Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist

***Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist*** is an American adult animated sitcom that originally ran on Comedy Central from May 28, 1995, to February 13, 2002. The series starred the voice talents of Jonathan Katz, H. Jon Benjamin, and Laura Silverman. The show was created by Burbank, California, production company Popular Arts Entertainment (executive producers: Tim Braine, Kevin Meagher, and David Pritchard), with Jonathan Katz and Tom Snyder, developed and first made by Popular Arts for HBO Downtown Productions. Boston-based Tom Snyder Productions became the hands-on production company, and the episodes were usually produced by Katz and Loren Bouchard. It won a Peabody Award in 1998.

The show was computer-animated in a crude, easily recognizable style produced with the software Squigglevision (a device Snyder had employed in his educational animation business) in which all persons and animate objects are in color and have constantly squiggling outlines, while most other inanimate objects are static and usually shades of gray. The original challenge Popular Arts faced was how to repurpose recorded stand-up comedy material. To do so, they based Dr. Katz's patients on stand-up comics for the first several episodes, simply having them recite their stand-up acts. The secondary challenge was how to affordably animate on cable TV at the time. Snyder (a boyhood friend of Braine's) had Squigglevision, an inexpensive means of getting animation on cable, which could not afford traditional animation processes. A partnership between Popular Arts, Tom Snyder Productions and Jonathan Katz was formed, and thus, Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist was born.

## Show Description

* Dr. Katz is a professional psychotherapist. He is a laid-back, well-intentioned man who enjoys playing the guitar and spending time at the bar with his friend Stanley and bartender Julie. Therapy sessions - normally two per episode, with the patients played by well-known comics and actors - anchor the show. Those that feature comics generally consist of onstage material contributed by the guest, while Dr. Katz offers insights or simply lets them talk. Therapy sessions that feature actors contain more interpersonal dialogue between Dr. Katz and his patient.

Interspersed between therapy sessions are scenes involving Dr. Katz's daily life, which includes his aimless, childish 24-year-old son Ben (Jon Benjamin), his uninterested and unhelpful secretary, Laura (Laura Silverman), and his two friends: Stanley (Will LeBow) and bartender Julie, voiced by one of the show's producers, Julianne Shapiro. In later episodes, Todd (Todd Barry), a video store clerk, becomes a regular character.

Most episodes begin with Dr. Katz and Ben at breakfast. The plots include events like Ben attempting to become a radio personality, believing he has ESP, or suffering from a moral conundrum after receiving a chain letter. The development of these plots alternates with the segments of Dr. Katz and his guests in therapy sessions.

Much of the show's content, particularly dialogue between Dr. Katz and Ben, is improvised through a process called "retroscripting", in which a vague outline is developed but the actual dialogue is ad-libbed. This style, as well as the animation technique Squigglevision, would reappear in Home Movies, a cartoon on which many members of the Dr. Katz cast and crew worked.

## Episode List

* The following is a list of episodes of *Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist*. The show ran for 6 seasons and 81 episodes.