‘It’s Like A Limitless Sandbox’: Dan Harmon Says ‘Rick and Morty’ Has As Much Freedom As An Anthology Show
Boasting infinite dimensions, cosmic incest babies, various Cronenbergian horrors and a patriarch who once turned himself into a pickle to get out of therapy, one question remains nearly 12 years into Rick and Morty’s run: What is this show even about, anyways?
Days ahead of the animated series’ highly anticipated eighth season, co-creator Dan Harmon has just as good of a guess as we do, struggling to name even a single unchanging convention of the Rick and Morty universe during a recent sitdown with Games Radar.
“Geez, I don’t know what that would be,” Harmon replied when asked about his series’ guidelines. Initially citing the show’s somewhat-consistent players as a form of continuity — “I mean, obviously it’s centered on the characters,” he continued — even the show’s cast of characters are largely unreliable, considering their infinite stock of cosmic clones.
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“I mean, who are these people?” Harmon asked. “Like, literally who? How do you know when they are them?”
While this expansive freedom would send most creatives running back to the soft, warm confines of Jerryboree, Harmon — and showrunner, Scott Marder — aren’t most creatives, the former even likening his work to a “limitless sandbox for a narrative show,” akin to those typically seen in anthology series. “That is a paradox, because that’s what defines it, is its lack of definition, I guess,” he continued.
For Marder, this flexibility not only serves as the show’s identity, but as its own version of a microverse battery, keeping the cartoon staple “fresh” a decade and change later. “That’s what’s keeping it going,” Marder added. “The lack of guardrails has kept the idea flow smooth and light and loose in a way that a show, if we were just stuck in a one little set every week, would be really head-banging at this point.”
So take it from Marder and Harmon: Predicting Rick and Morty’s next move is pretty futile. Or as a wise iteration of Morty once said, “We’re all going to die. Come watch TV.”
