Rick and Morty: Good Show, m.A.A.d. fandom

[Music] september 2013 saw the end of one of the greatest episodic comedies of all time as futurama aired its final episode i was just a kid in high school at the time and my biggest pastime was turning on comedy central or adult swim and just grinding out homework late into the evening i'll always remember the end of futurama is such a bittersweet moment we finally got to see the ultimate payoff of the series 15 year long journey but at the same time this was the end no one was sure if there would ever be another show like it again fortunately for us we didn't have to wait long holy crap morning run adult swim presents a new comedy from dan harmon and justin roiland rick and morty premiering monday december 2nd at 10 30 on adult swim all kids out of the pool for adult swim i remember it was around thanksgiving when adult swim started airing the promos for rick and morty a show that looked unlike anything the network had ever produced before adult swim had always existed as a playground of artistic expression and creative experimentation it's a channel within a channel allowing it to operate without the financial responsibilities of a major media network in the early days adult swim mainly subsisted by syndicating cancelled shows from the fox network they had a small but loyal viewer base who were instrumental in convincing network executives to give shows like futurama a second chance however the most intriguing parts of adult swim can be found in their original programming for the longest time adult swim originals were characterized by extremely crude low-budget animation and avant-garde humor part of the charm of shows like aqua teen hunger force is that something so strange could exist on television at all this type of show earned adult swim the unofficial label of the stoner's paradise but i don't think it's fair to define the network along this narrow premise adult swim boldly greenlit shows that couldn't exist on any other network the boondocks was a beautifully animated brilliantly written show that offered cogent commentary on social issues but due to its narrow appeal no other network wanted it adult swim was the lone network who didn't care about marketability they handed artists the reins to present their vision unfiltered and unneutered by a rigid obligation to appeasing corporate overlords in many ways rick and morty was no different than any other adult swim show the origins of the show can be traced back to the adventures of doc and marty a crude parody of back to the future animated and voiced by justin roiland the webtoon was hosted on channel 101 an online hub for experimental television hosted by comedian dan harmon years later the animation would serve as the blueprint for adult swim's newest animated series and away we go wow what happened back there why don't you ask the smartest people in the universe jerry if i could use one word to describe rick and morty i'd say it's a very unique show there's nothing else like it on television it's an unholy combination of futurama regular show and freddy got fingered the show is simultaneously crude and elegant it features both spontaneous improvisation and meticulous attention to detail it's impressive how the writers managed to create a show like this without it turning out completely incoherent historically we have to look back on rick and morty as one of the most culturally significant shows of its decade perhaps no other show connected more with the zeitgeist of the 2010s it wasn't just entertaining it captured the hearts and minds of a generation of young adults rick and morty encompasses the search for meaning in an age of aimlessness and cynicism it's not just a show about an anti-hero it's an anti-show what did you do nearly every aspect of the show is designed to subvert the platitudes of conventional media it's a sitcom where nothing ever goes back to normal the characters occupy a wacky cartoony world but suffer realistic gruesome consequences the writers will intentionally disrupt a sappy emotional moment with a goofy fourth wall break that obliterates any tension in the scene this sardonic tongue-in-cheek deprecation is something that could have only succeeded in the internet age and succeed it did rick and morty's first season premiered to an audience of 1 million viewers by the season finale the audience had effectively doubled for the first time ever people were going out of their way to tune into adult swim on sunday nights new episodes would generate widespread discussion memes and theories on forums across the web it was not uncommon at this time to get millions of views on youtube videos just talking about the show rick and morty was a hit with both casual viewers and critics at one point peaking at number 7 on imdb's top 250 tv shows on paper it appears to be not just one of the greatest shows of its time but one of the greatest of all time and yet when you ask people their opinion on the show today you'll find that the responses are much more polarizing than the critical consensus would have you believe it seems you can't mention the show online anymore without sparking a vicious debate nowadays there are lots of people who say the show went downhill some say that the show was never good in the first place i remember a time when the show was universally revered but somewhere along the way something went very very wrong in order to understand what made people hate rick and morty we have to understand what made people love rick and morty [Music] well what do you love about rick and morty most people would say that they watch rick and morty to see two dudes go on wacky sci-fi adventures many like to praise the clever and shocking comedy some find the crude improvised moments charming others relate to the show's nihilist overtones and appreciate its commentary on the nature of society a lot of people became invested in the lore and world building and keep watching to see where the story goes next all of these are valid reasons to like the show but if you ask me a lot of people overlook the one element that truly makes rick and morty click ask yourself this what is rick and morty about you could come up with a million answers to this question but ultimately at its core rick and morty is a show about a dysfunctional family more specifically rick and morty is a show about how a dysfunctional family deals with identity coming of age belonging wasted potential mediocrity and loneliness these are all prevailing conflicts embodied by each member of the smith family i initially compared rick and morty to futurama but it thematically has much more in common with the simpsons at a superficial level you could describe rick and morty as a sci-fi comedy but at a conceptual level the show is much closer to a family drama this is the thematic engine which drives the characters the story and the philosophy of the show but don't just take my word for it the answer was hiding in plain sight all along from the very beginning [Music] science makes sense family doesn't [Music] unfortunately i feel like most of the audience have fundamentally misunderstood the overall conceit of the show choosing instead to focus on the far more bombastic sci-fi elements much of the controversy around the show today can be attributed to the audience basing their expectations around a sci-fi adventure rather than a family drama early on this led to numerous articles ordaining rick and morty the smartest show on television this ultimately caused people to assign tremendous scientific and philosophical way towards nonsensical aspects of the show you had people trying to dissect the greater intellectual meaning behind mr poopy butthole rick and morty is a very clever show but most of the science presented by the show was more or less arbitrary futurama was a show that was far more realistic in its portrayal of scientific concepts one time ken keeler even presented an original mathematical proof in the form of an episode but simply being a smart show is not enough to carry a piece of media to transcendent popularity science fiction has always existed as the awkward nerdy sibling to its far more popular counterpart fantasy it's difficult to engage audiences with science fiction when most people don't even have a basic understanding of science this often leads to science fiction feeling sterile and esoteric as they alienate general audiences with complex scientific jargon in order to make sci-fi more approachable you have to add in a grounded element that the average person can relate to for futurama this comes in the form of the everyman fry the search for purpose and fitting into an alien world these are somewhat universal themes that everyone can understand star wars and star trek were both synonymous with sci-fi in the 20th century one of these franchises exploded as an ubiquitous cultural behemoth while the other is still generally regarded as a niche nerdy subculture the difference is that star wars had more simple and relatable elements to help people engage with the story on paper the star wars saga is about an epic space adventure but at its core star wars simply tells the story of a dysfunctional family likewise rick and morty is the story of a dysfunctional family told through the lens of science fiction the show uses science fiction as a means to explore the dynamics of family drama nearly all sci-fi concepts in the show only serve to accent the internal conflict among family members the meseek's box represents the family's insecurities interdimensional cable explores choices and consequences the entire multiverse serves as an allegory for rick's inability to confront his personal demons choosing instead to run away and forget about them the show tends to focus on rick more than anyone else because he is the most flawed character morty do you know what wubba lubba dub dub means oh that's just rick's stupid nonsense catchphrase it's not nonsense at all in my people's tongue it means i am in great pain please help me lots of people have interpreted rick's character as the embodiment of nihilism and have used this idea to define rick and morty as a nihilist show i would actually argue that rick's early characterization serves as a warning against nihilism on the surface rick appears to be an aloof renegade who is too smart to care about the universe's problems listen morty i hate to break it to you but what people call love is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed however the more you watch the more you realize that rick's unparalleled intellect has left him profoundly lonely i was thinking uh you know i might watch a movie i am not programmed for friendship now suit yourself he must keep himself constantly inebriated in order to shield himself from the harsh realities of existence rick is terrified by the fact that no matter how smart he is he will never be able to truly escape his human flaws because to be human is to be irrational there is no empirical scientific reason to care about others you could live your