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Speaker 1

00:00

All right, man, we should probably jump into Rick and Morty at some point. Before we do that, how about you just like give your background up until Rick and Morty?

Speaker 2

00:09

So I didn't really know what I was doing with my life. I was a terrible student. I just I didn't do anything.

Speaker 2

00:15

I didn't like I didn't. It was before the era of even making any kind of videos or so, you know, I didn't really know how to channel my creativity. I mean, I would make like camcorder videos when I was a younger kid, and then in high school, I was just getting high and skipping school and you know, goofing off with my friends and I didn't really know I wanted to get into comedy I thought I wanted to maybe because I was drawing get into cartoons or comic books or something like that and then I just didn't have the discipline for that and so it was after high school I was barely graduated barely gotten to community college which turned out to serve me well for being a writer on community so but I was like I don't know what I'm doing and then it somehow had an epiphany, which I'm gonna reveal some biographical information and go, that's not really an epiphany. I decided to do stand-up.

Speaker 2

01:08

Now, my dad owned a stand-up comedy club, so I was going to stand-up comedy clubs my whole life and he was a huge, it's a huge comedy club, it's considered 1 of the premier clubs in the country. And so growing up I got to see, you know, Gary Shanling and Drew Carey, Ellen DeGeneres, Jim Carrey, I saw him my 16th birthday with all my friends. And that was still 1 of the most mind-blowing experiences because it was pre-Ace Ventura, post In Living Color.

Speaker 1

01:38

Wow.

Speaker 2

01:39

So he was big, but he wasn't as big as he would be coming the next 10 years after that. And So, and he was so quick. And so I remember we were all there and I had 1 friend, we were like 16, so of course you've got friends of different ages.

Speaker 2

01:52

I had a 14 year old friend who's very small and it's an adult club, but I'm the owner's kid. So he gets up and he walks across to go to the bathroom and Jim Carrey mid bit just stops to go, Hey, Mr. That fake mustache won't fool me.

Speaker 1

02:05

And it

Speaker 2

02:05

was just like the middle of his bit. He just like saw that kid and just like me. And then we all like, my dad brought us back to the green room, shuffled us back there and, you know, Opened the door and he was just like just like sitting there like just emanating energy and he's like hey, so it's your birthday I'm like, yeah

Speaker 1

02:22

You want

Speaker 2

02:22

to come back to my hotel room and watch some porno? I was like It was what you'd want from a meeting Jim Carrey, so anyway, so then I yeah I was like I want to I want to I want to get involved in comedy, but this is pre any kind of internet video, YouTube or anything. And even, like, I didn't know, all I knew how to do is edit camcorder to VCR.

Speaker 1

02:46

Oh, like dual VCR thing? Yeah.

Speaker 2

02:48

So I wasn't really doing this. I'm like, well, standup is something where you can write comedy and then you can perform it and you get an immediate reaction. So I started doing that and doing the open mics.

Speaker 2

02:58

And then eventually I, I was like, okay, Detroit is not for me the place I want to find my comedy voice. So I moved to Chicago, which is a great transition city. And immediately I was watching these people on stage in Chicago and just everyone was blowing my mind just comedically. And so got involved in that scene and I met a lot of people there.

Speaker 2

03:20

Like I was, I probably should stop name dropping, but my comedy class at that time was like Kumail Nanjiani, TJ Miller, Pete Holmes, Kyle Kinane, Matt Bronger. These are all guys who I did open mics with. They started, you know, so we all kind of became friends and that was really my college because I didn't go to college really. I went to community college for 2 years and I transferred to Michigan State where all I did was watch TV constantly and say, I just want to write a TV show and Specifically I wanted to write an animated sci-fi comedy show

Speaker 1

03:53

okay, and

Speaker 2

03:53

this is before a Futurama

Speaker 1

03:55

dude So so there's really nothing that existed in any yeah in any way as far as like something you like aspired to

Speaker 2

04:04

yeah I mean, I mean, you know You're watching I watched Cohen and I watched old sitcoms at Seinfeld at that and like I like this stuff But I knew that I wanted Something that was sci-fi cuz I like sci-fi or genre Fantasy something and but also comedy it was like I had no clue I'd ever be involved in a show like that. Like Rick and Morty is literally the exact show that I was fantasizing about at 20 years old. And on top of it, to be able to do it with friends as opposed to let's say I got hired on Futurama I'd be like I'm getting hired on a Fox show because I you know who knows either they loved my script and they hired me or I worked my way up from my writer's assistant but but Rick and Morty is like it's sci-fi fantasy comedy and it's dark as dark as my sensibility is which Futurama never really was as dark as I think ultimately I like to write, and then just doing it with your friends.

