📺 Rick and Morty (2013)

Rick and Morty is an American adult animated science fiction sitcom created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon that premiered on Adult Swim in 2013. The series follows the bizarre and often traumatic interdimensional adventures of Rick Sanchez, a genius, alcoholic, and nihilistic mad scientist, and his anxious, good-hearted 14-year-old grandson Morty Smith. Splitting its time between chaotic cosmic escapades and mundane domestic life with Morty's parents, Jerry and Beth, and his sister Summer, the show is renowned for its dark humor, philosophical depth, and wildly imaginative science fiction concepts.

The show's origins trace back to a crude animated short by Roiland titled The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti, created for the Channel 101 film festival. This short was a blatant, profane parody of Back to the Future, featuring caricatures of Doc Brown and Marty McFly. While the characters were heavily refined and the core premise evolved significantly, the dysfunctional mentor-student dynamic and sci-fi portal premise of Rick and Morty are a direct creative descendant of that parody, making the original Back to the Future film its foundational inspiration.

Beyond its own source material, Rick and Morty has spawned a significant derivative work. The most notable is a series of canonical crossover couch gags and a short with The Simpsons, which culminated in a full Simpsons episode. In the acclaimed 2015 episode Mathlete's Feat, a Rick and Morty couch gag ends with the Simpson family being accidentally killed by Rick, leading to a sequence where a cloned Simpson family is spawned. This collaboration highlighted the show's rapid ascent into the pop culture pantheon alongside the longest-running American sitcom.

Since its debut, the series has received widespread critical acclaim, winning two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Animated Program. The show's production has been secured for the long term, with a massive 70-episode order in 2018 and a renewal through a twelfth season. The ninth season began airing in May 2026. A major behind-the-scenes shift occurred in 2023 when Adult Swim severed ties with co-creator and lead voice actor Justin Roiland amid domestic abuse allegations; the roles of Rick and Morty were subsequently recast with voice actors Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden starting with the seventh season.