# Rick and Morty -- the new animated show from Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, cartoons-animation\ **Created:** [January 21, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380 "2014-01-21T17:43:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 53
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2022, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1042 "2022-09-07T17:02:32Z")
I’m not even _trying_ to keep track anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1043 "2022-09-08T04:20:53Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Ah. Too many Jerries to keep track of. Rick was right to build an interdimensional daycare center for them. (I wonder how Paul Fleischman is doing over there.) I had forgotten Paul Fleishman. But on refreshing my memory: if he was similar enough to Jerry for Beth to want to marry him, that should have happened in at least several universes. So perhaps there’s a Citadel of Pauls somewhere. Or more likely a franchise business run solely by Pauls. > > [@Shoeless](#): > > I’m not even _trying_ to keep track anymore. Yeah, I’m content to be a regular Rick & Morty fan, and not a Master-Of-All-Episodes fan. I felt the same way about _The Venture Bros_.: loved the show to distraction but was willing to fail to recall all the details of the show’s mythology. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2022, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1044 "2022-09-09T15:00:28Z")
Who was Space Beth burying? Did I miss a thing? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2022, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1045 "2022-09-09T15:02:09Z")
She was burying another Space Beth. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1046 "2022-09-12T10:33:46Z")
Nice intertwining of two separate plotlines in this episode. Die Hard as a universal cultural construct has shades of Douglas Adams to it, and I swear the idea of everyone being disparate parts of a global overmind has been done in some classic sci-fi short story but I’m drawing a blank on what it is. “Walkie-talkie Die Hard, motherfucker!” “Better to die in Roy than to serve in Hell!” ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1047 "2022-09-12T13:54:18Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > disparate parts of a global overmind has been done in some classic sci-fi short story but I’m drawing a blank on what it is. Not sure if this is the one you were thinking of but the universal Overmind was the conclusion of Clarke’s Childhood’s End, what the Overlords were developing humans to become part of, unable to do it themselves. Not sure if the various hive mind premises count? ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1048 "2022-09-12T23:54:14Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I swear the idea of everyone being disparate parts of a global overmind has been done in some classic sci-fi short story but I’m drawing a blank on what it is. Not at all a classic sci-fi short story, but: at one point in the Charlie Kaufman-penned 1999 movie _Being John Malkovich_, EVERYONE (presumably in the universe) is John Malkovich. A similar idea occurred in the 1961 _Twilight Zone_ episode “The Mind and the Matter” (written by Serling and starring Shelley Berman). Everyone is Berman at one point. It’s not clear whether there are connections between the minds of the characters in either the movie or the TV show. And of course neither of these have the “video game characters” element; still, there are parallels. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1049 "2022-09-13T00:23:22Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Not at all a classic sci-fi short story, but: at one point in the Charlie Kaufman-penned 1999 movie _Being John Malkovich_, EVERYONE (presumably in the universe) is John Malkovich. Malkovich? Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich, Malkovich. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1050 "2022-09-13T01:11:41Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I swear the idea of everyone being disparate parts of a global overmind has been done in some classic sci-fi short story but I’m drawing a blank on what it is. _To Marry Medusa_, by Theodore Sturgeon, perhaps? It concerns an attempt by a hive mind to conquer Earth. It’s frustrated in this endeavor by the fact that humans aren’t, themselves, a hivemind, which the alien has never encountered before. It ends when the alien finds a way to force humans into becoming a hive mind, and the resultant gestalt entity is so powerful it obliterates the alien. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1051 "2022-09-13T02:11:51Z")
There must be many such stories? There was one where this guy finds that his consciousness can be distributed into two, and then an increasing number, of bodies. Then there is the Lem story about the robot soldiers who get smarter the more of them are networked together. Asimov, too, had a story about a hive mind attempting to conquer the Earth. But surely you are not forgetting about Rick’s occasional fling, Unity? ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1052 "2022-09-13T03:33:55Z")
While everyone in those “ten things you didn’t catch” videos pointed out that the end credit scene is parodying Die Hard III…no one pointed out that the “I hate everybody” version is the dumb TV version of the scene…so as they say, “Who is that supposed to offend.” ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1053 "2022-09-13T04:24:30Z")
> [@Pavelb1](#): > > no one pointed out that the “I hate everybody” version is the dumb TV version of the scene…so as they say, “Who is that supposed to offend.” Walkie-talkie Die Hard, Mister Falcon! ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1054 "2022-09-13T12:07:47Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > There was one where this guy finds that his consciousness can be distributed into two, and then an increasing number, of bodies. There was one I remember about an alien entity that was forced to distribute its consciousness into multiple non-sentient organisms and established a meeting point to one day coalesce. The kicker at the end of the story was thousands of lemmings rushing headlong to their watery deaths at their now geologically inconvenient underwater rendezvous. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1055 "2022-09-13T16:08:54Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > “Walkie-talkie Die Hard, motherfucker!” That’s the same line that stuck with me. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1056 "2022-09-13T23:55:19Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Malkovich? Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich, Malkovich. Indeed. And for the plot element ‘ **one person is split into more than one, and to be made whole, all the parts must Do Something at the same time** ’ from this episode, I’m reminded of the season one Original _Star Trek_ episode written by Richard Matheson: “The Enemy Within.” To get Kirk back as Kirk, both Kirks (the aggressive one and the meek one, and/or Shatner and his stand-in) must go through the transporter at the same time. I’m not saying the _Rick & Morty_ writer consciously made use of this Matheson conceit–but who’d be surprised if an unconscious influence occurred? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1057 "2022-09-13T23:58:07Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I’m not saying the _Rick & Morty_ writer consciously made use of this Matheson conceit–but who’d be surprised if an unconscious influence occurred? You can always tell what’s a conscious reference in _Rick and Morty_ because Rick will point out how lame they are for referencing it. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1058 "2022-09-14T00:05:38Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > You can always tell what’s a conscious reference in _Rick and Morty_ because Rick will point out how lame they are for referencing it. You’re right, but it’s marginally possible that _this_ episode was so loaded with references that they had to prune them back. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1059 "2022-09-14T12:43:26Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > There was one where this guy finds that his consciousness can be distributed into two, and then an increasing number, of bodies. “Let’s Be Frank” by Brian Aldiss [http://web.archive.org/web/20070116005445/www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics\_archive/aldiss2/aldiss21.html](http://web.archive.org/web/20070116005445/www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/aldiss2/aldiss21.html) ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1060 "2022-09-14T14:07:14Z")
That is the one I meant. I remember how the character’s attempts to completely take over the Earth, and then Venus, are stymied. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2022, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/1061 "2022-09-15T14:24:26Z")
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