Speaker 2

05:02

Yeah, which you have a rapport you have an understanding. It's like being in a band I hate using that metaphor That's just I actually like using that metaphor But if you like I need to say I hate it cuz it's like it might be perceived as pretentious but it is because you have a rapport with people as opposed to being hired and thrown into a staff where it's like, hey, I, where I assume we're all funny, professionally funny enough to be on the show, but I don't know what your sensibility is. So anyway, I think that's a long way of getting to how I got to Rick and Morty, which was,

Speaker 1

05:32

Oh, well you got to, you got to watch.

Speaker 2

05:34

Yeah. So I, yeah.

Speaker 1

05:36

Skipped how you actually got.

Speaker 2

05:37

So, so then, I was doing standup in Chicago for, for 4 years and at the, towards the end of it, I was like, I want to make videos. And I remember, and I'm so, Guterman and I, I've referenced him now twice, Dan Guterman, a writer, producer on Rick and Morty, and 1 of the biggest ingredients of making that show great in the last 2 seasons. We were talking about how we're both driven by proving to the world that we know what we're doing But also being terrified of being exposed as frauds at the same time.

Speaker 2

06:07

And so we're angry. We're like people are gonna people are gonna Respect us and validate that we know we're doing we're funny And so yeah, so I saw this guy make a comedy video in the stand-up scene like a video video Which was relatively infrequent back then and I watch it was so angry I was like, I'm gonna make a video 10 times better than that guy and so he met I was waiting tables with a guy named Danny Jelinek, who's now a big comedy director. He directed like children's hospital. And I mean, he directs on, last week tonight.

Speaker 2

06:40

Is that what the town Oliver show is called?

Speaker 1

06:42

It sounds right.

Speaker 2

06:42

Okay. Yeah. So he's just directs tons of comedy. By the time we were waiting tables together and we just hit it off, you know, just joking around and riffing like waiting tables together.

Speaker 2

06:53

And so I found out he's in film school and like I said up until that point I'd only done VCR editing. So When he showed me how to edit on a computer, my mind was blown. I was like, well, you can just drag a song underneath this. And then we don't, I don't have to record a song in the background, in a boom box.

Speaker 2

07:11

And so. We made a couple of comedy videos together with a lot of these standups. I gave Kumail Nanjiani his first role. In fact, I confirmed that.

Speaker 2

07:19

I hung out with him a couple weeks ago and I was like, was Vive this video Dan and I made? Was that your first acting role? He was like, yeah. Wow.

Speaker 2

07:26

So you can look that up. Anyway, we started making videos together and then I found out about channel 101, which is this, should I explain what that is for your audience?

Speaker 1

07:37

Yeah. People won't know what that is.

Speaker 2

07:38

Okay. So it's still going after 15 years. So channel 1 on 1 was started by Dan Harmon and Rob Schraub. Dan's a creative community and Rick and Morty and Rob is a director who's directed a lot of stuff also on TV, comedy stuff, and Sarah Silverman's show, co-creator.

Speaker 2

07:55

At the time they were writing partners and they were really feeling the futility of selling stuff. They'd made a show called Heat Vision Jack, pilot with Jack Black that Ben Siller directed, but Fox didn't pick it up. And I think it was crushing, and they were selling, crushingly disappointing, and they were selling all these shows and movies, but they weren't getting made. And they're like, what are we doing?

