Adult Swim's 'Rick and Morty'
Not too long ago, the common perception was one of animation being
a medium for children that lacked seriousness and depth. A cartoon was something with bright colors and moving figures for Saturday mornings or
Tom and Jerry shorts for kids after school. But even then, those stereotypes were demonstrably untrue. The classic Disney films, and the fairy tales they're based on, are arguably some of the most "adult" stories out there because in many ways they're honest about loss in ways other works of fiction are not. They present idyllic worlds, but the "happily ever after" is only achieved after great pain, struggle, and suffering that has brought revelation of a greater truth about the nature of things. And maybe the tragedy and struggle contained within them are what make them so memorable and beloved.
The perception of animation both in film and television has shifted somewhat over the past two to three decades. Things like the successes of Pixar, the trend of anime becoming a bit more mainstream, the films of Hayao Miyazaki getting critical recognition, the popularity of Family Guy and South Park, and a show like The Simpsons, which is genuinely considered by some one of the best TV series of all-time, has given the medium credibility among the audience and media.
I bring all of this up because many might have a hard time believing animated TV shows about an anthropomorphized horse who's a washed-up actor, and the journeys of a burnt out drunk and his grandson through dimensions and universes are among the best out there ... but they are. And both have just returned for their second seasons.
Continue below the fold for more.
Morty, do you know what "wubba lubba dub dub" means? —Bird Person
Oh, that's just Rick's stupid nonsense catchphrase. —Morty
It's not nonsense at all. In my people's tongue, it means, "I am in great pain. Please help me." —Bird Person
Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, and based off of Roiland's Channel101 series
The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti, Adult Swim's
Rick and Morty is described by
TV Tropes as the "intoxicated bastard love child" of
Back to the Future,
Futurama and
Doctor Who. While the series wraps its plots in fantastical science fiction ideas, the core of the show is a dysfunctional family where grandpa, Rick Sanchez (voiced by Roiland) is a mad scientist that takes his grandson, Morty Smith (again voiced by Roiland), on adventures. Put another way, it's basically what if
The Doctor was a bit more sociopathic, a raging alcoholic and a bit of a degenerate who lived in the garage of his daughter (voiced by Sarah Chalke) and her not-so-bright husband, Jerry (voiced by Chris Parnell)?
What makes the series stand out is it goes in very inventive directions with the basic idea of its premise, and can swerve on a dime from funny to deeply existential. Like Harmon's
Community, things can get wacky and silly, but the emotional stakes are grounded and always feel true and earned. In fact, it's part of the reason
Rick and Morty has such a rabid following.
Rick and Morty's adventures are thinly veiled meta commentaries on pop culture. This is a series where, at least once, the characters have destroyed the world, and the consequences of that and other mishaps, like being sexually assaulted by a giant jellybean (voiced by Tom Kenny, a.k.a. the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants), are treated as something with lasting impact and the show never really forgets about it. One of the most interesting aspects of the series is how it finds both absurd humor and meaningful commentary in its cynicism.
- Season 2: The series returns to almost exactly the same spot it left off, albeit with six months having passed while time was frozen. According to Harmon and Roiland, don't expect a lot of fan service or for the series to focus a lot on the elements from season 1. There might be a short appearance by Mr. Meeseeks, but when asked at Comic Con a few weeks ago about the possibility of Evil Morty showing up this year, Harmon and Roiland implied it wasn't going to happen. The 10 episodes of season 2 are self-contained stories that go in brand-new directions, with the duo claiming they were afraid of "over-tilling your soil,” and remaining in the same places. Look for Summer (voiced by Spencer Grammer) to become a bit more involved in Rick and Morty's adventures. And just as in season 1, the occasional celebrity guest star will pop up. Yesterday's premiere featured Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele as testicle alien cops of the fourth dimension. Next week's episode will feature Jemaine Clement, one half of the musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, as a singing, telepathic gas alien and is probably the most the series has felt like something straight out of Doctor Who. Stephen Colbert and Patton Oswalt will also show up in different capacities before the current season is over.
