New Videos Detail Origins of 'Rick And Morty'

Joe Schmidt

11/09/2017 05:01 pm EST

The creators of Rick and Morty came from humble beginnings before the phenomenon took over their lives, collaborating on funny content with their friends that eventually lead to the hit Adult Swim show.

Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon spoke about their journeys in two-part video series for Adult Swim, revealing how Rick and Morty evolved and became the fan-favorite series it is today. They also reveal that initial feedback from an Adult Swim executive almost changed the show entirely. Check out the video above!

Roiland and his friends started out making funny videos with each other, eventually getting paid to create commercials for a record store in Central Valley, California. Meanwhile, Harmon and writer/comedian Rob Schrab began doing improv and sketch comedy before moving to Los Angeles to work in the entertainment industry.

"It's easy to sign contracts and it's easy to get meetings," Harmon said. "It's easy to be the flavor of the day, it's not so easy to actually get a career going."

Rickin' Around With Friends

(Photo: Justin Roiland)

Harmon and Schrab then began making their own short movies after their scripts didn't get picked up, creating a film festival called Channel 101, consisting of five-minute "pilots" for TV shows. Roiland and his friends became frequent contributors to Channel 101.

"The thing we looked forward to every month was that rush and hearing the audience react to something you made," Roiland said. "It was like a high."

After blowing Harmon away with a cartoon called "House of Cosbys," the two began collaborating regularly.

"We both had a great deal of respect of each other and were fans of each other's sh*t that we were making," Roiland said. "That was a f**king incredible time."

Roiland created "The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti," loosely based on Emmett Brown and Marty McFly from the Back to the Future movies. Roiland fell in love with the two characters' voices and would continually use them.

"Harmon calls me and he's like 'Hey, Adult Swim is asking me about an animated project. Do you have anything? Do you have any ideas?' I'm like, well, what about those characters?" Roiland recalled.

Trouble In Mortydise

Though the notes from Adult Swim were mostly positive for their pitch of Rick and Morty, Adult Swim creative director Mike Lazzo didn't like Morty, which was interpreted by Harmon and Roiland that they needed to cast a new actor to play the grandson.

Roiland and Harmon got worried that the project would be scrapped and decided to audition actors to play the character, but Roiland felt that a vital component of the show was his riffing as Rick and Morty. They eventually re-wrote their script to make Morty more assertive and Roiland took another crack at it — and Lazzo gave the show the greenlight.

"It's funny because it was one of the worst crises to happen in the history of Rick and Morty's development, the potential of Justin not doing those voices," Harmon said. "And it was the greatest thing that happened to us, this final puzzle piece."

Rick and Morty just wrapped its third season on Adult Swim. There's no word on when the show will return.

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