Over six seasons, “BoJack Horseman,” which released its final episodes Friday on Netflix, evolved from a scathing Hollywood satire into a more expansive and often disquieting exploration of depression, addiction and human morality.

But on the fringes of all that, it was also a show about animals doing funny things. As BoJack, the self-destructive celebrity horse voiced by Will Arnett, negotiated the dark corners of Hollywoo and his own psyche, a steady stream of peripheral visual gags — puns, pop culture references, the occasional cocaine-addled lemur — made his various descents more palatable.

“The fact that we get so stupid lets us earn when we get so serious,” said Mike Hollingsworth, a co-executive producer and supervising director. “Without the silly animal things, it would get too maudlin.”

After Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the show’s creator, and the writers finish the script for an episode, the visual jokes are added during the storyboard phase “when we can feel the pacing,” Hollingsworth said. “They all have to take a back seat to the story.”