- Earth Dimension C-137: Rick always identifies himself from his other Rick counterparts by the designation of "C-137." This is likely a reference to the fine-structure constant (α). It is defined as the charge of an electron (q) squared over the product of Planck's constant (h) times the speed of light (c), and unites electromagnetism with the charge of the electron, relativity in the form of the speed of light, and quantum mechanics through Planck's constant. It's a dimensionless quantity, with the reciprocal being equivalent to around the number 137. Because of that, the number 137 has been thought by some to be important in figuring out a Grand Unified Theory of everything.
- The Council Of Ricks: As revealed in episode 10 of season 1, at least some of the different Ricks and Mortys from the different dimensions have joined together in an alliance as part of the Council of Ricks. It's a reference to two councils from Marvel Comics and one from Doctor Who. The Interdimensional Council of Reeds, where every version of the Fantastic Four's Reed Richards have come together to solve problems, and the Council of Kangs, with different versions of Kang the Conqueror joining together, are similar to the Council of Ricks. The Rick C-137's position as a rogue to the Council of Ricks is akin to The Doctor's relationship to the Time Lord High Council in Doctor Who. Also, the symbol for the Council of Ricks is an upside-down Flux Capacitor with a Robin-esque "R" symbol.
- Moral Paragons: Morty is usually the idealist and the one whose conscience pushes him to do the right thing. The second episode of season 2 has Morty professing those values like he was a member of Star Trek's Starfleet. When Morty makes what seems to be the honorable and noble choice, the results are contrasted against Rick's indifference and the show seems to side with Rick's point of view.
- Rick's Secret: In interviews, Harmon and Roiland have talked about how the characterization of Rick is based on the idea that there is some great secret at his core. The interpretations as to whether Rick actually cares about Morty is one of the big outstanding questions of the show. All on-screen evidence points to him caring deeply about his grandson. And in the season 2 premiere, Rick dives into the void after Morty, willing to sacrifice himself, while saying "I’m okay with this. Be good, Morty. Be better than me.” Also, Rick is a genius that has seen things no one else has and knows literally everything about the nature of time and space, and the series implies how emotionally deadening that might be. Having God-like knowledge of everything sounds great, but it would also become pretty boring after a while. And if you knew for certain the universe was absurd, and had no true meaning or purpose, the choices become either cold indifference to rules and limits, or open revolt against them.
From Erik Adams at the
A.V. Club:
Dan Harmon: We haven’t talked about this in a while, but before we wrote the first episode of Rick And Morty, we had a conversation where, I think it was Mike McMahan who said, “Should we decide that there is a secret we keep from the audience forever?” But we always know it.” I won’t say what. We said, “Oh, what about this?” And we went, “Yeah, that’s really cool.” I was kind of obsessed with it for a while. But I think what’s really interesting about this new golden age of TV is that [Snaps fingers.] halfway through the first season, somebody made a Reddit post where they threw out the theory, which was exactly what we had talked about, basically. It was like, “Oh, thank God we didn’t really do anything with it.”
Justin Roiland: We were operating with that thought, though. We were writing season one with that thought in our heads that it could be the case.
Dan Harmon: I think that’s a really remarkable thing about today’s TV audience. You cannot write payoff-based TV anymore because the audience is essentially a render farm. They have an unlimited calculation capacity. There’s no writers’ room that can think more than 20 million people who can think about it for an hour a day. That season of Dexter being the big example: They had planned out this whole Fight Club reveal that there was a character that didn’t really exist except in someone else’s head. They’d planned out the whole clever thing, and they were going to reveal it, and all this stuff, and then after episode one aired, somebody on Reddit just like, [Snaps fingers.]. You can’t do it anymore. You can’t try to fool the audience.