whole life simply exploiting the goodwill of your peers like they're a dispensable resource and it wouldn't make a difference the nihilist side of rick wants him to do just that we both know that if there's any truth in the universe it's that ricks don't care about morty's but deep down he really does care about certain people his family rick's overwhelmingly logical mind forces him to treat the universe with a nihilist outlook but in doing so he loses his humanity break the cycle morty rise above focus on science using science rick can invent anything he wants yet he remains unable to form a meaningful connection with anyone in the universe not even with identical versions of himself rick's characterization provides nuanced commentary about the nature of human progress as our civilization becomes more technologically advanced are we losing touch with what makes us human why does it feel like despite existing in the smartest era of human history people are more miserable today than ever before there's a jaded wisdom to rick and morty that's oddly uplifting at times the show won't hold back at acknowledging the painful brutality that life has to offer but it provides consolation for why you shouldn't just quit the philosophy of rick and morty is less about wallowing in the bleak moments of life but rather salvaging meaning from those bleak moments do i agree with rick that nothing means anything no i do not because the knowledge that nothing matters while accurate gets you nowhere a prevailing theme of the early seasons is that even at your lowest point your decisions still do matter rick and morty makes this apparent through the importance of consequences it's a show where minor mistakes can cause long lasting and permanent damage to the characters and world morty asking rick to make a love potion for the school dance causes the entire earth to be rendered so inhospitable that they have to abandon their universe entirely many like to point to this moment as evidence of the show's nihilism by claiming that each world in rick's multiverse matters so little that you could just throw it away and start over with a new one however this event did matter morty is completely traumatized by this moment and never sees the world the same after this point part of the reason rick is so miserable is that he justifies his recklessness by saying that none of it matters even though the consequences of his actions do affect him in very damaging ways rick's prevailing character arc throughout the series is one of accountability realizing that his actions do matter because of the consequences they bring to the people he cares about and no other episode represents this idea more than the season 2 finale this is the episode where rick finally stops running from his problems and takes accountability for his actions in my opinion this moment marks the point at which rick and morty peaked as a series since this aired the show has never really been the same after two years and 21 episodes rick and morty was about to undergo some major [Music] changes but if you rearrange the letters in the meaning of life it becomes the engine of a film or more pessimistically the fine game of nil hello internet pickle rick here and welcome to cinema hypothesis in today's episode we're gonna get schwifty by finally solving the mystery once and for all of why rick is really depressed now you could say that rick's depression is caused by a variety of very obvious factors that anyone could understand by watching the show for more than two seconds but to be fair you have to have a very high iq to construct theories without evidence in season one episode nine of rick and morty the show reveals the hidden truth of why rick can never be happy so uh as you can see in this shot rick is very clearly displaying the symptoms of male pattern baldness no oh geez he's crying well that's too bad for rick if only there was an amazing scientific invention that was up to 90 percent effective at reducing and stopping the symptoms of hair loss this video is brought to you by keeps hair loss prevention the most affordable fda approved hair loss product talk to a real online doctor today to get your medication shipped right to your door and to think rick could have been happy all along if he just lived in the universe where he used keeps to protect his hair however to be fair you have to have a very low follicle count to be a nihilist but hey that's just a hypothesis a cinema hypothesis stay tuned for next time when we uncover the mystery of jerry's erectile dysfunction visit keeps.com lemon for 50 off your first order that's keps.com [Music] emplemoni [Music] the season two cliffhanger had generated more intrigue for the show than ever before for 18 months fans speculated wild theories on what was going to happen next then on april fool's day of 2017 we got our answer welcome to the darkest year of our adventures the season 3 premiere was perhaps the boldest episode of the series choosing to blow up the family entirely by having beth divorce jerry this change represented a major departure from the structure of the first two seasons but fans were riding high on the hype of the premiere and we're excited to see where the story would go two episodes later we got the most infamous installment of the series i turned myself into a pickle morty i'm pickle rick pickle rick was the first time that rick and morty truly divided the audience and to this day it is still one of the most criticized episodes of the entire series some viewers cite pickle rick as the moment rick and morty jumped the shark a point of no return from which the quality of the show never recovered so what went wrong with pickle rick a lot of people could tell that something was off about it but had a hard time articulating why most people just know it as that episode with the annoying meme but the issues with the episode run far deeper in many ways pickle rick betrayed the philosophy of the entire series up to that point it did so in three main aspects starting with structure rick and morty would always portray its conflict through the lens of science fiction this left a lot of room for interpretation as the message of the show was never directly stated that all changed when pickle rick had susan sarandon literally explain to the audience how they're supposed to interpret the show there was nothing metaphorical or nuanced about it just a regular human therapist on regular old earth telling the audience how they should feel i understand that the writers were trying something new but this scene just came off as cheap after this moment much of the open-ended mystique of rick's character was extinguished and the series became less compelling as a result speaking of rick's character this episode fundamentally alters the way in which rick is written as a character moving forward for starters rick's power level from this point onward is completely absurd in the older seasons rick was savvy but still vulnerable most of the time all rick could do was run away and escape through a portal the new seasons portray rick as an invincible killing machine who can mow down enemies with ease this ruins the tension of all the action scenes because you know that rick is no longer in any real danger most of the time he'll defeat his enemies in one second with an overpowered body augmentation that's never explained nor brought up again you know maybe something like this could have come in handy that one time he got beat up and robbed by a teenage girl rick's new unstoppable combat ability is emblematic of a far greater change in the overall presentation of the character rick's whole character arc of accountability is more or less absent in season 3. somewhere along the way rick transformed from the flawed scientist to the smartest man in the universe smartest man in the universe you want me to get intel out of the smartest mammal in the galaxy he can do that he is the smartest man in the universe the show only starts calling rick this in season three at no prior point did any other character refer to rick as the smartest person in the universe i always thought that rick was smart enough to see the universe in a more complex way but he wasn't an omnipotent god there were many other beings in the show whose has far exceeded any of his capabilities but in the newer seasons the whole universe seems to just exist as rick's playing field when you know nothing matters the universe is yours smart people get a chance to climb on top take reality for a ride this caused season three to feel very unbalanced there are far less heartfelt character moments and far more biting cynicism the show will introduce a thoughtful origin story about rick and then discard it two minutes later as a mere plot device to get rick out of prison so was it real did it matter does anything in the season matter it was as if rick's nihilism bled into the tone of the entire show from this point onward most of the family members lose their defining characteristics to become more like rick limiting the nihilism to just a single character is fine but when the whole show is telling you that nothing matters then the audience have to ask themselves why the show matters i understand that this is supposed to be the darkest year of our adventures but season 3 doesn't feel dark as much as it feels aimless rick and morty was always dark the show was a dark comedy was it not dark when morty got violated by king jellybean or the multiple times rick tried to end his own life season 3 didn't add dark moments as much as it subtracted comedic ones pickle rick represents an unpleasant malaise that hangs over the whole season characters stop developing consequences don't matter as much the family has very little to do because they spend the whole season separated only to just get back together at the end like nothing happened and by the way you know when you're when you're telling these little stories here's a good idea have a point in my opinion it would have been a lot more compelling if the series chose to separate rick from the family instead of jerry this would have shaken up the structure while still keeping rick's character intact i get the feeling that this was the original plan for season 3 but they were too afraid to pull the trigger they needed to keep rick as the straightforward face of the show because by the third season the series had become marketable you went into a store an actual honest-to-god store and you bought something buy another one morty consume morty pickle rick was the final step in establishing the show as a trendy brand in the coming months pickle rick would be plastered all over posters merchandise and other promotional material for the show i would describe this as the point in which rick and morty truly converged with the fandom [Music] if you find something entertaining you can consider yourself a fan but when you allow the act of being a fan to take on a culture of its own then you start to enter the fandom fandoms in theory have always existed but were never able to truly materialize until the advent of the internet prior to the web media was much more homogeneous there was once a time when most americans would all watch the same shows across the same three networks if i asked you to picture a seinfeld fan you probably couldn't come up with a definitive stereotype that's because shows like seinfeld were so ubiquitous in pop culture that it's impossible to define it among a specific audience type the internet changed all this by sparking a massive divergence in media programming the general audience was rendered obsolete modern shows are increasingly catered towards more specific content preferences rather than having a few shows watched by many people we now have many shows watched by a few people consequently this has made it much harder to find people who watch the same shows as you but when you do find them they're much more likely to have similar beliefs attitudes and interests the bifurcation of media has ushered in an unprecedented age where every show has its own community of like-minded viewers welcome to the age of the fandom where the media you consume is now fundamentally tied to your identity engaging with a fandom is now part and parcel of enjoying any modern tv show most fandoms are kept in check by the limited scope of their respective programming but occasionally you'll see one that gets completely out of control naturally with rick and morty's meteoric rise in popularity the fandom went completely mad manic anti-hero attachment disorder it's a psychiatric condition i just invented where a television viewer begins to idolize and emulate the flawed protagonist of their favorite show the rick and morty fandom is most well known for two infamous occurrences the szechuan sauce riots and the high iq copy pasta although both of these events were somewhat over embellished if not outright fake they still cast a rather embarrassing shadow over the series as a whole it seemed like almost overnight rick and morty stopped being cool the fandom had caused the entire audience to be labeled as a bunch of snobby pretentious pseudo-intellectuals or as a bunch of mindless consumer zombies this not only made people hate the show but it made fans like me ashamed for enjoying the show is it really fair to judge a show for the actions of its fandom theoretically we should be able to evaluate a piece of media in a vacuum regardless of the actions of its disciples but can a fandom become so insufferable that they damage their show's reputation beyond repair obviously it's the show that influences the fandom but what happens when the fandom starts to influence the show well you get pickle rick the fandom started calling rick and morty the smartest show on television so the show became about the smartest man in the universe the fandom obsessed over the niles theme so rick and morty became a nihilist show the fandom didn't care much about the family drama so the family just sort of faded into the background it seems that somewhere along the way the writers abandoned their original vision for the series to create a product more palatable for the fandom and the emmy goes to rick and morty well i can't exactly say i blame the creators for doing this pickle rick won the show and emmy rick and morty undoubtedly succeeded at appealing to a trendier audience at least it did for a little bit you see the problem with chasing trends is that they don't tend to stick around for very long as soon as the hype starts to cool off the audience will leave you in a heartbeat to go play with the next shiny new toy because trendy people don't stick around out of any intrinsic appreciation for the medium they only tune in because everyone else is doing it and unfortunately in rick and morty's efforts to sustain their broad appeal they have devalued their overall design aspects you really got in on that game of thrones fever south park did it four years ago morty if ant-man and the wasp can do it i'm not interested gamergate i haven't seen blasts like this since taco night at james earl jones house a dad makes a toilet look like r2d2 when it breaks the front page of reddit nowadays rick will randomly name drop things like reddit and gamergate these references only exist to force a cheap pop from the audience it's difficult to separate the show from the fandom when the show will disrupt its own world building to specifically cater to them am i supposed to believe that rick the universe hopping interdimensional war criminal is concerned about the front page of reddit oh you agree huh you like that red grumbold reference well guess what i made him up you really are your father's children think for yourselves don't be sheep much like the characters within the show rick and morty is suffering from an identity crisis the show these days doesn't seem to have any definitive sense of direction they will introduce serialized elements but won't pay them off in a satisfying way they portray rick as a cocky omniscient gladiator who always wins at everything but still want us to feel sympathetic for his plight and as much as the show likes to rip on the media establishment rick and morty is no longer the scrappy adult swim underdog they're a dynasty the fan reaction to pickle rick i'll always have a fraud complex about because we teased it at comic-con and everybody that loves rick and morty knows that uh you have to wait really really really long periods of time [Applause] it's hard to say what exactly caused rick and morty to stray so far from its original premise but the change is most likely related to the staggered production of the third season dan harmon decided to hire four female writers to balance the gender ratio of the staff some people use this to claim that women ruined the show but i think adding four new writers of any gender would have still disrupted the show's momentum writers need time to develop chemistry and i suspect that overhauling the teen to this extent was more of a creative setback than they anticipated season three experienced numerous delays and only managed to ship 10 of the 14 planned episodes dan harmon blamed the sluggish production on his perfectionism and newfound pressure to conform to grandiose standards season 3 was intended to be the most ambitious yet but they ended up biting off more than they could chew and the season wound up feeling sloppy inconsistent and anti-climactic part of the blame for the show's recent struggles can be placed on adult swim the network had never before managed a mainstream hit like rick and morty and seemed unprepared to handle the show's white hot momentum adult swim followed up the belated release of season three by leaving the show in limbo for eight months before finally ordering new episodes in may of 2018 this pushed back the premiere of season four to november of 2019 and for some baffling reason they decided to release the season in two halves five months apart it probably didn't help the production process that justin roiland was devoting much of his attention to an entirely new series that's basically just rick and morty with extra steps between the season 2 and season 4 finale rick and morty only managed to release 20 episodes in a four and a half year span whatever hype there was for the show has long since been extinguished rick and morty had lightning in a bottle and they kind of blew it by the end of season 4 more than half of the audience had stopped watching you ever wonder what happened to rick and morty maybe it's for the best that rick and morty is no longer trendy despite all the issues i just described i still believe that rick and morty is a good show the new episodes are still entertaining to both watch and re-watch which is more than i can say for almost anything else on television rick and morty is a good show but it could have been a great show the magic of those first two seasons is something that may never be replicated again one has to wonder how the show could have turned out if they had stuck to their guns and shut out the noise from the fandom regardless rick and morty made the mistake of believing its own hype and now it has to face the consequences right now the series is at a major crossroads the audience has diminished to season one level so maybe it's a sign that the show should get back to basics or maybe they could do the complete opposite and blow the show wide open with experimentation i've always admired how the show is never afraid to shake up the formula and keep things fresh now that the hype is cooled off the riders are no longer burdened by the wild expectations of a delusional fandom and as a mostly episodic series they don't have to worry about pigeonholing each episode into a convoluted story lots of people are writing the show off as dead but i actually think that rick and morty could rise again maybe because i'm not a massive nihilist people forget that other adult animated comedies like south park and the simpsons didn't come out with their best work until long after they peaked in popularity maybe rick and morty can do the same until then we can at least look back at the good times i'll always remember staying up late on those sunday nights knowing i'd have to drag myself to school the next morning and it was nice to forget about my problems for just half an hour and lose myself in a show unlike anything else on television it was a show that taught me a lot and made me see the world in a different way then at some point the show began to see itself in a different way and both of us went on our own downward spiral looking back on it all both the show and i came out profoundly altered for better or for worse i know it's a dumb meme but that that meme of like to be fair you have to have a very high iq to understand rick and morty uh on one hand that's emblematic of like bad elements of fandom but on the other hand it does make me proud it's a show that is clearly loved by among many other people some of the most creative um funny smart people available people like to rip on the insane rick and morty fandom but ever since season two ended it's safe to say the whole world went a bit mad will season 5 come out before the imminent collapse of civilization we'll just have to wait and see but as the universe around us continues to feel more dysfunctional and bleak i'm glad i can at least find meaning in one cartoon on adult swim everyone else can say whatever they want about it but for me rick and morty will always be a good show with a mad fandom [Music] [Music] you

Channel: EmpLemon

Views: 1,381,036

Rating: 4.8967195 out of 5

Keywords: EmpLemon, Rick and Morty, Rick Sanchez, Morty Smith, Dan Harmon, Justin Roiland, Pickle Rick, Adult Swim

Id: aM-hy6_f45M

Length: 34min 45sec (2085 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 28 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Hero-the-pilot]

To be fair you have to have a high iq to understand this video

[u/YeomanGold]

hah, Kendrick Lamar

[u/DOugdimmadab1337]

Pickle, now gib upvote

[u/BaltoLonewolf]

I can actually agree with this chad