Rick And Morty charts its post-Roiland return
Pickle Rick makes his glorious return to Adult Swim, sans Justin Roiland
Aux News Rick and Morty
Nearly six months after disgraced Rick And Morty creator Justin Roiland’s false imprisonment and domestic battery charges were dismissed amid a deluge of horror stories of interacting with the man, Roiland’s brainchild is set to make its return without him. Rick And Morty will return on October 15 at 11 P.M. on Adult Swim for its seventh season. New episodes are available from digital retailers the day after its Adult Swim premiere. The season will be made available to stream next year, which, in a surprising move considering how much Warner Bros. Discovery wants us to use its rebranded streaming service, indicates the new season will not be made available on Max for another few months.
The network boasts that Rick And Morty has enjoyed its spot at the top of the ratings for comedy on cable for the last four seasons, earning two Emmys for Outstanding Animated Program. Yet that was all in flux during the investigation into the show’s beleaguered creator and star. After the charges against Roiland were made public in January, Adult Swim cut ties with Roiland publicly and announced his roles would be recast. However, who will voice the characters is still unclear.
Last month at Comic-Con, executive producer Steve Levy told the crowd of fans that the show is “closing in on the end of our process of the recast” and that it’s going to be “great,” adding that he’s “thoroughly impressed with everything that’s going on.” Though a name was not given, Levy assured the audience that “the show is as good as it’s ever been” and that there would be “no change” to the characters. “It’s soundalikes,” Levy said. “The characters are the same characters.”
We don’t want to read too much into that, but considering the show premieres in two months, it seems like they’re cutting it close. But these things are tricky, and in between Roiland’s dismissal and the announcement, two historic strikes began—though Levy did tell the French magazine Premiere that season seven was unaffected by the strike and “season 8 is already fully written.”
Meanwhile, Roiland’s other voice-over job on Hulu’s Solar Opposites has already been recast with actor Dan Stevens.
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The Solar Opposites replacement REALLY didn’t work for me. Hoping this one fits better.
I think they mentioned they’re going for a voice-alike.
Given the issues with its fans being horrible, Dan Harmon’s own history as a dick, and now the other co-creator being an alleged domestic abuser and overall shithead, it’s feeling like maybe they should have just let this one go. I can get passed most of those issues individually if they were handled well, and I like a lot of episodes. But when it starts to feel like 80% of those involved in the creation and consumption of the show are bad people, it might be a net negative for humanity. I can only build so many mental walls.
“Given the issues with its fans being horrible, Dan Harmon’s own history as a dick, and now the other co-creator being an alleged domestic abuser and overall shithead, it’s feeling like maybe they should have just let this one go.”
Wait, so Dan Harmon having been a dick in the past means they should’ve canceled the show?
What kind of moron asshole are you?
You think the toxic fans constitute 80% of the viewers?
I know I am not one of the 80%.
Went to a day spa, use a detox machine, it
extracted all my negative personality traits
There’s 30 unproduced episodes that are still part of that 70 episode order from 2018.I’m sure that all the other people working on the show would like o continue to get paid for those episodes and not lose what looked like guaranteed income due to other people being bad.
As long as you keep in mind that one of the people to be getting most-paid is….. Roiland. While he won’t be acting (for which he always made minimum scale), the lion’s share of the money he makes from episodes is his passive payment as one of the show’s creators. That won’t be changing.
I have to imagine there would be some kind of morals clause in the contract that would let them cancel it if the co-creator and guy responsible for, like, 80% of the show’s voices gets himself in a boatload of trouble.
Something I’ve been wondering is, can’t Adult Swim just cancel Rick & Morty anyway, before it completes its episode order? Amazon has been good at cancelling shows it has already renewed.I’m not wishing cancellation on R&M, but between the loooong stretches of time in between seasons, general fatigue, negative press about the fanbase, and Justin Roiland, it seems like there’s a decent chance the next season’s ratings are going to be abysmal.
I’m sure that the math works out in some way that they’d have to pay out a pretty sizeable fee to cancel the contract, and then they’d get nothing out of it, versus getting probably more than decent returns on the product even if it’s substantially diminished by Roiland’s reputation. Which just brings us back to “Don’t ever contract a show for seven seasons in the first place.”
