(Photo Manipulation by Ari Segal)
Content Warning: This article contains references to sexual assault and domestic violence.
“Rick and Morty” season one episode one premiered on Dec. 2, 2013 on Adult Swim. After 10 years, the show has become not only the platform’s most successful but one of its most controversial, mainly involving concerns with both its fanbase and creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon. To say that “Rick and Morty” has transcended beyond the status of edgy comedy to a cultural artifact is no exaggeration. The show is a classic and a colossus in its own right, for better or worse.
I began watching “Rick and Morty” in March 2020. I had heard the fans’ inside jokes and read the copypastas. I was also vaguely aware of the Szechuan Chicken McNugget Sauce incident. Stuck in my bedroom due to the COVID-19 pandemic and bored by my online high school classes, I started watching the “Rick and Morty” 24/7 livestream. For some reason, the show chemically reacted in my brain, causing my boredom-spurred intrigue to evolve into an obsession that consumed the better part of my year. The show enthralled me, and I was left hopelessly devoted.
“Rick and Morty” began as one of Roiland’s monthly submissions to Channel 101, a monthly short film festival. The five-minute animated short is a parody of “Back to the Future” (1985) called “The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti” (2006). Roiland voiced Doc and Mharti in the short and later recycled those two character voices in other projects: The high-pitched squeal would become Morty Smith, and the gruff voice Rick Sanchez. Roiland also met Harmon, one of Channel 101’s co-founders, during the time.
Adult Swim later reached out to Harmon inquiring about projects, and he then contacted Roiland. Roiland pitched “Rick and Morty,” a fully-fledged animated comedy featuring his two character archetypes. After some pushback from Adult Swim Creative Director Mike Lazzo, the show was eventually greenlit.
“Rick and Morty” season one episode one lays the groundwork for the show’s science fiction concepts and core dynamic between the titular characters in the cold open. Rick drunkenly drags Morty into a shoddily crafted spaceship, where he incoherently rambles and eventually reveals he’s going to detonate a Neutrino Bomb, killing everyone in the world. The two bicker, with Rick verbally abusing his grandson and Morty stammering through lame refutations. The spaceship crashes, Rick passes out, and Morty is left to disarm the bomb on his own — cut to the title card.
The rest of the episode follows the alcoholic, abusive scientist Rick as he drags his spineless grandson through life-threatening dangers with little regard for his safety. Rick is a genius nihilist who does not value human life, and Morty is the audience conduit through which the errors in Rick’s philosophy are revealed. The comedy is raunchy, the voice-acting is improvisational, and the science fiction concepts are wacky.
Though season one’s structure is episodic, certain episodes introduce world-building elements that would become central conceits of later seasons, such as the Galactic Federation introduced in season one episode one and Evil Morty introduced in season one episode 10.
“Wubba Lubba dub-dub” — a phrase Rick offhandedly says in season one episode five — became a fandom in-joke, sparking a trend in which fans latch onto offhanded bits and repeat them like mantras.
“Rick and Morty” is instantly a massive success. By the time season one concluded in April 2014, Adult Swim had already renewed “Rick and Morty” for season two. The pilot episode premiered to an audience of just over one million people, while the finale received double that viewership. The show had received sweepingly positive reviews, praised for its “strangeness” and “offbeat” humor by critics.
Part of the reason “Rick and Morty” proved to be such an exciting, enterprising show is because of its fresh perspective. When it premiered in 2013, Adult Swim’s programming mostly consisted of “King of the Hill” (1997), “Family Guy” (1999) and “American Dad!” (2005), all of which had been airing for years. “Rick and Morty” toys with the archetypal raunchy adult comedy about the U.S. family unit, turns it on its head and sends it to space. Though the show follows a family unit — in which season one Beth Smith, Summer Smith and Jerry Smith are the stereotypical unsatisfied wife, loser husband and cellphone-addicted daughter — it is unapologetically gross, gory and entrenched in science fiction influences. “Rick and Morty” is inventive, fast-paced and in-your-face.
Season two premiered in July 2015. Like its predecessor, the second season features plotlines centered around the titular duo, including edgy humor and high-concept science fiction. Nonetheless, critics flocked to praise the show not only for its humor, but for being “clever” and “brilliantly deranged.” The show is not just seen as funny, but as smart.
