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Rick and Morty
12 Seasons Means Great Job Security - Rick & Morty Interview with Dan Harmon and Scott Marder
We chat with the showrunners of Rick & Morty about plans for the future, what excites them about Season 8, and a tease planned for Comic-Con.
Audio transcription
"I'm Alex Hopley from Gamereactor. Dan, Scott, very nice to meet you. What excites you about Rick and Morty this many years in? What keeps you excited and on to season 10? I mean I know I can say I didn't start on the show so I got to be a fan like you for four, you know, three and a half seasons so yeah I came in with just the enthusiasm of just feeling like a guy. I know I've said it before but I I don't know what it feels like to win the lottery but getting to work on this show felt like the closest thing that I could imagine it must be because it just it's this is just like my absolute dream job and getting to work with Dan and getting to work with these characters and the staff and this crew like I just know I just pumping that fan enthusiasm into it and get to actually manipulate and create seasons that I think I would want to watch which makes me feel good because I have a feeling that's what you want to watch that I just feel like that's when I'm in my strong corner so that's that's what I bring to the table certainly. Yeah I think the exciting thing the thing that stays exciting about it is the thing that yeah you the other question is always what's scary or how do you it I think the answer is the same is that well there are no the show has no rules and no expectations kind of knitted into its DNA and so that makes it as far as narrative shows go it's the most like an anthology like if you you know that you can get meaning that you could write a Black Mirror episode about anything tomorrow because it's it's an anthology right and so you can make a self-contained story and Rick and Morty is as close to having that freedom as you I think you can get while still being about the same characters every episode so that to me makes it exciting it makes it a little intimidating but in in this market like where you know there are other TV shows people are trying to do out there there's a you know so that's another exciting thing it sounds like a joke answer but part of the employment is is the is being grandfathered into an industry that is really hard to like get something started right now and if you get it started it's based on a pitch that says this is gonna last eight episodes I promise and and it's so it's like that we here we have this privilege of what it's almost like for a TV show it's almost like having your own network whether you could just like you just have a platform so that's exciting yeah to what to what to what Dan said like you know it's not like we're eight seasons into Cheers where it's like god damn it what are we gonna do in this bar for the like 400th time it's like every episode is its own movie it's it's very freeing yeah and as you guys said like you you're sort of securing that up to season 10 point but from the sounds of it you have not necessarily maybe plans for that but there's certainly no intention of that being a stoppage point we were actually I mean I think it's I think it's live I mean we're going beyond 10 we have we have written through 10 and we are writing beyond 10 I think we're we're going at least two more beyond 10 I think that's out of the world and we're about to start writing 11 like imminently which is exciting you know yeah so how do you keep that sort of going with the anthology element but as you touched upon before there is this sense of there's this plot that a lot of the fans will pay attention to throughout season after season after season we saw like Rick Prime in season 7 that storyline come to an end in one way and start off in another to what extent do you focus on the anthology episodes the episodes that you could pick out say if you're just feeling a bit of Rick and Morty on an afternoon pick out watch it and have your lunch sit that sit back down get back to work or whatever and how much do you focus on what you might call like a primary narrative that's been running through season after season we we used to have a policy that was largely policed by me of like we let's not do canonical canonical stuff on yeah knowing that it will kind of necessitate itself anyway so why why help gravity and entropy I think that policy on my part threatened to put us out of touch with the audience as I got older and like I'm only talking to my gardener about life and like let so I'm not connected and that's where like younger writers coming in who are huge fans of the show you know it started to become more like I'm gonna you know these these kids would say things like do you realize we're we're almost done writing an entire season where we haven't we haven't addressed evil Morty and I'll go like okay I'm yeah I my rule now would be followed possibly to the show's detriment so let's listen to these like fans of the show that are coming in and and and then yeah it will follow their lead on and when to hit the mythology like there's people on the staff including myself that are very eager to do episodes like that what make those episodes trickier just like keeping that bar so high keeping the interest so high so like when you take one of those on it's like it's like bringing the ring of power to Mordor it's like it's an extra it's an extra task than just writing a simple Rick and Morty is not easy but writing a canonical ones even harder because you just know it's got every eyeball on it that's just looking at every like frame and yeah because people study those