The adult animated sitcom Hoops released its first season on Netflix today and is missing a key ingredient: Zooey Deschanel (500 days of Summer). The new raunchy comedy features the voices of Jake Johnson (Stumptown), Max Greenfield (American Horror Story), Damon Wayans Jr (Happy Endings) and Hannah Simone (New Girl). They all starred on Fox’s hit comedy New Girl, which ran from 2011 through 2018. But the star of New Girl, Deschanel, is noticeably not part of the reunion that takes place on Hoops. Jake Johnson revealed his reasons for not asking her to join the cast via Entertainment Weekly.
Johnson acknowledged the glaring absence of Deschanel on Hoops and explained why he didn’t want her to come aboard to Entertainment Weekly: “Honestly, I would have wanted Zooey but this show is so disgusting that I was a little embarrassed to ask her…I think I would have a hard time with Zooey in the room and me being like, “[Yelling] F— off, motherf—er, you motherf—ing piece of s—!…Even though she’s not a prude, I would feel a little weird about it.” Deschanel has not said anything regarding not being a part of Hoops. Another New Girl alum noticeably missing from the cast is Lamorne Morris (Game Night).
In addition to starring on the show, Johnson serves as executive producer alongside Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (21 Jump Street), Seth Cohen (Bless the Harts) and M. Dickinson (Disenchantment). Hoops is created by Ben Hoffman (The Ben Show) who also guest starred on New Girl. The first season consists of ten half hour long episodes.
For adults who watch animated shows like Rick and Morty or Big Mouth, Hoops acts as another adult-animated show with swears sandwiched between every other word. Johnson portrays Ben Hopkins, a burnt out, angry and profane man going nowhere in his life. When asked to start coaching the local high school boys basketball team he rises to the occasion, sort of. Hoops is a spoof on the many films that follow the little team that could, a group of underdogs who are led to victory by a down on his luck coach. On voicing a man that follows in the footsteps of iconic coaches portrayed on film and television, Johnson remarked to Entertainment Weekly: “He’s got to be really low because he’s also a terrible basketball coach. One of the things about coach that is important to realize is it’s not just that his players are bad, he’s actually a bad coach — he doesn’t know basketball.” Think Hoosiers but with much more swearing. And screaming tantrums.
Watch the trailer for season one of Hoops below: