When you first begin watching the series it's
quite evident that the two main characters, Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith, are based on
Doc Brown and Marty McFly from the Back to the Future franchise. And that's actually
how it all began. Back in 2005, Justin Roiland produced an animated series known as House
of Cosbys. This bizarre show is about a guy living with a hundred clones of Bill Cosby.
It premiered at the non-profit short film festival Channel 101 which was co-founded
by Dan Harmon who quickly took a liking to Roiland's sense of humor. But in June of the
same year, they received a cease and desist letter from Bill Cosby's lawyer and where
thus forced to end House of Cosbys. Because of this Roiland decided to make a very obscene
and crude parody of the Back to the Future movies as a sort of joke or protest against
Universal Pictures. He called the short: "The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti". It was never intended to be anything more
than a joke but Roiland became really fond of his own impressions of the two characters and decided to explore this idea further.
Many years later, in 2012, Harmon was approached by Adult Swim to create an original animated
show for the network. But Harmon, previously creating and working on Community, didn't
have any real experience with animation at this point so he immediately thought of Roiland.
He gave him a call and Roiland promptly pitched the idea of using the Doc and Mharti characters
to produce a shown titled Rick and Morty. In the episode "Meeseeks and Destroy" we meet
a disturbing character known as King Jellybeen. This character, like Rick and Morty themselves,
is actually from a previous animation that Roiland produced called "Unbelievable Tales". In this animation the character is known as "Crumply Crumplestien" and is even more grotesque
than the version in Rick and Morty. During the show you might have noticed a character
with rainbow colored suspenders and an American football on his shirt. The stitches on the
football also appear to be in the form of Roman numerals spelling out 18, 3, and 5.
If you use the numbers for the corresponding letter in the alphabet you get RCE. So what
does that mean? Well so far it means nothing and it will likely remain that way. You see, Roiland
explained in an interview that he himself, the creator of Galaxy Falls Alex Hirsch, and
Jason Ruiz who was working on another animated show called Murder Police, got together one
day and talked about including parts of a secret code in each of their shows. So if
someone found all three codes and put them all together it would make a word or a sentence.
But for some reason Roiland was the only one to follow through with this Rainbow Suspenders
guy and thus the secret code makes no sense. One of the main reasons for the show being
made in the first place was Roiland's distinct way of voicing both Rick and Morty. Long before
the show began, it was a sort of inside joke among friends for Roiland to make these voices.
It's been said that something that really makes the show unique is the way he's able
to quickly switch between the two characters and improvise new lines and situations by
essentially talking to himself. But this almost didn't happen because, at first, Adult Swim
didn't want him to be the voice of Morty. Instead, they were looking into other famous
voice actors like Billy West and Tara Strong. But Roiland kept pushing his idea of playing
both characters and eventually he got schwifty.. eh.. he got.. he got his wish. The theme song for Rick and Morty
actually comes from another animated show that Roiland
also produced called "Dog World". It's about humans living
in a world with intelligent talking dogs. It was supposed to air on Cartoon
Network but the project was never completed as Roiland simply had too many things in development
at the time. All that remains today is the animatic version available online. The episode
Lawnmower Dog in Rick and Morty also makes a lot of references to this incomplete pilot.
For example, the family in Dog World has a human pet named Ruffles and in this episode,
the dog known as Snuffles (eh.. I mean, Snowball) is "mistakenly" called Ruffles by Rick. The father in each show is named
Jerry after one of Roiland's real life dogs. And then at the end of the
episode, Rick and Morty makes a very clear and direct reference by saying this.. Considering that it's a heavily sci-fi themed
show and that the initial idea is based upon the characters from Back to the Future, you
would assume that the show is about time travel. But so far, we haven't really seen anything
regarding that topic. Sure, they travel through different dimensions and even stops time between
season 1 and 2, but they never actually travel trough time. This is because, both the creators
think that time travel is simply too powerful and makes everything way to complicated. This
is also why they made the first episode of season 2 about manipulating time. They wanted
to show the viewers how chaotic and confusing everything becomes, and has described the
production of that specific episode as "a fucking nightmare" because of all the different
realities. The fact that they will never create a time travel episode is also highlighted
by the box inside Rick's workshop which is labeled "TIME TRAVEL STUFF". It's supposed to be a metaphor for time travel stories being on the shelf. It's possible that Rick and Morty and Gravity
Falls are somehow connected. In the episode "Society of the Blind Eye" of the animated
show Gravity Falls, a character accidentally drops his pen, notepad, and mug trough a portal.