episodes so hard but when we when we do them we nail them I think they feel extra rewarding and we've certainly got some whoppers in the next few seasons so like it's not something that we're looking to stop doing you talked a bit before about like planning and I think Scott you talked in the past about remixing at what point do you do you lock something in you were talking before about getting started on season 11 so that sort of assumes that season 9 and 10 are pretty good in the idea state but you guys leave it up to say the last minute ish to decide on what's finalized with certain lines or do you leave it up to the actors in certain places I mean we are always rewriting I don't think the word locked can be used on this show like yeah it is it is open till it almost makes it to air so like things are always ebbing and flowing the by the time it's close to air the episodes are largely the episodes are a few jokes getting changed or a few last-minute things being tweaked always we reserve I'd say sometimes we're doing a shuffle just to give an maybe a season a better shape if we feel like it's just gonna be a better viewing experience if one comes after the other or we're looking at it we're like oh these summer episodes should be a little further away so sometimes that's planning that's evolved the last couple years I don't know if that's your your question per se but uh there's certainly a lot of thought towards like the perfect kind of viewing experience across the season and a lot of thought towards what you're watching in what order if that helps that's a very good answer thank you and I was gonna ask as well you guys have seen and you so you've been putting out the Rick and Morty anime I believe that's out like this year do you have any other ideas for spinoffs are there any dream ideas that you think maybe one day while we're also doing season 110 we'd like to do you know this other idea you know as far as spinoffs I could see my good my big dream would be to announce something at comic-con a month from now that would turn out we've been working on for a while but that's just a dream we'll see if my of announcing that comes true I'm a big it's when I when I when I dream at night I dream of myself announcing things but yeah there's something we've been working on it's coming up did somebody was there sorry yeah no something's coming I'm sure they'll be more to come to you know we've got a we've got a good property if we find a good character that seems like they're worthy of getting their own I'm sure we'll we'll fast-track something something I wanted to ask because I've got two minutes left so I'll try and keep the questions a bit less broad and a bit shorter was about the the titles for each episode are they sort of something that you have a list of of these puns and references that you keep close to hand or is there one person at the office that you come in and you go you've got to come up with something you know we've got we've got this episode here that we think could relate to this but any police believe it or not like the titles that you see that make it out in the world they get they get tacked on really late in the process so like we have a shorthand for all of them that we call them all and a lot of them are even in a production cycle that don't match when you watch them so like to call one 801 might not mean it's the first episode of the season for instance like I don't even know what the name of phone charger is but I know we call it phone charger because that's just the quickest way that Dan and I know what episode we're talking about but if we were to call it like ye who calleth like whatever I think the answer I think the answer well I thought maybe a draft writer might suggest their own title for that I think there is a person at the office I don't know is it Jax like so it does somebody ends up having to follow that formula of this there was eventually a meeting like the writer of particular episode will maybe sometimes a draft will come in and I'll have the title that we're like yeah that's a that's a great title that'll go to air but we are not calling it that till it goes to air or it just won't have it and they'll eventually be a late game meeting where we'll throw people meet and we'll throw a few at the wall and I haven't questioned a single one or like given you know I haven't like green lit or blocked a single one since like season one when we decided to do that formula because part of the formula is it has it's supposed to be stupid like you know when I was a kid like Remington steel every title would have the word steel in it would be a plan where true that's like steel of the night or it's funny and so with that in what it was like okay so the formula will be that would be forced and absolutely like incoherently like kind of pun based and and so that's that's always working so I never even see them until we're done with them I go I might have piggybacked a small rule on to them where I'm like I at least like to have a faint clue what the episode I mean for our sake like a little sometimes I'm like what rubber band like I love this show and I'm like I don't know what episode this is this is talking about yeah it's like an air tag for your keys like as you enter middle age you're like can we get a homing device on my wallet it's like know what these episodes are guys thank you so much for your time Dan Scott absolute pleasure and yeah looking forward to comic-con I hope that dream comes true feet down I I dream low so that my pretty well I dream of like I'm gonna get a cup of coffee like when I'm in line at the all right Cheers guys"
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