Is Rick and Morty based on Back to the Future? The Origins of the Adult Swim Series Explained

Rick and Morty has some notable similarities with Back to the futureand the classic time travel film is woven into the series’ origins. Although Rick and Morty has been hailed as one of the most original shows on television, it is full of subtle references to Back to the future. They have more or less the same premise, albeit with a slight adjustment to the science fiction concept. Very similar Back to the future, Rick and Morty is about a mad scientist and his teenage companion, and the crazy adventures they get into with the scientist’s inventions.

Although there are many similarities between Rick and Morty and Back to the futurethere are also some differences. While Doc Brown travels through the space-time continuum with Marty McFly, Rick travels through the multiverse with Morty. Back to the futureChristopher Lloyd played a live-action Rick in one of the Rick and Mortybut he never appeared on the show itself. It’s just a coincidence that Rick and Morty has so many similarities with Back to the futureor was it Rick and Morty actually based on Back to the future?

Rick and Morty Is Based on a Back to the Future Web Cartoon Parody

Rick and Morty originated as the real animated adventures of Doc and Mharti

In 2006, now disgraced Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland created a vulgar animated short based on Back to the future in which Marty McFly is forced to perform sexual acts on Doc Brown to go back in time. During the production of the short, Roiland fell in love with the twisted versions of Doc and Marty he created – and his impressions of them – and decided to turn it into his own thing. Roiland changed the characters’ names to Doc Smith and Mharti McDonhalds to avoid a lawsuit and produced three more short films involving the duo.

The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti premiered on Channel 101, a short film festival co-founded by Dan Harmon, where Roiland became a mainstay. Although the short received a mixed response from audiences due to its disturbing humor, Harmon liked this. He teamed up with Roiland to develop the concept into a half-hour pilot for Adult Swim. Doc Smith and Mharti McDonhalds became Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith, time travel became interdimensional travel, characters were slightly redesigned to remove iconic elements like Marty’s “red.”lifeguard,”And the rest is history.

Although Rick and Morty avoided time travel for years, this ended up paying homage to back to the future

Rick and Morty has some Back to the Future references

Although he initially distanced himself from his Back to the futureorigins based, Rick and Morty went on to directly reference the classic time travel comedy a few times. Rick and Morty first tribute to Back to the future in comic book form. In Rick and Morty Gifts: The Council of Ricks #1, Quantum Rick crashes at a high school dance that clearly references George and Lorraine’s “Enchantment Under the Sea” dance of Back to the future. Quantum Rick even breaks the fourth wall to say: “Wow, déjà vu,” referencing its origins as a parody of Doc Brown.

The show itself included a nod to Back to the future in Season 7, Episode 8, “Rise of the Numbericons: The Movie.” The episode contains a flashback in which Ice-T records a song and Marvin-D calls his cousin Chuck to tell him he found the new sound he was looking for. This is a reference to the scene in Back to the future in which Chuck Berry’s cousin Marvin calls him from the school dance while Marty sings “Johnny B. Goode” on stage. It’s a fun homage, but the show’s origins give it a deeper meaning.

When Roiland and Harmon first created Rick and Mortythey made a rule that the show would never use time travel. In episodes like “A Rickle in Time” and “The Vat of Acid Episode,” the show went to great lengths to explain anything that could be construed as time travel. But Rick and Morty broke his no-time-travel rule in Season 4, Episode 5, “Rattlestar Ricklactica,” in which Morty encounters a race of time-traveling space snakes. This episode parodied the time travel of Terminator franchise, not the Back to the future franchise.

Rick and Morty is arguably an early example of the fanfiction-to-mainstream effect

Rick and Morty is elevated fanfic – just like Fifty Shades of Gray

In recent years, it has become a surprising trend for fanfiction to be elevated to a mainstream property of its own. Most famous, Fifty Shades of Gray was originally written as a Dusk fanfiction. The Stanley Parable was originally released as a Half-life 2 mod. Zack Snyder Rebel Moon started as a Star Wars proposal that was rejected by Lucasfilm. The shape of the water emerged from Guillermo del Toro’s romantic childhood reimagining of the end of Creature from the Black Lagoon. The idea of ​​you It is widely speculated that it began its life as Harry Styles fan fiction.

This phenomenon is generally not associated with Rick and Mortybut it is undoubtedly one of the first examples of this. A few years later Fifty Shades of Gray was published, legitimizing the fanfiction-to-mainstream effect, Adult Swim picked up The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti and revamped it into an original series with the Back to the futureinspired elements drastically undervalued. Rick and Morty should be discussed in the same conversations as Fifty Shades, The idea of ​​youand Rebel Moonbut hid its fanfic elements so well that it managed to avoid this association.

Rick and Morty is a darker take on back to the future

Where Back to the Future is optimistic, Rick and Morty is nihilistic

Rick and Morty may have been inspired by elements of the plot of Back to the futurebut it has a much darker and more cynical tone. Back to the future addresses the uncomfortable topic of incest, with Lorraine unintentionally flirting with her own teenage son, but Rick and Morty goes all-in with frequent incest jokes. While Back to the future uses its sci-fi concept of time travel to deliver a bright, optimistic message about the limitless possibilities of the future, Rick and Morty uses its sci-fi concept of the multiverse to convey a dark, nihilistic message about the meaninglessness of existence.

In Back to the futureDoc is always kind and supportive of Marty (except when he tries to profit from gambling at sporting events in the past); Rick’s relationship with Morty is much more toxic than that. Doc and Marty are genuinely good friends with a healthy dynamic, but Rick and Morty are constantly fighting. In Rick and MortyMorty doesn’t feel valued by Rick and often tries to break free from his toxic cycle – which is made even more confusing by the fact that, unlike Doc and Marty, they are actually related, so they should be closer, not more distant. .