# Rick and Morty -- the new animated show from Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380>\
**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:** 1\
**Showing post:** 578

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**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:** [July 21, 2019, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/578 "2019-07-21T22:37:14Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Originally Posted by Sherrerd:  
> Morty has these two potential role models to choose between.

> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#):
>
> No. This dynamic does not exist in the show. No one wants to be like Jerry. Jerry doesn’t even want to be like Jerry.  
> Morty is the uncertain, fretful, anxious character that balances Rick. That’s the whole point of his character; the fun is watching him grow as a person and in watching Rick grow as he becomes less like himself because of his fondness/need for Morty.
> 
> Jerry is superfluous except as a source of stupidity and as something to hate; he is a permanent and irredeemable foil. And again, in real life, people do not hang out with Jerrys on purpose: they are a drag.
> 
> ETA: Nice edits while I was typing my post.

I get that you hate Jerry. (Also that you apparently feel that edits made while you are typing constitute a personal assault on you. That doesn’t strike you as a rather self-involved reaction? At all?)

But, yes, a person’s father is _at least_ a role model to be rejected, if not a role model to be followed. It doesn’t make psychological sense for someone’s father, in a nuclear family, to be summarily dismissed as “superfluous” by members of that family. They might hate him; they might despise him. They might _declare_ that he’s “superfluous” as a way of demonstrating their contempt.

But their contempt comes from the fact that they feel _he’s failing to fulfill the role he should fulfill_. The fact that there is such a role means that the father is not superfluous; the expectations about that role are there whether the father meets them or not. The father is important, whether in a negative way or a positive way.

That’s human psychology. And this show is successful, in part, because _it doesn’t ignore human psychology_.

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