Rick and Morty: Back to the Future, but Different

During his first year of college, Justin Roiland made some friends who shared his sense of humor and started making short films and spoofs for fun. After college, they all decided to move to LA. That’s where the action was...

And that’s where Dan Harmon was running his non-profit monthly short film festival—Channel 101—featuring (usually absurd) cartoons and videos. It wasn’t too long before Justin started submitting his creations. Justin's cartoon, “House of Cosbys”, became a huge hit in the Channel 101 community. It was about a guy who figured out how to clone his favorite comedian (now favorite criminal), and started building a society of Bill Cosbys. NBCUniversal sent him a cease and desist letter, and this eventually led to him having to stop creating the satirical cartoon. Out of spite, he began creating a show called “The Real Adventures of Doc and Mharti”, a spoof on Back to the Future with crude and dark humor.

A few years later, the television network Adult Swim calls Dan Harmon. They want an animated series. Harmon calls Roiland. The two take Doc and Mharti and roll with it. They change the names to “Rick” and “Morty”, pitch the idea, sell the concept to Adult Swim, and write the script for the pilot episode in 6 hours. Thus was the beginning of the meteoric rise of the hit TV show, “Rick and Morty”.

In 2013, the show premiered on the Adult Swim channel. It has continued to see success because of how the team comes up with ideas. They sit around the table, (sometimes) have a few drinks, and spitball funny jokes. Imagine doing that for a living.

**Here's a few more resources: This article, the website (includes a 24/7 marathon of the show), this short documentary video.

**Read more FS Stories here.

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