Fans of the series also grew even more dedicated and ravenous, as season two episode five’s offhand joke song “Get Schwifty” became a bonafide meme within the fanbase, joining the ranks of “Wubba Lubba dub-dub” as fandom in-jokes.
With the fandom’s nascent proclivity for memeing and gatekeeping, a two-year long hiatus essentially turned the fanbase into an incubation chamber for the most chronically online members, their excitement building. Season three was finally released in 2017, giving the fans an outlet to channel their energy into enthusiasm.
The third season had the best ratings in Adult Swim history and peaked in Google Trends. Critics praised the show, though not as emphatically as they did season two, noting the “darker” tone and focus on character drama.
Season three is special in breaking some of the sacred commandments of the “Rick and Morty” formula, as the season opens with Beth and Jerry divorcing. Unlike the previous episodic structure of seasons one and two, this season shows the family grappling with the plot development. For example, Morty and Summer use the Post-Apocalyptic Dimension of episode two as escapism to cope. Episode nine centers on Jerry’s alien girlfriend, a rebound from the divorce. The season finale ends with Beth and Jerry’s remarriage, and the family reuniting without Rick.
The season adds both veteran writers and new talent to the mix. Seasoned writers, such as Mike McMahan, Ryan Ridley and Tom Kauffman, handled episodes centered around characters and world-building developments, such as fleshing out the Citadel of Ricks and the Galactic Federation. Notably, Roiland and Harmon did not write after this season. Additionally, season three is the first season to include any female writers, which sparked controversy in the notoriously misogynistic fanbase. Ironically, fans at the time loved the now-infamous season three episode three “Pickle Rick” written by Jessica Gao.
Though season three saw peak viewership and positive critical response, fans’ views are mixed. Many believed that the writing had become inconsistent, disappointing or unfunny. Those negative thoughts then confused some other fans. Nonetheless, this is the time when the “Rick and Morty” fanbase metamorphosed into the “toxic” army of misogynistic, Redditor manchildren many know it as today.
Male fans began identifying with Rick, seeing themselves as hyper-intelligent, misunderstood loners in a world of shallow normies. To them, Rick is a flawed yet relatable hero who reflects and validates their nihilistic worldview. This kind of thinking spawned the infamous “To Be Fair, You Have To Have a Very High IQ to Understand Rick and Morty” copypasta — a sentiment echoed by many in the fandom.
Ironically, season three is the first to explicitly call attention to Rick’s flawedness. While episode one opens with him taking down the government like a total badass, the finale has him replaced by the pathetic Jerry as the de facto patriarch of the Smith household. Rick’s intelligence and glory ultimately does nothing for him in the realm of interpersonal relationships — a message that the Redditors seemingly glossed over.
The fanbase, with its penchant for parroting inside jokes, quickly formed new ones. However, it all became decidedly unfunny when fans harassed McDonald’s workers for Szechuan sauce after the season three episode one bit. “Pickle Rick” along with “Szechuan Sauce” joined the ranks of fandom jokes.
Though season three finished in October 2017, the show’s future was uncertain for over a year due to contract negotiations. In May 2018, negotiations closed as Adult Swim ordered 70 more episodes and an unspecified number of seasons.
During this time, Harmon became the subject of controversy as “Community” (2009) writer Megan Ganz called him out for sexual harassment and abuse in January 2018 on X. Harmon released a statement apologizing for the misconduct, including sexual harassment, and Ganz publicly forgave him.
Later that same year Harmon faced additional backlash for a video titled “Daryl” — a parody of the show “Dexter” (2006) — he created in 2009, as it contained unsavory content. Harmon publicly apologized. Adult Swim denounced his video but did not dismiss Harmon from the company.
Despite the scandals, “Rick and Morty” season four premiered in November 2019, receiving good ratings but a sharp decline in viewership. Like season three, the fans reacted with mixed opinions. Some believed it was the worst season yet, while others saw it as a return to form.
New writers increasingly replaced older ones, as only McMahan and James Siciliano, who wrote for seasons two and three, respectively, wrote in season four. Like the previous season, the episodes begin to include more serialized elements and expand on world-building even further, such as the Galactic Federation.
Seasons five and six premiered in 2021 and 2022, respectively. Critics liked the seasons well enough, praising the show for everything it has already been praised for, though not as emphatically as seasons one and two. Season five episode one premiered to one-and-a-half million viewers, and the season six finale premiered to less than half a million viewers.
