Rick and Morty: NBA Player Debuts Killer New Pickle Rick Shoes

Rick and Morty is back for Season 4 and fans of the show are absolutely stoked about the first [...]

By Aaron Perine

Rick and Morty is back for Season 4 and fans of the show are absolutely stoked about the first episode. Over in the NBA, the New Orleans Pelicans have a big man who you could say is a pretty huge fan. During a game this week, Jaxson Hayes broke out some sick Pickle Rick kicks. The sides of his sneakers featured Rick, Morty, Scary Terry, and Mr. PoopyButthole in all of their absurd glory. It's pretty awesome to see. Hayes had the midsoles of his shoes painted to match Rick's portals as well in a nice touch. Hopefully he has some more homages to the show planned. It is pretty funny to see people still loving Pickle Rick after all this time. But, a really striking episode of television will do that. Series co-creator Dan Harmon told The Wrap that he was hoping that people really loved that episode and he couldn't have been more right.

"I make no bones about that I'm a little bit of a sociopath creatively, in that if the audience doesn't like something, then I don't like it," Harmon began. "I follow my bliss and try to go with my own definitions. I don't operate in the writers room in terms of what I think is going to make people happy. I make myself happy because I know if I don't do that, I'll fail.

"However, the entire time I'm doing that, following my own bliss, I'm thinking, 'Geez, is anyone going to like this?' And if they don't, then I blew it because it's TV, not a personal massage device that there's going to be one consumer for — weird metaphor. 'Pickle Rick's my favorite because it's everyone else's favorite."

The co-creator also managed to address the copious hype that went into the episode in the interview. He felt that the test footage was basically like pouring gasoline over an already lit flame, and perhaps the expectations were a bit out of this world. All that hype led to an Emmy nomination for the episode in the Outstanding Animated Program category, and then the show actually won.

"That one got kind of hyped because we mentioned it at Comic-Con a year before it premiered," Harmon recalled. "Tattoos of Pickle Rick were being Instagrammed before the episode aired, so certainly those people knew they were going to like it. If I say I'm not surprised [by its popularity], then I sound like a tool."

Credit: Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports

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