In the episode "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind", these very same items can be seen
emerging from a portal. It's also interesting that the Rick and Morty episode was released
long before the Gravity Falls episode. Which means it was either planned all along or the
animators of Gravity Falls saw an opportunity to sort of complete the easter egg. And it isn't that
surprising considering that Alex Hirsch and Justin Roiland are long time friends. Another
connection to Gravity Falls can be found in the episode "Big Trouble In Little Sanchez"
in which the character Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls is briefly seen. In the episode "Get Schwifty" of season 2,
co-creator Justin Roiland actually makes a cameo appearance as himself. Many of the episodes titles or entire plot
lines are allusions to various forms of mainstream media. Some are quite obvious like "Anatomy
Park" being a reference to "Jurassic Park" and "Look Who's Purging Now" being a parody
of "The Purge". Then there's more obscure episodes like "Lawnmower Dog" being a reference
to the movie "The Lawnmower Man". In the same way that a dog becomes super intelligent in
the episode, a mentally handicapped person becomes super intelligent in the movie. "Meeseeks
and Destroy" is a reference to the Metallica song "Seek and Destroy". The title and premise
of the episode "Mortynight Run" is a reference to the movie "Midnight Run". In both cases,
the main characters are being chased the government after helping a wanted criminal. The title
of the episode "Raising Gazorpazorp" is a reference to "Raising Arizona" while the episode
itself is a parody of the movie "Zardoz". Unlike many other animated shows, everyone
working on Rick and Morty seem to really strive for continuity. Let me give you some examples.
In the final episode of season 1 we see the family house being teleported away and later
back again creating a giant crack around the entire house. This crack remains visible for
the entirety of season 2 and in one episode, Jerry can even be seen using a weed wacker
because their weed is wack yo.. I mean, to cut the grass growing out of the crack in
the pavement. There's an episode called "Total Rickall" in which alien parasites infiltrate
the memories of the characters. The person who brought the parasites into the house in
the first place was of course Rick and how that happened is actually covered two episodes
prior. Rick can be seen loading these green rocks onto his spaceship which also happens
to be covered with these pink parasite pods. And at the beginning of "Total Rickall" he
can be seen throwing pieces of these green rocks into the trash including the pods. This
was also confirmed by Roiland himself. In "Look Who's Purging Now" they accidentally
create a hole in the roof of the house. In the next episode, the now repaired hole is
still visible. Another minor detail that remains true in every single episode so far (believe me I checked!) is that Rick never wears a seatbelt even though most other characters do.
And there's of course numerous minor details like just these which
haven't been discovered yet.
Fact number 11: I'm sad that it's going to be a while until the next season.
I'm really surprised no one has talked about all the testicles and vaginas they put on everything from characters to background objects. I'm not the only one seeing these things, am I?
These kinds of videos must me so amazing to people who develop shows. All of the intricacies and hidden details explained by someone other than the creators. It shows how detailed the show is below the surface and shows the creator the level of fandom some go to.
"Seek and destroy" is a military term that predates Metallica (obviously, the band used it as a military reference). For example, it became the motto of the No. 41 Squadron RAF in 1937.
all the episode titles being references i feel like is the most obvious thing ever...
Can I just say Top 10 memes is the worst funking name iv ever heard of for a channel.
Like ohhhh uhhh what do 8-16 year olds like? uhhhh top 10 videos? annndddd memes? ok yeah
/r/videos ran out of bootleg Rick and Morty episodes, now we have to make do with videos merely about Rick and Morty.
Is the theme music based on Doctor Who? It sounds really similar.
Uhhh is that the same Jason Ruiz who did Sgt. Steve and The Jason Show in 3dMM like 15 years ago???