Speaker 2

08:14

We're just writing and nothing is being seen by anybody. So they started Channel 101 just to make stuff, videos, in 2003 with their friends. And the framing device essentially is a film festival, but they would, it was set up like it was a competitive TV network. So they would, you'd make stuff, you'd submit it to the primetime panel.

Speaker 2

08:34

The primetime panel was the creators of shows that were currently in the screening so that gave them the credibility to be judging over. But it's purely democratic. So what would happen is the creators – the 5 returning shows would be put up against 5 pilots and the audience would vote for their top 5 favorite shows among those 10 So you could get cancelled and you could be off the primetime panel and then a new person could get on So it always was you know, people would say it's a conspiracy that They're gonna put in shitty shows so that they don't have any competition right but no because anyone with a pure heart and soul which Dan and Rob do have creatively and And most of us who became their peers That that sort of came to channel 1 won't have this to like you want the show to be good you want you You want to you actually want to put stuff in there that's gonna make you work harder Mm-hmm That's what made me better when I moved to Chicago. I worked you know the people in Detroit were Comedy people in Detroit who were you know if you're really serious you move to Chicago LA or New York So once I moved to Chicago is around people who are that much more serious They pushed me harder LA, you know the same thing and then you're you're in Channel 101 and you're like you're watching You know Justin Roiland's early stuff, you know guy named JD Riznar did yacht rock these people They were everyone who's getting better and they're making you have to get better And Dan and Justin at the time and Rob, and at the time the Lonely Island guys had a show in there who now Sarah Chalk was in their early stuff.

Speaker 2

09:53

And I was like the girl from scrubs. And now she's the voice of Beth, which is weird. So, Okay, I got to turn this off. This is Rob Schraub texting me.

Speaker 2

10:04

That's a dumb job. So I moved out there because a friend of mine said, hey, you know, you like that Heat Vision Jackpilot. These guys, they created the Tinkell Channel 101. And so I moved to LA specifically just to get on their radar and and make stuff for that thing because I watched the videos I think this is exactly my kind of comedy and so the first video I made I submitted it and was rejected and it was the most heartbreaking experience.

Speaker 2

10:34

And then I submitted another 1 and it got in but it didn't get voted back. And so that's what happens. It just made you work harder. You go, I got to make something even better now.

Speaker 2

10:43

You have to just, it forces You to just keep working harder until you make something that that the audience can't deny you know and then when you do that Your peers or go oh Hey, man at the screening. Yeah, nice video. It's pretty funny, and then eventually you're getting so good They're like you want to hang out And then eventually you're getting so good, they're like, hey, we just got a TV show. You wanna work on it?

Speaker 2

11:05

And that's basically how it all played out.

Speaker 1

11:07

So that's how you're employed and you have friends.

Speaker 2

11:10

Basically. Congrats. It all, and

Speaker 1

11:12

you know,

Speaker 2

11:12

listen, it's a curse and a blessing to have your employers also be your friends.

Speaker 1

11:15

Yeah, I know the feeling. So I think that like, you've done a bunch of interviews on Rick and Morty and like Dan and Justin have also done a bunch Of interviews on Rick and Morty I think what people listening to this will probably be most interested in is like Just the sci-fi elements the random tech elements of it all.

Speaker 2

11:33

I was wondering if you could just like explain where you get your ideas for stuff or like, is it coming from like, you know, sci-fi like fiction of the past? Are you just making stuff up? Where does it come from?

Speaker 2

11:46

Definitely a big helping of fiction from the past. We, you know, have all, are all well-versed in every iconic sci-fi genre movie and television show of the past 50 years. Okay, fine. Maybe not 50 years.

Speaker 2

12:02

Let's not, I've never seen a lost in space episode, but yeah. And, on top of that, 1 of our writers, Mike McMahon, it seems to read every sci-fi book and graphic novel. And I, I mean, you know, I watch a lot of TV and movies and I read occasional sci-fi books But I just he's like an encyclopedia of that stuff. So We'll be talking about all these ideas like oh, what if it's something like this?

