Top 10 Times Rick and Morty Roasted TV Shows
Welcome to WatchMojo and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the top 10 times “Rick and Morty” roasted TV shows. For this list, we’ll be going over the parodies and insults directed at other TV series on the adult animated show “Rick and Morty.” If there’s a TV related insult from “Rick and Morty” you’re offended didn’t make our list, let us know in the comments.
#10: Whisper Kitchen
“Mort Dinner Rick Andre”
An unfortunate incursion into the ocean means that Rick needs to have a summit/dinner with his nemesis – Mr. Nimbus. Morty’s attempts to juggle an evening with his crush, Jessica, with retrieving wine from a fast-time dimension leads to further complications. Plus his parents have been propositioned by Mr. Nimbus. This boils over in the kitchen, where Rick berates them all for screwing things up, and for forcing him to imitate the TV show “Frasier” by having a whispered kitchen conversation. While not the only time “Rick and Morty” has lampooned “Frasier,” like when Rick called out the title character’s pretentious taste in classic music, in this case it’s a brilliant skewering of the sitcom’s frequently farcical conventions.
#9: Lesson Learned
“Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat”
When Morty gets a hold of a crystal that lets him see possible futures, it spells bad news for not only Rick but also the rest of the world. With Rick moving through progressive realities into new bodies, Morty is free to run wild in his pursuit of an apparently idyllic future where he dies with Jessica. Rick eventually comes back and saves the world from Morty’s full-blown “Akira” transformation. Later, Morty declares to Rick that he learned that he needs to live in the moment. Rick questions whether they’re in “Full House,” mocking the trite lessons learned that often finish out that show’s episodes. Guess there are lessons to be found “everywhere you look.”
#8: Horror Anthology Tropes
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“Something Ricked This Way Comes”
Summer gets a job working for Mr. Needful, a thinly-veiled Stephen King reference whose shop is full of eclectic, spooky items that customers don’t pay for…with money. It soon becomes clear that all his items come at horrible and ironic prices. Rick quickly pegs Needful as being the Devil – in a very literal sense. After studying one of the items, Rick quickly comes up with a way to detect what all the items do and reverse their effects. Confronting the Devil in his store, Rick derides his business model, comparing it to the premises of spooky anthology shows like “The Twilight Zone,” “The Ray Bradbury Theater,” or “Friday the 13th: The Series.” All these shows often feature characters receiving strangely fitting punishments and/or creepy antiques stores.
#7: Changeformers
“Amortycan Grickfitti”
Yeah this one is pretty obvious. After Morty, Summer, and the new kid Bruce Chutback take Rick’s car on a joyride, the car’s A.I. blackmails them into doing what it wants to do. While at a restaurant, the car bumps into a jock Changeformer, who is impressed by its weaponry. The car’s attempts to romance the changeformer at a party while disguising itself as a fellow Changeformer end in embarrassment for the car and death for the Changeformers. The Changeformers themselves are a transparent parody of transformers. They may be “androids in concealment,” but it takes the car’s fake head falling off to spot her deception.
#6: Host Problems
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“Mortyplicity”
This episode sees the Smith family learn that Rick made artificial decoys of the whole family to distract potential enemies from the real article. When they go to investigate, Morty remarks that Rick being able to freeze them in place is similar to the show “Westworld.” Rick agrees but insists that Morty not get “intimate” with them. The host robots on “Westworld” are famously used for illicit purposes. It is on HBO, after all. It soon becomes apparent that the decoys made decoys too. And so did those. And so on and so on. And they all start killing each other. So it’s really like “Westworld.”
#5: “Ass”
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“Claw and Hoarder: Special Ricktim's Morty”
When Morty begs Rick for a dragon, he spends more time with the magical beast than with Rick. This leaves Rick to watch TV with Summer. The show they watch is called “Ass,” which Summer compares directly to the show “Bones,” but for posterior related crimes. Like “Bones,” “Ass” also features a will-they/won’t-they romance between the two leads. Summer and Rick’s arguments over it also expose the same belief that many viewers had with the show in that some found it less interesting after Bones and Booth got together – sorry, Ass and Brenner.
#4: Christian Cartoons
“Never Ricking Morty”
Trapped in a metafictional construct by Story Lord and confronted by Evil Morty and a host of enemies, Rick decides the only way that he and Morty can escape their predicament is by doing something they’d never do – pray. By asking Jesus Christ for help, they break down the continuity of their characters and ruin Story Lord’s plans. The duo is soon joined by a collection of parodies of Christian cartoon characters, including living vegetables and a dinosaur riding a skateboard. Anyone who grew up watching these kinds of cartoons can spot “VeggieTales” and “Denver, the Last Dinosaur” parodies. While not a mean-spirited lampoon, these shows do seem like the opposite of “Rick and Morty.”
#3: Squanch
“The Wedding Squanchers”
One of Rick’s oldest friends is Squanchy, a questionable alien creature whose hobbies are decidedly sexual and who uses the word “squanch” frequently. When their mutual bestie Birdperson gets married, the wedding is on Planet Squanch. Upon arrival, Beth remarks on the overuse of the word ‘squanch’ in Squanchy’s language, comparing it to the Smurfs, which also use the word ‘smurf’ in a similar context. Although Rick and Squanchy claim that ‘squanch’ means whatever the speaker desires, Beth’s supposedly suggestive use of it has us thinking its meaning is up to the writers.
#2: Westeros Style
“Rick Potion #9”
As a teenager, Morty is primarily driven by his hormones. So when a dance comes up, he has Jessica on the brain. Well, probably a different part of his body. Anyway, he asks Rick to whip him up a love potion to make her fall in love with him. Rick, after some mild badgering from Morty, caves and makes him one. When asked for some of his DNA to make it work, Morty assumes he needs to use the body part we alluded to earlier. Rick stops him and tells him he needs a hair – “this isn’t Game of Thrones.” “Thrones” features copious sex and nudity. Unfortunately for everyone on Earth, the love potion soon creates chaos that makes Westeros look tame by comparison.
#1: Like Space
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“Rattlestar Ricklactica”
While flying through space, Rick’s car gets a flat tire. While he changes it, Morty is insistent on going out into space himself. However, Rick is disparaging of Morty going on a spacewalk, comparing being in space to being on “Saturday Night Live.” He claims while many people dream of being in both of them, both things want those who are in them to float around them until they become corpses. “SNL” stars do often struggle to escape the orbit of the show after starring on it. We suppose appearing alongside the greats like Bobby Moynihan or Piece of Toast isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be.
