Episode 296: Mini Episode: Brad Reviews Rick & Morty

Another Mini Episode as Brad talks about the recently completed Seaon 7 of Rick & Morty.

Episode Transcript

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From Geppetto Studios in New Freedom,Pennsylvania. Welcome to the Cosmic Geppetto podcast,
your home for inclusive, positive geekculture where we talk about movies,
comics, music, books, andwhatever else we feel like. Please welcome
your host. I have been fallingfor thirty minutes. Brad Mendenhall, Hey

(00:52):
kids. In is episode two ninetysix of the Cosmic Geppetto Podcast. It
is a mini episode where I talkabout the recently concluded season seven of Rick
and Morty. Now, this wasan important season because it was the first
one to not have any creative ortalent input from Justin Royland. Justin Royland

(01:21):
was the co creator of the showas well as the co creator of Solar
Opposites, and I think he hadsome input on the show Kowala Man that
just came out that didn't have awhole lot of impact. But Rick and

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Morty was the show that made JustinRoyland a star in the world of adult
animation. He was the voice ofthe two main characters, Rick and Morty,
and he was let go from thepro because he accusations of inappropriate behavior,

(02:09):
some of which I believe he wasbrought upon charges for Although those charges
were dismissed, from my understanding,I believe there might still be some litigation
there, or some civil litigation goingon. And more. Also, he

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apparently wasn't very involved creatively in theshow any longer. Rick and Morty was
co created with Royland and Dan Harmon. Dan Harmon probably best known as being
the creative force behind Community. DanHarmon is known or has a reputation for
being a difficult person to work withbehind the scenes, very creative, very

(02:57):
smart, but he has butted headswith people and his buttet heads with networks.
And so he had Royland and Harmon, and I think by season three
or four, Royland wasn't even showingup to the office. He wasn't showing
up to the writer's room. Hisinput was basically they would send him scripts

(03:27):
for Rick and Morty and whatever othercharacters that he'd be voicing, and he
would record his lines in a homestudio and send them back. So he
wasn't even and he wasn't taking direction. There was no oversight. He would
just say, okay, well thisis what I'm gonna do, and he
would read the lines and he wouldsend them back. And when he was

(03:53):
removed. It was a big questionof what was going to happen with the
characters that he voiced. He alsovoiced one of the main characters from Solar
Opposites, and what they did wasthey replaced him with actor Dan Stevens.
Dan Stevens probably best known as playingthe Beast in the live action Duty in

(04:15):
the Beast movie from A five yearssix years ago. Dan Stevens has a
British accent. The Corvo I believethat was the name of the Corvo character
that Justin Royland was voicing on SolarOpposites did not, and they had some
Solar Opposites a pretty smart sci fiparody. They basically he got shot in

(04:45):
the neck with a dart and theyhealed him with a special voice healing ray,
and then all of a sudden hehad a new voice with a new
accent. It's like, all right, we're gonna let this work. Kind
of clever. I I haven't watchedSolar Opposites in a while. I watched
the first two seasons. I thoughtit was good, but it didn't quite

(05:10):
connect with me the way Rick andMorty has Rick and Morty dealt with the
loss of Justin Royland by getting twodifferent actors who did spot on impersonations of
Royland's characterization of Rick and Morty,and they hired them. I have a

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good ear for this. I thinkI'm gonna mentioned this in a previous episode.
I have a good ear for differentvoice actors, and I can usually
tell us like, oh, that'snot the same person. I could not
spot an obvious difference. Now,I wonder if I watched one Royland episode

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and one post Royland episode, ifmaybe I would be able to. And
the thing was Rick and Morty theygo very long in between seasons. They've
gone I think eighteen months to twoyears in between seasons. It's in the
seasons they're ten episodes long, sothey it's completely possible that side decide I

(06:18):
would hear the difference, But becausethey have such a long break in between
seasons, it's not as obvious.So then it becomes does Rick and Morty
lose anything by the quality of performanceor the creative input? Now, as

(06:40):
said, the rumor is there wasnot a lot of creative input anymore.
There was none from Justin Royland otherthan what he brought to the vocal performance.
And then a compelling argument could bemade that if you have a voice
actor who is not listening to theother work being done, is not taking

(07:03):
feedback from directors, producers, scripts, the screenwriters, and that will be
very limiting to the performance. Regardlessof the fact that he created these characters
and theoretically would have an intimate knowledgeabout their inner workings, you're still losing
something because there's no collaboration. Therehave been some thin pieces done about how

(07:32):
the actual performance have improved with thechange in actors. Who knows. I
don't necessarily see it. I thoughtthat it was indistinguishable from previous work.