Speaker 2

12:28

What if it's like something like this plot from this book combined with this episode of, you know, I always give the example of the Total Rick Hall episode from season 2 where the parasites are in the house with them. I think, I think McMahon pitched that as, oh, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 5 they introduce this character Dawn as her sister and everyone's pretending, I mean, they're not pretending, they're treating her like she's always been there and you know that as a viewer that she hasn't had a sister for the first 4 seasons. And so you find out the supernatural explanation for why that is. So I think that's where it started And then we built on top of that a thing element like oh, they're all trapped in the house And they're all suspicious, and then it was like oh, what if we do the dang?

Speaker 2

13:07

I think Goodman pitched the idea of well What if this is a way to do a clip show so you're actually throwing 2 clips? But the clips themselves are not memories in the sense of like a traditional clip show, they're actually part of the sci-fi. And so it ends up being a patchwork of different references that are hopefully combined enough so we're not doing a spoof of any 1 thing. What I would never want to do, not that we haven't, I mean, Anatomy Park is, you know, is considered maybe 1 of the weaker episodes at least by us because it's just a Jurassic Park spoof right it's a fantastic voyage tropes booth that's been done a thousand times You know we try to do a darker weirder version of it, but that's not The most ideal episode we want to like really make it feel that the references are If anything hidden, but then okay So for like in the total Rick all episode right like they ended up getting spotted because it's something like they

Speaker 1

13:58

only have positive memories Something like that was that something you guys made up or are you just like yeah?

Speaker 2

14:03

That was you know that was 1 of those moments that you know when you're when you get to so far in a script And you're trying to figure out what that I can't remember that was like the third act twist. I assume You're like okay, what is gonna solve this problem? And then that's just when good old fashion writing ingenuity comes in, you know, and I don't remember who pitched it, but it was, you know, yeah, the idea of, of, of you, you can identify the parasites because you've only have positive memories of them on like your family.

Speaker 2

14:28

You've had all the complicated emotional experiences with that we all have. But you know, that's, that's that example that that's the anatomy of that episode, but you know, sometimes it's more like, like Morty Knight run, was like, oh, let's do like a midnight run kind of road adventure. And that's, we're not referencing midnight run. There's no you know like oh That's clearly the Riafat Kodo character, but he's green wearing sunglasses with 3 eye lenses But it's like it's that the essence of that you know So oh well yeah Ramble on too much.

Speaker 1

15:09

I forget that no no you're doing great What's the title of the episode where it's like world within world within world within world?

Speaker 2

15:16

The title is called we don't have any consistent Naming formula a lot of times. It's puns with their names of famous movie titles and sometimes just completely oh I think it's the Rick's must be crazy

Speaker 1

15:30

that sounds right.

Speaker 2

15:30

Yes. Yeah, yeah the microverse in the mini-verse yes

Speaker 1

15:34

Where did that come from?

Speaker 2

15:36

That Justin had this idea of that Rick, had some machine that it would, he would liquefy an entire civilization because it was the only way to create this incredibly delicious dipping sauce

Speaker 1

15:52

he loved. Oh, the Moulin!

Speaker 2

15:54

Not the Moulin sauce, this is way before the Moulin sauce, but it was something similar. It was like, you know, Which obviously the common theme is that Justin is obsessed with these kind of random things And then we just want to like capture that energy and put it in there so It was just the idea of What could what could illustrate Rick's character better than he just he would sacrifice an entire Civilization either 1 of the greatest inventions is creating life Complex life just to because once you liquefied it it just happens to be the most delicious recipe. So I can't remember, it was always the character, they go in and a character comes out I think we actually did for the final version there was the character never leaves, but there's a version where they sort of The characters go in whatever combination in the earliest version and then and then 1 of the people kind of comes out And so So from the point of view of the character coming out, it's like this is where the world of the gods, you know?

Speaker 1

16:50

Yeah, I don't think they did.

Speaker 2

16:52

We didn't do that, yeah. But that was a big element. But at some point in early on in the writing of that, it felt a little too much like the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa's tooth becomes...

