Posted in: Adult Swim, Preview, Rick and Morty, TV | Tagged: Adult Swim, Evil Morty, preview, rick and morty, season 7

Rick and Morty Team on Evil Morty, Rick Prime & The "Big Story" Rule

Rick and Morty Co-EP Steve Levy & Adult Swim President Michael Ouweleen on the show's "rule" for balancing stand-alone & canon episodes.

When it comes to Adult Swim's Rick and Morty, it's been nice to have some positive updates to pass along that are focused more on the Emmy Award-winning animated series and less on its co-creators. With rumblings that the seventh season will be arriving this September and more news on the way between now and the Adult Swim Festival on the Green at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) late this month, we're expecting the buzz to start picking up in some serious ways. Up to this point, some of the best updates yet have come from Co-EP Steve Levy and Adult Swim President Michael Ouweleen –  and we have a couple more perspectives from them to pass along. During an interview with Premiere, Levy & Ouweleen discuss striking the right balance between the "canon" episodes (like those with Rick Prime and Evil Morty) and the dimension-hopping duo's standalone adventures. In addition,  they explain why the series has been able to connect with fans after so long.

"Dan Harmon, the series co-creator, grew up watching sitcoms of the 70s and 80s, where each episode operated independently of the others. Nothing was 'serialized,' and that allowed a series to last much longer. I don't see us writing a series with a red thread to follow every week, it would be too hard. Imagine ten seasons of that on 'Rick and Morty!' We would end up making episodes just to make episodes and feed the story as best we can," Levy explained when explaining how the series approaches stories that feed into the canon and the overarching storylines with the "standalone" approach that Rick and Morty originated with. "The concept has always been to go from one adventure to another. On the other hand, we had to feel the characters evolve, and that's where these somewhat special episodes on Evil Morty or Rick Prime come in. But always in small touches, otherwise we would risk saying too much, and we would have nothing more to say! The rule is that there must be at least one episode each season evoking the 'big story.' That way, people are rewarded for continuing to watch the show.

Ouweleen: "Rick and Morty" Works "By Colliding the Sitcom and the Multiverse": "I imagine [the series works] because, basically, it's a family sitcom. If you think about it, 'Rick and Morty' is mostly about the relationship between a grandfather and his grandson. Even if we decided to remove all this interdimensional portal story, I'm sure it would still be a fun series. But by colliding the sitcom and the multiverse, then the result becomes completely unpredictable. I believe that is what works."

Levy: "Human Experience" Allows Fan to Connect with Animated Series: "There is also something related to the human experience, which is universal. Seeing Rick and Morty grapple with life's big questions that no one has the answers to is cathartic. The series says that, in fact, we absolutely do not want to have the answers! It allows you to put things into perspective, to remember that only the present matters. So it doesn't matter if you are American, French, or Japanese: everyone is able to understand that. Add a few scatophile jokes, well-written monsters, and characters, and you have a hit [laughs]."

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