Though I had excitedly sat down for every episode of season four, I grew less invested as time went on. To me, the highs were not as high, and the lows were low. The show was not a quirky science fiction comedy with some serious emotional insight to offer, but instead, a complicated, amalgamated final product. Though the show had genuinely interesting character moments and thematic insights, the increasing use of meta-humor and focus on self-serious lore left me disinterested.
Seasons one and two can be marked as the original era of “Rick and Morty.” The writing is comedic, snappy and episodic, but the revolving door of staff led to inconsistent themes and quality of writing. Season three is not only a transitional era, pulling from both the most seasoned writers of previous seasons and new talent, but represents a peak to a ravenous fanbase. The writing strikes a balance between episodic, science fiction adventures and genuine lore. Seasons four, five and six mark a distinctly new era of “Rick and Morty,” a serialized show still focusing on science fiction concepts but nonetheless growing more interested in character development, world-building and Rick’s backstory. Long gone are the days of episodic adventures.
The writing grows increasingly reliant on meta-humor as the show grows into a cultural phenomenon. While fourth-wall breaks and meta-humor have been included in the show since the season one pilot, those jokes begin to displace all other types of comedy.
The show is still successful. The fanbase mellow out over the years — likely for the better — as season production becomes consistent. Nonetheless, a new controversy sent shockwaves across not only “Rick and Morty” viewers, but the internet as a whole earlier this year.
In January, Roiland attended a pre-trial hearing after being arrested and charged with domestic battery and false imprisonment in 2020. In March, the charges were dropped against Roiland due to insufficient evidence. Following the publicity of the pre-trial hearing mere months before the premiere of “Rick and Morty” season seven, several women came forward and accused Roiland of sexual assault, some of whom were underage.
Adult Swim severed ties with Roiland in January, citing the felony charges. The roles of Rick and Morty were recast to Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden, respectively, as revealed in the season seven trailer.
Though Adult Swim has stuck with Harmon during controversies of his own, his name has been removed along with Roiland’s in the opening credits of the show. Adult Swim has never released a statement on this, though fans have speculated that this is an attempt to herald a new era of “Rick and Morty.”
The decision to recast the titular characters divided the fans, as some felt that the show could not survive without Roiland. In reality, Roiland’s involvement with the show beyond voice acting has wavered since season one. “Rick and Morty” begins as Roiland’s brainchild, one of dozens of his animated comedies. Ultimately though, Roiland was never the beating heart keeping the show going, as “Rick and Morty” has always relied on a revolving team of writers and directors to keep its story alive.
The show has faced a tumultuous production history littered with controversies, hiatuses and unflattering moments for everyone involved. Nonetheless, it endures. Whether the show’s loathed for its historically obnoxious fanbase or lauded for its smart writing, “Rick and Morty” stands out as a persistent fixture of the modern cultural zeitgeist.
If you or someone you know experienced sexual assault, you can access Emory’s Title IX resources at 404-727-0541 or https://equityandcompliance.emory.edu/title-ix/index.html and the Office of Respect at https://respect.emory.edu/ or their hotline 24/7 at (470) 270-5360. You can reach the RAINN National Sexual Assault hotline 24/7 at (800) 656-4673 or https://hotline.rainn.org/online. You can reach the Atlanta Grady Rape Crisis Center crisis hotline 24/7 at (404) 616-4861 or gradyrapecrisiscenter@gmh.edu and the Decatur Day League Sexual Assault Care and Prevention crisis hotline 24/7 at (404) 377-1428.
If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse or domestic violence, you can reach Emory’s Counseling and Psychological Services at (404) 727-7450 or https://counseling.emory.edu/ and intimate partner violence resources at https://womenscenter.emory.edu/resources/violence.html. You can call the Emory Police Department at (404) 727-6111. You can reach Georgia’s domestic violence statewide hotline 24/7 at (800) 334-2836.
Alexandra Kauffman (26C) is an English & Creative Writing major from Phoenix, Arizona. At the Wheel, she is an Emory Life section editor and Arts & Entertainment campus desk. Outside of the wheel, she is a member of Alloy Literary Magazine. She is also a science fiction enthusiast and enjoyer of the bizarre.