Speaker 2

17:02

It's a treehouse of horror where her tooth I think Bart touches the touches some Petri dish that her tooth is in and then the static electricity creates life and then it has a little civilization and it's point where like they get to the future and now there's like nukes or spaceships flying around and attacking Bart and it felt like it was a little too much like that and so I think also we because we were doing the beats where Rick and Morty were traveling repeatedly throughout time period so they'd get to the medieval period and it just sort of felt a little too like oh I get it this is like our medieval period but it's aliens in a jar and you know it's just it's trying to figure out how to get it so we've just we're doing something that hasn't been done by either Simpsons or South Park or Futurama, which is not an easy cone path, you know, whatever those highway cone paths when you're doing a driver's training to weave through.

Speaker 1

17:55

I've heard you guys mentioned that before, but like, do you have someone who has, whether it's like encyclopedic knowledge, or is there some like website where you're like plugging in the references you're using because it seems like impossible to avoid

Speaker 2

18:08

I Think it is impossible to avoid and I we haven't done a good job all the time because I remember we were doing the the episode Lawnmower dog which had the inception thing and There's scary Terry who's the Freddy Krueger character and we were way too far down the road and Mike McMahon said oh You know South Park did you know their inception episode had Freddy Krueger were like?

Speaker 1

18:32

Thanks That

Speaker 2

18:32

would have been good to mention yesterday. Adam Sandler, everybody. Adam Sandler impression.

Speaker 2

18:38

Yeah, but it's like great. Now we're too far down the line to change it. And you know, then you just feel like a hack and none of us had seen it and the thing is I love South Park but I can't watch every episode of that show they

Speaker 1

18:50

think I mean let alone remember everything yeah I think it's just like oftentimes when I'm working on creative projects I'm just like is this new or I like faintly remember it and like is it an exposure to something

Speaker 2

19:01

by the way there's a, there's a feeling that I get. That's a combination of, of self loathing and self, what's the opposite of self loathing? Confidence, but I'm trying to still make it negative, like self glorifying.

Speaker 2

19:17

Where I, if I think I've come up with a really particularly brilliant idea I immediately go this had to have been done before you know and so but there is you there are actual websites of TV tropes and movie tropes you can look up but but it's I think it's almost sometimes it's just too nuanced like how do you even describe this particular bit you know it's just so and you know the fact is it's like it's sort of like when those they do these videos every now and then of comedians getting busted Like did Amy Schumer steal Louis Kisika's bit? I don't know because there's so much stand-up comedy being generated and there's only so many ideas in the world I don't even mean there's only so many jokes. I mean like like people are always kind of landing on the same human thoughts about life, you know, so You know, I could say we'd have never consciously ripped anything off and and you know sometimes maybe it's to a fault where you're like, you're trying so hard to stay away from something that you're like, you're not having any fun.

Speaker 1

20:16

Well, I was wondering about that with like I mean, maybe maybe not South Park or Simpsons or something, but like you know an older You know piece of fiction where it's just like let's do something almost identical to it But like basically add the Rick and Morty spin on top of it. And like that opens it up in a new way. Like, I guess you've sort of done that with a bunch of episodes, like that are like throwbacks, but I wonder if it like goes more nuanced than that with like obscure stuff.

Speaker 2

20:42

God, what was it? It was the 1 with the first introduced the Council of Ricks. And it was called, a Rick for every season or something like that.

Speaker 2

20:54

But that episode is, I think that it's sort of, It's 1 of the few episodes where, oh, you know, actually, ironically, people did say, did you guys rip off the Council of Reeds, which is a storyline from the Fantastic 4, which is a bunch of Reed Richards From different parallel realities in the marvel universe formed a council of reeds No, we didn't know about that But it's also an obvious place to go with rick and but more importantly the story itself around it Just felt like it felt like a movie compressed in a 22-minute episode. It was like more like a, like not really a familiar story, but like, oh, this would be, this is like kind of a classic, this is a mystery. It was a mystery episode. It was like who they're investigating, you know, Rick was trying to clear his name.

Speaker 2

21:43

So that was a Rick and Morty take on a, a mystery, a, you know, trying to think of examples of movies, you know, there's, I mean, the fugitive, you know what I mean? That's a movie or a show before that about a guy who's trying to hunt the real killer of his wife while he's being pursued by the authorities. So that was the Rick and Morty take on that trope, but that's, or genre or sub-genre, and I think that's, cause I didn't even think of that as being a fugitive. Spoof.

