV programming,
please visit www.bendbulletin.
com/tv. For questions or feedback
please call The Bulletin Circulation
Department at 541-385-5800.