Netflix's 'BoJack Horseman'
When it first premiered, Netflix's
BoJack Horseman was written off by many critics as a forgettable animated series with talking animals that relied on crass humor for empty laughs. However, those who watched the entire first season saw Raphael Bob-Waksberg's satire of Hollywood bullshit take a darker shift in its second half, and becomes something that really contemplates what exactly makes a person "good" in really interesting ways. For those unfamiliar, the title character (voiced Will Arnett) is a washed up, self-destructive sitcom actor of the 1990s struggling to regain his footing in Hollywood. And, by the way, he's also a horse. As BoJack tries to get his life back together, he's aided and surrounded by ghostwriter and former love interest Diane Nguyen (voiced by Alison Brie), Diane's boyfriend and BoJack rival Mr. Peanutbutter (voiced by Paul F. Tompkins), BoJack's agent Princess Carolyn (voiced by Amy Sedaris), and BoJack's slacker roommate Todd Chavez (voiced by Aaron Paul).
Anyone that's ever experienced depression in their life has at one time or another had someone tell them condescendingly "you have so much to be thankful for." On one level, it's true. If you have a roof over your head, food in the refrigerator and someone that loves you, you're doing better than a significant chunk of people in this world. But depression is more than just the lack of things on a checklist one wants or needs to be happy. Sometimes it's the inability to even know what "happy" means, looks like, or perceive even a path in the direction of happiness. This is what makes BoJack Horseman so good and one of the best examinations of depression on TV. Its main character feels incredibly shitty, even when things are going his way, and has no idea as to how to stop feeling shitty.
You’re a millionaire movie star with a girlfriend who loves you, acting in your dream movie. What more do you want? What else could the universe possibly owe you?!
—Mr. Peanutbutter
I … want to feel good about myself. The way you do. And I don’t know how. I don’t know if I can. —BoJack Horseman
As season 2 begins, BoJack has received critical recognition for his autobiography, is starring in a biopic on the life of
Secretariat, and the character has a better fix on his own issues. However, even though he's grown some, he's still making mistakes and trying to find a place toward normal. BoJack is still a character the audience gravitates towards and pities, even as we see how awful he can be for everyone around him.
- A Long List Of Guest Stars: Among the new and returning guest stars are Margo Martindale, Ron Funches, Tatiana Maslany, Keegan-Michael Key, Ilana Glazer, Joel McHale, Henry Winkler, Paul McCartney, Sarah Koenig, and Daniel Radcliffe.
- J.D. Salinger Is Alive: In the world of BoJack Horseman, Salinger (voiced by Alan Arkin) is alive and well, not a recluse, and a game show TV producer. He's also very much like an Aaron Sorkin parody, in that he's a character who slips into long monologues about the importance of TV.
- Where Does Food Come From?: In a world where all the animals are sentient and speak, where exactly is the food coming from? Are they all vegetarians? According to the fifth episode of season 2, there are smart chickens and chickens pumped so full of hormones they're dumb. They eat the dumb chickens.
- Hank Hippopopalous: The second season touches on the Bill Cosby scandal with a character named Hank Hippopopalous. He's a mashup of David Letterman's late-night TV host and Bill Cosby's predator ways, with the show skewering the inability of people and the media to question a pop culture icon's actions unless presented with overwhelming evidence, and then still slut-shaming the victims when they do come forward.
- BoJack's Love Interest: Voiced by Lisa Kudrow, Wanda is a coma survivor that's been out for 30 years, owl and newly hired network executive that's BoJack's live-in lady. For BoJack, Wanda is something new and challenging. She doesn't want him for his fame, won't put up with his bullshit, but can be warm and caring. And in trying to give it a try with Wanda and develop a relationship, it feeds into the central question of whether BoJack can find a better way to live and be.
From Pilot Viruet at
Flavorwire:
BoJack is a miserable man (er, horse), and he doesn’t know how to not be miserable, so he’s committed to staying that way whether or not he consciously realizes what he’s doing. He self-sabotages, repeatedly, to the point where he ruins his career, his friendships, and his relationships. But it isn’t necessarily always his fault; this self-destruction, these mean moments and vile outbursts, the dogged determination to be alone even when he knows, deep down, that he doesn’t want to be alone are all various ways in which depression reveals itself. BoJack’s internal struggles with sadness cause him to react outwardly, and negatively, to those around him.