Speaker 2

22:09

Cause it wasn't, it's just, it's like you said, it's like the Rick and Morty take on a classic.

Speaker 1

22:14

Yeah. I mean, it's like how many movies are just like, you know, recomposed Greek myths, right. And just like, well, It's sort of the same thing, but not really at all.

Speaker 2

22:22

Yeah, we do a episode in season 3 that's It's not A spoof of any anything in particular, but we started referencing very specific movies and we're like well this is okay and I'm gonna try to weave through this without spilling anything it's like you know 127 hours is I think I might even talk about this comic-con so it's actually probably it's okay to talk about but there's an episode where Rick turns himself into a pickle and it's the only other footage that's shown they showed it after the premiere of season of episode 1 is season 3 so that's not a spoiler Rick turns himself into a pickle But what the episode's really about is he turns up to a pickle and then he sort of gets trapped and he ends up involved in a situation 1 thing 1 twist leads to another and he's totally screwed and he's doesn't have the he doesn't have the same resources that he usually has access to he's a pickle he's not himself he can't reach into his lab coat and pull out his portal gun or any of his other infinite inventions he has hidden in there And yet he's in the most mundane of circumstances. He's just on earth. He's a few hundred feet from the house.

Speaker 2

23:40

He's not, but he's a pickle. So he has to figure out how to get himself out of that with really basic ingenuity. And so we kept talking about 127 hours or gravity like these movies about characters that are just in these Situations that that they are alone and they have to figure out you know What do I do to get out of this and so That was a great once again to do it the Rick and Morty version of what that Sub genre is I don't even know what that subgenre is called survival is the survivalist subgenre room escape type deal yeah

Speaker 1

24:12

Okay, and so then So all the gadget you talked about the portal gun and stuff, like, you know, the aliens have random gadgets, when they go to a different world, everyone's got different, like, weapons that they attack them with. Where does all that stuff come from?

Speaker 2

24:26

Well, that, I know, I mean, you know, like, the first example that pops in my head is I think that Justin wanted to base the citadel of Ricks off of something from Halo I'm not a huge video game person. He is so there's some big spaceship citadel thing in the game Halo and so a lot of times the the the elements of the planets or the technology will be, you know, straight up visual references like, oh this is, you know, this is like a gun from this movie. I'm not a big tech person, I never thought about this until just now, but I've never really cared that much about what the tech looks like as long as it you know you want to make sure kind of everything feels and looks different and there's a flavor to it but I like the I'm pretty into the alien design so I've gotten involved I've gotten I've you know talked to art directors and you know character designers and been like all right this alien has to look like this if it looks like this It's not gonna work.

Speaker 2

25:21

It's not gonna be as funny if it looks like this It's gotta look like you know it's got to be like you got to take it seriously or or it's from this kind of Planet so it's got to have a specific anatomical features And it's true like you you I mean it's so funny though because there's been so many times when You know, I don't the meeseeks is a perfect example. I feel like I've talked about this I'm so sorry if anyone who's watching like I have already heard this Anyone who's heard

Speaker 1

25:48

this before is gonna want more. Like they want it again.

Speaker 2

25:50

But the Meeseeks, I wrote that episode. And when I say I wrote, you know, it's such a collaborative effort. My name was on that script, but you know, we all sort of write a little bit of everything.

Speaker 2

26:00

So, and Dan does so much of the final dialogue passes and stuff. So the Meseeks start out as, you know, this voice, this concept that Justin pitched. And then I wrote the episode and I wrote the episode script and I still in my head picture them as tiny little tiny little for you at home creatures like the size of Smurfs or something

Speaker 1

26:23

okay

Speaker 2

26:24

and Justin it was I'm not kidding it was the blue dress gold dress of the writers room because half the people reading the same script and crew imagine them life-size and half imagine them as tiny little gremlin things or smaller than gremlins and and so I don't I just I guess the script was written in a way we never really thought about their scale you know So there's a scene where Jerry and Beth are in the restaurant and they all bust in and I remember thinking like oh that it'd Be funny if they're like on the table like like, you know, 3 apples high like in Jerry's face with a gun Yeah, and everyone's like no no, it's like a life-size human size six-foot person with a gun It's like that's gonna be terrifying. So anyway, it's those conversations though that are important because you're like it's a very different concept if they were Smurfs versus what they ended up being, you know. And then on top of that you have just what do they look like?

