Rick and Morty Trivia: 50 amazing facts about the Adult Swim sci-fi sitcom!

With a huge following and already developing a cult following during its first season, and tremendous success, Rick and Morty keep on pushing the boundaries of television animation with outrageous stories, multidimensional traveling and a morbid humor that’s strangely appealing. So Get Schwifty and check out some amazing facts!

1. Fast food chain Carl’s Jr. released a television commercial in 2015 in which Rick brings walking, sentient Carl’s Jr. burgers into Morty’s room while Morty is sleeping. The burgers run amok and steal things from Morty’s room.

2. Rick and Morty were featured in The Simpsons couch gag for the last episode of season 26. It’s a mini story and can be seen on youtube.

3. The show and it’s main characters are based on an animated short from creator Justin Roiland called “The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti.”

4. Roiland voices both main characters.

5. Sarah Chalke, who plays Rick’s daughter, Beth, loves the art of Rick and Morty.

6. In the episode Get Schwifty, it was revealed that when Rick was somewhere in his college years or in his 20’s, he, Birdperson, and Squanchy were in a rock band called “The Flesh Curtains”.

7. Rick is shown to harbor deep emotional pain and sorrow, especially when it comes to his romantic relationships, such as with his ex-wife and Unity.

8. Spencer Grammer, who voices Morty’s sister said if she could go back in time, she would kill Hitler.

9. Rick’s catchphrase, “wubba lubba dub dub” means “I am in great pain. Please help me.” in Bird Person’s language.

10. Harmon thinks “20 Ways Hugh Jackman Should Eat A Muffin” would make a great BuzzFeed list.

11. Chalke, when asked what she would go back and change about school if she could, admitted that she once peed her pants in class.

12. Roiland initially wanted the show’s run time to be eleven-minute segments, but Adult Swim pushed for a half-hour program.

13. The creator of the animation series Gravity Falls makes a guest appearance in the episode “Big Trouble in Little Sanchez”. He voiced a character called “Toby Matthews”.

14. The second episode of the first season, Lawnmower Dog, was based on a pilot that Justin Roiland developed for Cartoon Network called DogWorld.

15. When recording dialogue, Roiland does a considerable amount of improvisation, which, he feels, makes the lines feel more natural.

16. Rick’s burps are real. All of them.

17. The theme song for Rick and Morty is a parody mix of ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Tintin.’

18. The way in which Rick says the word “bitch” is styled after how Jesse Pinkman delivered the line in Breaking Bad.

19.  In early stages of production, Bryan Cranston of breaking bad, auditioned for the role of Jerry.

20. Roiland achieves Rick’s burps by sipping low calorie beer and water. 

21. David Cross voiced the leader of aliens who were uncomfortable with nudity. This draws a similar parallel with Cross’ character in “Arrested Development” Tobias Funkes who was a never-nude.

22. The car driven by Jerry is inspired by the Wagon Queen Family Truckster from National Lampoon’s Vacation.

23. Co-creator Dan Harmon created the show with Justin Roiland during the time after he was fired from his previous show, Community.

24. King Jellybean originally was developed for another show created by Justin Roiland, called Unbelievable Tales. In that show the character went by the name of “Crumply Crumplestein”.

25. It has been rumored that Rick and Morty and hit series Futurama exist in the same universe. If you watch closely, you can see the Planet Express ship as well as other Futurama references in the background of scenes.

26. In the episode Lawnmower Dog, Maurice LaMarche, who voiced The Brain in Pinky and the Brain, voiced Snowball’s accountant.

27. In the series, Sarah Chalke voices Beth, a blonde doctor. This is the third role Chalke has taken as a blonde doctor after her characters in “Scrubs” and “How I Met Your Mother.”

28. Rick never wears a seatbelt in vehicles, while all other characters do.

29. The universe where most of the action on Earth takes place, Cesium-137, is just one of the endless number of universes that Rick and Morty travel through in the show.

30. The animation is of the show is done using Toon Boom Harmony, while background art for the show is done in Adobe Photoshop. Post production is done in Adobe After Effects.

31. In episode “Raising Gazorpazorp,” ruler Mar-Sha and the other Gazorpians with her are voiced by Claudia Black and Virginia Hey. Black and Hey both also performed the leading roles in the science fiction series Farscape.

32. Rick joined the family only one month before the timeline set in the pilot after being absent from of his daughter’s life for twenty years. This explains the rocky relationship with the rest of the family.

33. A theory suggests that Rick might not be from Morty’s universe. There’s a very good possibility that the Rick we know came from another universe where his family was dead for one reason or another and that when he showed up on his family’s doorstep he was actually brand new to the universe.

34. Another theory suggests that he accidentally killed Morty in the original universe and that it took him 20 years to find a way to get to his current universe.

35. The previous theory also justifies his drinking problem.

36. In the opening credits of Rick and Morty, Rick jumps through a portal leaving Morty behind on a hostile alien planet. Is it said that this Morty is the evil Morty who would go on to enslave thousands of other Morties and try to bring down the council of Ricks.

37. Another fan theory suggests that the baby Cronenberg thing that Rick euthanized shortly before attempting suicide was his original Morty.

38. Dan Harmon wore a Bird Person costume during Comic-Con 2015.

39. Bird Person is a parody of “The Hawk” from Buck Rogers.

40. Dan Harmon stated that his inspiration behind much of the concept and humor for the series comes from British television series, such as Doctor Who and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

41. In episode 3 of season 2, the show that Unity created for Rick is an alien version of Community, a show which Dan Harmon created, with all the main characters from that show making an appearance in this show: Jeff, Annie, Shirley, Pierce, Troy, Abed, and Britta.

42. In the Rick and Morty episode “Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind,” on of the many Rick’s has a Morty who looks like Eric Stoltz. Stoltz was originally cast, and even shot a majority of Back to the Future as Marty.

43. Fans started a petition in 2016 to convince Adult Swim to green light the production of a feature-length movie!

44. The original color for Mr. Meeseeks was a neon taupe. However, the concept did not go over well with viewers, so the producers changed him to blue.

45. The episode “Rixty Minutes” was released before it aired on Adult Swim via 109 15-second videos on Instagram. 

46. Although Mr. Poopybutthole made his first appearance in the episode “Total Rickall”, the producers wanted to make it look like he was a part of the series all along by editing him in the opening credits.

47. The first draft of the pilot was completed in six hours in Dan Harmon’s unfurnished “Community” office. Dan Harmon is allegedly a procrastinator, so Justin Roiland forced him to stay inside until the first draft was completed.

48. Any time a spaceship door opens with Rick inside, beer cans and bottles come spilling out.

49. There’s a dude actually named Rick Sanchez. He’s a contributor for Fox News and a columnist for Fox News Latino.

50. The general formula of Rick and Morty consists of the juxtaposition of two conflicting scenarios: an extremely selfish, alcoholic grandfather dragging his grandson across space for intergalactic and/or interdimensional adventures, intercut with domestic family drama. This has led Harmon to describe the series as a cross between Matt Groening’s two shows The Simpsons and Futurama, balancing family life with heavy science fiction.