I don’t know that they’d get “nothing” out of it. IIRC more than half of the episodes they’ve ordered have been produced, and as I mentioned before, it’s not just Roiland’s reputation. The show in general seems to be losing audience interest. I don’t think the creators are doing anything wrong; people just get tired after a while. Plus it’s not like Adult Swim already gave them all the money to create 70 episodes upfront; the cost of producing the remaining episodes may be more than paying to get out of the contract. See: the sunk cost fallacy.Then again, The Walking Dead kept going long past the point it lost cultural relevance, so maybe R&M will hold onto enough viewers after all.
Do you buy something from every restaurant or retail store you see? Do you watch an entire film or series because you happened to catch a few seconds of it? If you don’t, by your own logic, you are contributing to the impoverishment of the employees of all of those businesses. Do you see why job loss is always a bad argument for keeping anything? If your argument for something’s continued existence is all about employment then you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Ever notice how the people that make those arguments never make it when a show they don’t like gets cancelled?Shows end. Everyone working on a show knows that.
The fact that I could get a Wendy’s combo meal with a Rick & Morty Portal Punch let me know it wasn’t going anywhere even as more and more dirt on Roiland came out. Too many companies have too much money caught up in this brand to let one guy stand in their way.
I liked the only thing I didn’t like was it should have been Matt Berry
All voices should be Matt Berry, and yes I do hold that against everyone.
Definitely should have been. You can tell that’s what the actor was going for, so it makes you wonder if that’s who they wanted in the first place. I mean I really like Dan Stevens, and I think he did a good job on the season, but it really feels like him doing a Matt Berry impression.
Really? I was actually surprised to find that I felt the Solar Opposites replacement did a great job, and was way funnier, in my opinion. Different strokes, I guess.
I need to give it another shot.
I watched the whole Solar Opposites season and now I’ve completely forgotten what Roiland’s Korvo voice sounded like. Which is fine by me.
I’ve never even seen Solar Opposites and I feel confident assuming Roiland’s Korvo voice sounds like one of Justin Roiland’s three voices.
I call them Lemongrab, Space Lemongrab, and Farting Lemongrab
Oooooooh-whhheeeee!
Yep, Korvo was just “Serious Rick.”
It was just the Rick voice. He’s only got like three voices. Korvo is Rick, Mr. Meeseeks is Lemongrab, etc.
I’m in love with new Korvo. That said Dan sure could use more …tonal variance.
I thought he was great, but yeah it did feel like he just put his voice in that register and then powered through all his lines from the season in one epic sitting. It was very consistent.
Oh, wow. I really enjoyed this season w/ Dan Stevens.
“The network boasts that Rick And Morty has enjoyed its spot at the top of the ratings for comedy on cable for the last four seasons, earning two Emmys for Outstanding Animated Program. Yet that was all in flux during the investigation”
How was the show’s past success and awards received “in flux during the investigation”. Was there a chance the Emmys or the viewership numbers would somehow be taken from Adult Swim?
I really did not enjoy the last season and this whole fooferah is a good excuse to just drop the show all together.
I will be tuning in out of habit (and more than a little morbid curiosity) but couldn’t blame anyone for not doing the same.
…tuning in? You still have cable?!
I don’t. I also don’t have a rotary phone, but sometimes I “dial” a number. Language is fun!
last season was the first i didn’t finish. really felt like they were completely spinning their wheels. BUT, with roiland gone i am very interested to see what happens. might have lit a fire under the writers’ asses. i’m hoping for 40% less incest. a boy can dream.
The impression I got from that expose about Roliand was that he wasn’t contributing much the past few seasons beyond a few ridiculous character names/ideas.
oh for sure, i’m just thinking maybe morale has improved or they might feel a need to prove themselves a little more because of the circumstances.
He was just a voice actor after Season 2, pretty much. Nothing wrong with that – Seth McFarlane’s basically had no creative involvement with Family Guy for ten years beyond just doing his voice character parts – although it did help explain why Harmon was ready to drop him.
Nobody’s had any creative involvement with Family Guy, because Family Guy is not creative.
i think the percentage of incest will decrease, but because it’s Harmon there’s always likely to be a non-zero chance
Different strokes for different folks and all that, but I actually liked last season more than the previous one. It wasn’t as good as the first season or so, but it felt closer to a return to form. Fuck Justin Roiland though
Yeah, Season five had a few good episodes at the beginning and then bit it real hard in the back half. I don’t think Season six had any outright terrible episodes, and they even managed to wring something passably funny out of that (literal, I guess) abortion of an incest baby plotline. It’s still way past its prime, and the dumb continuity stuff is a huge albatross, but I’ll tune in to see how it’s going.
It had some of the funniest stuff I’ve seen in Rick and Morty, although I do think they went to the “incest joke” well a bit too much (and that last episode felt weirdly under-powered compared to how hard they usually go in season finales).
I actually preferred last season to season 5 but the show is already hitting double-digit Simpsons seasons in terms of “still funny but the magic is absolutely gone.” The core fanbase is still one of the most obnoxious out there, both the creators are problematic (shocked Dan Harmon seems to be the SMALLER asshole of the two), and did I mention the core fanbase is insanely obnoxious? Cutting bait is beyond understandable.
Aren’t voice actors also in SAG? How could they recast this late and still make a mid-October premiere? Or did they have a couple of different people record the whole season, and they’re deciding which they like? Or is it… AI?
Episodic Television animation seems to be exempt from strike rules regarding recording.But unclear if they can promote.
I wonder if they’ve already recast and, for whatever reason, they just haven’t announced it yet. A lot of casting announcements come months after the papers have been signed. Sometimes they come months after the actor has already started working.
Only input I can give you is that in animation the audio is always the first thing to be done. Then the animation itself is done. Computers have made it easier, but unless you are something like “South Park” who’s whole schtick is that it is done in six days (and the one time they tried to pre can a season it was terrible) studios still stick to old time scheduling of animation.So whatever was done here audio wise was the first thing done.
Except: “Last month at Comic-Con, executive producer Steve Levy told the crowd of fansthat the show is “closing in on the end of our process of the recast””How long does it take to animate one of these episodes?
See, that makes me think they animated to Roiland’s recording, and they’re planning to re-record with a “soundalike” (or claim the soundalike did it when Roiland did it)
They should have got J.B. Smoove to replace Rick. Much funnier show if they did.
JB Smoove could replace almost anyone and it would be an improvement.
This is how they should have rebooted Gilmore Girls.
Also Frasier.
Now I’m just thinking of the infinite possibilities of who to recast with JB Smoove. I guess he could be Emily’s second husband.
Would be a hell of a year for J.B., what with his daughter (who works at one of his companies) on track to win or come in second on Claim to Fame!
They already did that joke on Squidbillies.
so funny that this just happened to come out at the exact right time, when tv ratings numbers fully imploded, so instead of being the invader zim level, 2-season cult show it should have been it was able to thrive on ‘viral success’. ironically, that same viral success now would probably still mean it would get canceled after 2 seasons.anyway, it’ll be 10 years, 7 seasons, 2 scandals and a partridge in a pear tree.
Nah. Rick and Morty’s average ratings doubled Zim’s best, and that’s with airing in the middle of the night. Even better, R&M actually sells a ton of merch and has huge cultural penetration, unlike Zim. It would be an unqualified success in either time period.
right, but ‘double’ invader zim’s ratings, even in invader zim’s time, would have still been bad ratings. and if you remember for the first few years there was no r&m merch. it took a while.i think timing was everything with rick and morty. much like all successful things!
Sounds like someone wasn’t around in the mid 2000s
I’m so glad that obnoxious shitstain got taken down a few pegs but just make something else. So many talented artists and writers around who could make some really interesting animation, why bother with this clown’s ashes.
It’s not his show, it belongs to a whole cast and crew of people. Very rarely is TV an auteur’s medium, and Roiland was FAR from any sort of auteur.
I think “just make something else” applies to the other people and/or the network, not Roiland.