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I didn't notice any extra pathos orreally anything different. And it's not meant
as an insult, It just,you know, it seemed like a regular
season in Rick and Morty. Ingeneral. I thought it was a good
season. The the stories were justas thick they always have, very complex,

(08:24):
thick plots, as smart, assometimes gross, and as nehilistic as
ever. One thing that it wascalled out there was basically two big stories.

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First was, oh my gosh,it's Rick and Morty, but Royland
doesn't Rick and Morty, and Ithought that was handled very well. The
second big story came out was HowDespised A middle episode okay, three stories.
The third story was about how Despisedthe Numbericans the rise of the Numbericons,

(09:09):
and basically it was an episode ofRick and Morty that had no Rick
and Morty. It was a spinoff of Maybe spinoff isn't the right term.
It's a follow up to a subplotin a episode happened years previous where
Iced Tea was revealed to be partof an alien race of water or mineral

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or elemental base letters I know.And they did a follow up where the
letter creatures, including now water TeaI know, fought number based creatures and

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there was a great battle and itwas pretty I think it was sort of
a throwback to eighties cartoons. Ithink there was a lot of Transformers to
Movie in there. Iced Tea wason the episode voicing Water Tea's father because

(10:18):
in the previous episode where iced Tyinter period, it was voiced by someone
else, so they got him intovoice his own dad. It sounds ridiculous.
This episode was not well liked,and I thought it was fine.
It reminded me a little bit ofyears and years and years ago where the

(10:48):
South Park in It's either first orsecond season, We're going to reveal who
was Cartman's father. And it wasa big episode and everyone was all et
and that was when south Park wasat it absolute peak of popularity and pop
culture awareness, and everyone was readyfor the episode. And they said the

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episode began, it is like Cartman'sfather will not be revealed, and instead
we will be showing a special presentationof the Terrence and Phillips episode. Not
without my anus. Terrence and Philipwere two minor characters in the world of
south Park. They were Canadian andthey just had this crazy TV movie esque

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episode about Terrence and Philip and ithad nothing to do with any of the
south Park characters. Fans lost theirminds. I thought it was I trying
to remember how I felt then.I like to think I in retrospect.
It was clever. It was sortof fun, but it was the same

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thing where you throw the with thisnumbericons episode, throwing the audience completely off
by we're not gonna We're gonna doa different show inside the show. Ah,
it wasn't great, but I thoughtit was an interesting swing. The

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second story that got a little bitof press or a little bit of buzz
was there was the final showdown withthe Rick that appears in Rick and Morty
and a recurring villainous character, RickPrime. And Rick Prime was introduced one

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or two seasons ago, and hewas the person who killed our Ricks for
lack of a better term, hiswife and set him on the path to
becoming the evil, genius, madscientist that he is. And Rick Prime

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showed up a few times here thereand was sort of presented as the ultimate
Rick and even more ric than theRick that we have been following, and
seemed to be smarter and more clever, and more devious and more of a

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sociopath than our Rick. And ini want to say, the second or
third episode of the season, ourRick and Morty, along with another recurring
character, Evil Morty, teamed upand were able to successfully fight and kill

(14:03):
Rick Prime. This would be likeif Thanos had been defeated not in Avengers
Endgame, but if it had beendefeated in this in the first ant Man
film. That's that's the best,Uh, that's the best comparison I can

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make it. You know, partway through the season we hadn't seen Rick
Prime in a little while Evil Mortyhad sort of been It was sort of
implied that he had been written outof the show, that Evil Morty achieved

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his goal and we wouldn't see himagain. So it was crazy seeing Evil
Morty. So it shocked a lotof fans, and not in a bad
way. It was sort of asmart thing to do, where instead of
waiting until the big season finale,no, we're gonna tie up this story.

