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Rick and Morty

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Rick and Morty is an [adult swim] original that premiered in December 2013. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, the series is based off of "The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti", a short on Channel 101 parodying Back to the Future.

Rick Sanchez, an alcoholic Mad Scientist, constantly pulls his grandson Morty into crazy sci-fi trips and wild scientific experiments. Morty's parents keep the old man around half-begrudgingly, as long as Morty stays in school. Besides, they have their own problems to solve.

Tropes used in Rick and Morty include:


  • Alcoholic Dad: subverted with Rick (he is Morty's Granddad).
  • Autoerotic Asphyxiation: A character called Squanchy turns up in "Ricksy Business" (S1E11) for a spot of "squanching".
    • in a play on this, as well as idiosyncratic naming, S2E3 is called "Autoerotic Assimilation." The play derives from the character Unity who is a being which assimilates whole planets, and thus, when engaging in an orgy with Rick, is also engaging in a lot of "self-love" i.e. auto-erotic.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall:
    • Mr Poopy Butt-hole talks to the audience.
    • Broken twice and lampshaded in S2E11 "Ricksy Business" when the captain of the Titanic ride says:

Captain: Sorry for the inconvenience folks, we should resume sinking shortly. In the meantime, please stay on the ship and enjoy a complementary plate of James Camer-onion rings."
Jerry: Great. Not only is the ship not sinking, now the fourth wall has been broken."

  • Body Horror: in "Rick Potion No.9".
  • Call Back: In S2E2 ("Mortynight Run"), a few scenes after playing "Roy", Morty crashes the craft into K. Michael. Morty emerges from the craft, confusedly saying "We are out of off-white Persian," calling back to a customer asking 'Roy' about a particular type of carpet.
  • The Cameo / Couch Gag: In the Couch Gag for The Simpsons episode "Mathlete's Feat", Rick and Morty crash into the family's living room, killing them in the process, and Morty is tasked to revive the Simpsons in a cloning facility from another universe, while Rick fools around in the house.
  • Catchphrase:
    • Rick: "Wubba_Lubba_dub-dub!" (Translates as "I am in great pain, please help me.")
    • Beth: "Get a job, Jerry"
  • Cliffhanger: Season 2 finale.
  • Cosmic Horror: frequent encounters with, due to inter-dimensional travel.
  • Crapsack World: multiple
    • "Rick Potion No.9" - as of this episode, Morty's family no longer inhabit their original dimension as the cure to the love potion turned everyone on Earth (presumably) into hideous mutants or "Cronenbergs". Everyone, that is, except the 3 generations of Morty's immediate family, a fact which is handwaved as they all survive intact.
    • "Rest and Ricklaxation" - when the world is turned into a toxic version of itself:

[World is toxified]
Vicar: God is a lie, we made him up for money!
[World returns to normal; vicar ceases licking the nipple of a male parishioner]
Vicar: God is not a lie...

    • "The ABCs of Beth"- Froopy Land (visually averted, but really and truly it's a well-meaning childhood fantasy dreamland gone from bad to worse and subverted in the process.)
  • Curb Stomp Battle: Season 3, episode 1.
  • Downer Ending: Season 2 finale.
  • Easter Egg: This show has plenty. For example:
    • The house that Rick envisions in "The Rickshank Rickdemption" is Walter's house from Breaking Bad
    • There are also references to Gravity Falls, placed there because of a longtime friendship between Alex Hirsch and Justin Roiland. For example, in "The Rickshank Rickdemption", there's a scene where a Rick and a Morty emerge from a portal, with Morty carrying Journal #3 among other books, and in the same scene there are two Mortys in the background that look like Dipper and Mabel. Possibly the strangest one occurred in "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind", which borders on an Intercontinuity Crossover: After Rick opens multiple portals to distract his pursuers while he and Morty hop between universes, one of the portals spits out a pen, a notebook, and a coffee cup with a question mark, the same items sucked into a portal during The Stinger of an episode of Gravity Falls that aired over half a year after "Close Rick-Counters".
    • Subverted when Rick tries to think of a singer, and comes up with "Tiny Rogets" (Little Richard).
  • Elseworld: Rick, with his portal gun or his flying car, has the ability to travel through infinite dimensions and universes, making this trope a natural occurrence in the show.
  • Establishing an Unreachable Baseline: In "Morty's Mind Blowers", irked by Morty's insistance on using a level (a crude instrument by intergalactic standards), Rick builds a machine that creates a surface with "true level". After stepping on it, Morty (sarcastic at first) experiences orgasmic pleasure from standing. And then Summer takes him back to a normal floor...

Morty: Everything is crooked! Reality is poison! I wanna go back! I hate this!

Rick: Man, that guy is the "Redgrin Grumble" to pretending he knows what's going on.
[Summer and Morty laugh]
Rick: You like that "Redgrin Grumble" reference? Well guess what? I made him up. You really are your father's children. Think for yourselves. Don't be sheep.

  • Lampshade Hanging: this show likes to do this in interesting ways (see breaking the fourth wall above).
    • In S1E8, "Something Ricked This Way Comes", King Flippynips has Scroopy Noopers sent to Plutonimo Bay. Afterwards, he says to Jerry:

King Flippynips: I can see you are confused: Plutonimo Bay is a military prison, a sort of play on words...

  • Mad Scientist: basically Rick.
  • Meaningful Name: subverted. Many of the characters have silly names, primarily to reflect their "alien-ness".
  • Moral Event Horizon: multiple:
    • Morty in S2E2, "Mortynight Run", when he kills the intergalactic being known only as "Fart".
    • Morty in S2E9, "Look Who's Purging Now".
    • Tommy in S3E9, his "activities" in Froopy Land.
  • Rickursive Reality: in "The Rick's Must Be Crazy", Rick's car battery is composed of a "microverse". In order to fix it, he has to enter it, whereupon he discovers that one of his creations ("Zeep Xanflorp" voiced by Stephen Colbert) has designed a similar device called a "miniverse", which he and Rick enter only to discover yet another iteration.
  • Mind Screw: just about every episode - especially "Morty's Mind Blowers". (Events so extreme that they had to be erased from Morty's memory, a selection of which are recalled in this episode).
  • Parody: see
  • Post Modernism: references both reality and other fictions, and is aware that it is fiction. Frequently Breaks the Fourth Wall.
  • Refuge in Audacity: every episode pretty much.
  • Russian Reversal: In one episode where Rick and Morty are fleeing the Citadel, they enter a dimension full of pizza-people who eat humans, evidenced by one of the pizza people ordering out for one on the phone while lounging in his chair. They hop dimensions again and wind up in one populated by phone-people who eat chairs, use humans for phones, and sit on pizza-shaped chairs. They hop dimensions again and complete the joke by ending up in a dimension with chair-people who use eat phones, use humans as chairs, and use pizza for phones. These chair-people are rather friendly so they hid out there for a few scenes.
  • Scavenger World: An universe inspired by Mad Max is featured in "Rickmancing the Stone".
  • Shout Out: frequent. i.e. David Cronenberg, Freddy Kruger, David Bowie, Ice T.
  • Talking Animal:

Snuffles: Where are my testicles, Summer?

  • Time Travel: Averted. Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon have both stated that they won't be using time travel in the series.
    • And contradict themselves in "A Rickle In Time" when a time-travelling testicle monster turns up...
  1. ↑ List of Rick and Morty episodes wikipedia.org
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