AFFINITY AND BEYOND: INTERGALACTIC FORAYS ROOTED IN FAMILY TIES
‘Rick and Morty’, which began as a riff on a beloved movie, has grown into a phenomenon of its own, writes Tymon Smith
It began in 2013 as a short, adult-themed animated spoof of Back to the Future. Creators Dan Harmon (Community) and Justin Roiland met during Channel 101, a nonprofit monthly short film festival in Los Angeles, co-founded by Harmon. They created a short featuring characters named Rick and Morty — a mad-scientist, alcoholic inter-dimensional genius grandfather and his naïve, gullible, easily co-opted grandson. Neither of them is good at real life but they’re both pretty good at intergalactic adventuring.
The show debuted on the Adult Swim network in 2014 and the rest is history. For four seasons Rick and Morty has been a staple of the network’s content and, thanks to the internet and the rise of streaming platforms, a cult favourite with a dedicated group of Comic Con fans in the US and legions of devotees around the world.
The eponymous stars are voiced by Roiland but actors Chris Parnell and Spencer Grammer have been there since the pilot — Parnell voicing Jerry Smith, Morty’s strait-laced father, and Grammer giving her voice to Summer, his not-sotypical teenage sister with her feet firmly in the real world of social media and internet celebrity.
As the second part of the fourth season arrives on Showmax this month and with Adult Swim having signed a deal for at least a further 65 episodes, it seems that Rick and Morty is destined to continue being part of the zeitgeist.
Speaking from the US, where he’s staying home to help prevent the spread of Covid-19, Parnell says the show clearly caught people’s fancy, “but to see how it’s become a worldwide phenomenon is staggering”.
A Saturday Night Live alumnus who went on to have a recurring role in Tina Fey’s blockbusting sitcom 30 Rock, Parnell grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, where his father was a local radio celebrity who sometimes recruited his young son to do voice-overs for station promos. Parnell made his name in animation with a recurring role as Cyril Figgis on the FX adult spy spoof animation Archer.
For Rick and Morty, Parnell says, “When you have a show that can take the characters anywhere in the universe, the multiverse and different dimensions, it’s exciting just to read the script. The challenge for me, when I voice Jerry, is to remember to act it well because when doing voice-over work it’s easy to just read the line. I have to remind myself to be present and to imagine listening to the other characters and really connect with them.”
Grammer, the daughter of Cheers and Frasier star Kelsey Grammer, came to prominence with her role in the ABC sitcom Greek. She landed the role as Summer not knowing much about the show, but being struck by how funny the script was.
“It’s really smart. A show that centres around a dysfunctional family tends to create accessibility for the characters while allowing for a certain freedom of storytelling. That, in turn, enables us to connect to it even though it’s completely obscure. We don’t all have crazy scientist drunk grandfathers who take us on adventures across the universe.”
In creating the role, Grammer drew on her personal history as what she calls “a very angsty teenager who couldn’t wait to grow up. I identify with Summer. I could access my youthful aggression.”
Rick and Morty’s success lies in the fact that Rick is loveable and awful at the same time, she says. “He’s also humble. He’s learnt that no matter how many universes he escapes to, being a father to his daughter [Beth, voiced by Sarah Chalke] is worth more than all the adventures in the world. We’re rooted in the love of this family, even though they’re all crazy.”