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We're gonna close up this story justin you know, episode three,
episode four, and it's it's gonnabe a little bit self contained and there
won't be any direct allusions to thisthe following episode. Rick was sort of

(15:50):
sort of like laying around in adrunken stupor because he lost his motivation,
but there weren't season long obvious repercussions. Not terrible. I sort of liked
it. It did do the thingthat's been recurring arc on Rick and Morty,

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where you have the crazy fight sequenceswith a lot of wildly original sci
fi technology and theoretic like Rick's aboutready to be knocked out, so he

(16:38):
pushes a button, so he goesinto automatic fight mode and then he fights
it, then he wakes up partway through. It was clever, so
you have all that clever, wackysci fi fight sequences, and then it
ends with Rick Prime being tied upand taunting our Rick, and our Rick

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just punching him to death in along and unco and uncomfortable sequence sort of
works. Overall. I think itwas a good season of Rick and Morty,
and I'm wondering if that's what we'regoing to get from now on.

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Rick and Morty is now a goodshow. Our expectations are very high.
And also Rick and Morty has becomea very successful launching pad for careers of

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creatives. I know one of thewriters and possible and producers of the show
went on to do WandaVision, andthen he's now that person whose name escapes
me is going on and becoming veryimportant in the world of Marvel. The

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show of the Star Trek animated showLower Decks is was created and produced by
a former creative on Rick and Morty. Solar Man Solar Opposites. These are
those are all featuring writers and producersdirectors that got their start in Rick and

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Morty, So similar to Brad Bird, Conan O'Brien, Dane Gold all getting
their starts or at least a significantcareer boost working on the Simpsons. But

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then the Simpsons loses those great creatorsand have to replace them, and and
it becomes a stepping stone as opposedto an end goal. I think Rick
and Morty will always be good.It's always gonna be daring, and it's
always gonna have his fan base.But we are probably six seven years removed
from Rick and Morty being the highestrated show from men age sixteen to thirty

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two, whatever that age bracket is, and it's a very important age bracket
for advertisers. It was a massivelypopular show in a very specific demographic.
It just happened to be an importantdemographic. Nobody talks about Rick and Morty
like that anymore. It is notas it's now just a good kind of
popular show with a nice legacy.You can't stay on top of pop culture

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conscious for that long, especially whenthere's so many people involved in its creative
Dan Harmony. You lose one ofits co creators, the other crew creator,
Dan Harmon is doing other stuff.He did that, uh, Craptopolis,

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an animated show on Fox that Idon't think anybody showed any interested in.
I don't know if it, Idon't know if it's any good.
I don't know if anyone's watching it. He's also working on a community movie,
he's doing other stuff, so it'simpossible. It's just impossible to burn

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that bright for forever. Simpsons wasit the best show ever? And The
Simpsons is not what it was becauseit lost its the creatives behind it to
put it together all moved on toother projects. In one case, one

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of the was one person was movedfrom the show, left the show and
then passed away. And South Park, which still has the same two people
running that show and writing it andare still very involved, but you just

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can't be that ballsy and brassy foreverand still have the same effects. South
Park is still a very good show, but it just nothing lasts forever.
You can become iconic, you canbe well respected, but you don't get
to be the top dog and thedaring, brassy, crazy show and the

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pulp culture touchdowne forever. It justdoesn't happen. But there's worse things than
being a good science fiction animated showwith smart, crazy plots. And I
know, I think we're they havea contract set for like another seventy sixty

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or seventy episodes. Rick and Morty'sgonna be around for a long time.
And I think this is this seasondid prove that without Justin Royland the show
can still be successful. They haven'tdropped a significant step losing his voice talent.

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So uh, that marks the endof this mini episode and we're gonna
have another mini episode up soon becausethe first three episodes of Reacher are out
and I am an unabashed fan ofthat show. And until then, in
the words of jar Farden, seeingthe funny Pages, subscribe to the Cosmic

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(24:56):
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