Speaker 2

27:14

Are they complex? Are they simple? Are they blue? Are they monochromatic?

Speaker 1

27:17

How do you decide for, you know, the 6 foot Miesek versus the, you know, the little munchkin version?

Speaker 2

27:24

Lots of debate. Lots of debate. Yeah.

Speaker 2

27:26

You got to discuss it, you know? And like I said, it was so evenly divided that it wasn't like just me fighting for them being small. It was like other people too. And then, you know, eventually you figure out what's the best way.

Speaker 2

27:38

And like every other argument we've ever had, eventually the episode gets finished and made and it comes out and then you just kind of forget about all the problems. Like that would have been better if they were 2 feet high, but then you're like years go by. You're like, who cares though? Well, it's

Speaker 1

27:56

the thing that like someone watching it can't know. I mean, maybe now they can know, but yeah. Have you ever done like a, I don't know if it's like a director's cut animation where you're like I kind of wanted him to look Like this so can you you know edit that in and then throw it in as an extra?

Speaker 1

28:11

Like a yeah,

Speaker 2

28:12

well, there's been lots of storyboarding that we've we've redone and and you know Revised and that's what that's it ends up getting us in troubles. We'll just, we'll, because it's animation, we'll be like, we're going to rewrite the script and you can redraw it. You know, it's not, not a good thing to do because we're not a Fox show with unlimited, or at least near unlimited funds.

Speaker 2

28:31

So there's lots of stuff that we've, we've had this like totally, alternate versions of scenes there and, and the premiere of season 2, which was really. Just soul crushing, heartbreaking episode to break that no 1 has ever been ultimately satisfied with its final result that we kept revising changing and we could never really land and what the logic of that episode was it was the 1 where the things keep splitting oh yeah and so it's like a split-screen episode and we just could never figure out what the logic was because at the end of the day admittedly unlike Futurama none of us on the staff have we're barely educated we're not mathematicians we don't really know that much about science We're writing from the point of view of tropes and genre stuff. We want to tell good stories. We're more scientists of story, if you will, as opposed to like, we don't really know how any of this shit works.

Speaker 2

29:27

We should get a science advisor. So that episode, at 1 point, there's a whole running thing where Morty had gone and gotten some point short shorts and and No 1 calls attention to it because you know the world has been frozen between season 1 and season 2 and so you find out that they just been running around having fun looting department stores and Morty at some point grabbed short shorts and he's walking around and at 1 point Rick starts leaning into him berating him and he points out the short shorts and starts roasting him about the short shorts like what is this the new look for season 2 and starts breaking the fourth wall. You're hoping that you get 1 of these limited edition alternative action figure with short shorts, Morty, like, you know, which I love, by the way. I think that's 1 of the funniest parts of the shows that you can weave in and out of the fourth wall, but still you're still invested in the story, But anyway, not that it ended up, that scene ended up being in the air, but it's on the DVD, I think.

Speaker 2

30:21

And yeah, that, and by the way, even more of that in season 3, there's like, we rewrote some episodes so much that there's animatics that are like so different than the final product.

Speaker 1

30:31

Yeah. Well, that's what I was wondering. I mean, like season 3 isn't out yet, but except for the first episode, I was wondering if you could jump into that. Like what can we expect?

Speaker 1

30:40

Like what kind of weird things are coming up without revealing everything?

Speaker 2

30:45

What I like about the show and from a broad point of view personally, is that people seem to be invested in the reality of the show. In other words, you know, people are wondering about certain characters. Oh, when is that person gonna come back?