“but just make something else.”Yeah, all those hundreds of people who worked on the show while Roiland was imploding can alllllll fuck right off.
Who the FUCK are you?
The show will still be itself even without Roiland’s voice work, employees at the studio said he was just a distraction in the office the past few years (leaving midday to buy nerf guns, parading porn stars around), and didn’t have much of a hand in writing/creating new episodes, just did the voices. I’m still confident the show will be funny and back to its former self.
There’s going to be a contingent of fans who will hate whoever is doing the voice-over and insist it’s not Rick or Morty, so as I’ve said before they should have the new voice actors secretly redo the Roiland voices on a well-liked episode before showing it on Adult Swim, and see if anyone actually notices a difference before the credits.
“There’s going to be a contingent of fans who will hate whoever is doing the voice-over and insist it’s not Rick or Morty”Yeah, but it’s going to be predominantly incels, tech nerds, conservatives, etc, so who gives a fuck.
They can really poison the well in the fandom and potentially harass/threaten cast and staff members, although admittedly they can’t do much to impact the ratings.
So, basically the vast, vast majority of R&M fans.
They already did that. Shouting & commenting that the voice of Rick was off on the last promotion. Despite it’s still Roiland’s voice…
That’s why you do the secret redub of an existing episode. Trick them into thinking it’s just a rerun.
I’ve kind of stopped judging the quality of Rick & Morty, similarly to how I’ve stopped judging Bob’s Burgers or Family Guy or most any other long-running animated program. They’re just comfort food at this point; a heaping bowl of chili I can fart my way through for 30 minutes.That being said, I struggled with what little I saw of the final Squidbillies season. I like Tracy Morgan and everything, but yeesh …
Bob’s Burgers I think is still one of the best in terms of maintaining quality. I also re watch a lot of the new episodes of American Dad. The Simpson’s I still watch every new episode of, mainly cause I keep it as a cultural benchmark.
Agreed on Bob’s Burgers! The latest season was as strong and consistant as any other…
“The characters are still the same characters” — this has been the problem with the show for a few seasons now, it’s that the characters only act like themselves every few episodes and the others are filled with dumb shit like the space incest baby. Hard to say if that began being a problem when Roiland essentially checked out and went nuts instead of being more involved in the show, but there are a lot of episodes of the show that they would be better off just not airing. There are some episodes where Rick acts like Pinky instead of Brain.
Based on the first batch of Solar Opposites episodes I just watched, not only will Roiland probably not be missed on R&M, but the show without him might just even be a vast improvement…
I know people shit on it here , but I do actually like the show , and its not afraid to take a swing (stuff like the episode with the memory parasites , or the death predicting crystal , or even the ultra meta one where they mess around with the “previously on” stuff are actually neat ideas). I’d be curious to see how they go from here . Also I wonder did they go with Sean Kelly to voice R&M(not to be confused with the1980s professional cyclist , Kelly is a guy who can do a really really close version of Morty and to a slightly lesser extent Rick).
Saw the Season 7 trailer when it premiered last week, which was just clips, but at the end you hear Rick’s voice. From what I understand (please correct if I am wrong), that is still Roiland’s voice. I guess after it premiered, many fans complained that the “new voice” sucks, not realizing it was Roiland.
I’ll watch it at some point, probably when it premieres on Max next year.
“We don’t want to read too much into that, but considering the show premieres in two months, it seems like they’re cutting it close.”
You know it’s an animated show, right? And all they have to do is record the new actor’s voice?
I won’t be supporting this pile of cancel culture BS thank you. Although there’s obviously plenty of brainwashed pro-censorship lunatics in these comments ready to simp for mega multi-national media companies and everything they say/claim so we’ll see how successful this shebang actually is. 🤷
Well, having met Roiland a few times over the years it’s hard not to enjoy his downfall. He’s truly a colossal piece of shit. Not sure how being kicked off the show is censorship, he’s still rich and can say whatever the fuck he wants and has more freedom to do whatever the hell he wants to do with the rest of his life than, what, 90% of Americans?I won’t be watching the show as the ugly character designs just remind me of his stupid sneering face.
Sure you have… 😑🤦 And my dad works for Nintendo.