Speaker 2

30:58

What's happening with that character? And the fact that anybody cares about characters that were introduced once in season 1 and like intriguing ideas like the eyepatch Morty who's the evil Morty, you know, what it was that character didn't come back. In season 3, I think that we stay true to the idea of those the world is real. There are consequences.

Speaker 2

31:19

At the same time, we're going to have lots of 1 off things, but there's consequences both I mean, you know, you saw it in the first episode that they get divorced that that's that has consequences that play out through the whole season But there's also consequences that are outside of you know some of the stuff that you've seen already is gonna Play out more in season 3,

Speaker 1

31:38

okay Yeah, so along those lines then of like random things that like maybe get addressed. Maybe don't get Addressed I have a question from another YC person Kat Mignolic Her question is can you make Roy the game can we make it

Speaker 2

31:55

will you make it? Will we the writers of an animated comedy show create a virtual reality simulation? Can we get funding for it?

Speaker 2

32:04

I think is the question I

Speaker 1

32:06

mean, maybe we can figure it

Speaker 2

32:07

out Maybe we already have and that's what this is

Speaker 1

32:12

oh

Speaker 2

32:15

We're Ryan, okay, yeah Yeah, what was the second 1 called? I think I'm gonna pitch that joke though whatever the Royce equals I think it

Speaker 1

32:22

was Dave or David or something like

Speaker 2

32:23

yeah so the answer is no because we're incapable of that but also Maybe we already have Yeah, I think in the virtual reality in the virtual reality game virtual Rick ality. I think it's called I think Justin told me there's a scene. There's an Easter egg where you play a knockoff version of Roy oh it sounded hilarious I played some of that game but I didn't get this far you find like a bootleg Roy and then you so you're playing a virtual reality game within a virtual reality game because it's the richer Richard Rick and Morty so

Speaker 1

33:00

yeah I get just like we should step back and explain what the actual Rick and Morty virtual reality Oh, cuz it just came out right

Speaker 2

33:06

yeah yesterday. Yeah, that's that's a Game where you're it's a virtual reality game where you're you're you're a clone of Morty so when you appear in the game you're in the garage and Rick and Morty are standing there and yelling at you and then you do different things and you, you know, obviously it's somewhat limited in where you can go. It's virtual reality and you can't just run around, but you go to like different worlds and then you can teleport to 3 or 4 different worlds.

Speaker 2

33:34

You can go in the house which is pretty mind-blowing because I it's weird I remember I played the level or I was just Justin put me into the the scene in the house. This is the house? Like this is the living room? This feels so weird like I'm not used to experiencing it from that perspective.

Speaker 1

33:50

That's so funny. Was there like any like disconnect between like the house you imagined writing and the virtual reality house that's been created?

Speaker 2

33:58

Well the disconnect is pretty great because I you know Justin pointed out something because you're standing in front of the TV and so the couch is behind you and then to your, let's say the TV is this way, to my left was the sliding glass door, which I know we've used a lot, you know, the party episode takes place in the house, but never really thought about it. And Justin says, that's Mike Chilian's, this is Mike Chilian's parents' house. Like that sliding glass door and the way it looks outdoors I never would have thought that's a friend of ours he also happened to be the character designer of the pilots we actually designed a lot of the original characters but I I never would have thought that until I was physically in the space and I looked over like oh my god That is Mike Chilean's parents house like this is that's it totally see it now But I never would have thought of that watching it I mean I forget that I forget what color hair Beth has like in my mind for some reason she's a brunette and I always forget that she's a blonde because Most of my experience of the show is in my head I don't consume it as much as is as some people do because I don't sometimes don't even watch the final episodes You know,

Speaker 1

35:00

I believe I'm like,

Speaker 2

35:01

you know and if anything I'm watching most of them when they're in the animatic stage when they're all black and white So sometimes I actually forget what the characters look like like what they're out. I you know that Rick's color palette like there's a joke in And the first episode where he says I used to wear blue pants and then to write that joke which McMahon did like I think we had to look at Rick and Morty on a sheet of paper be like oh, okay So he has brown pants. I think blue shirt a white lab coat and then Even like when Rick takes his shirt off like what he looks like underneath blew my mind once.