Rick and Morty Writer: Ryan Ridley

All right, man. We should probably jump into Rick and Morty at some point. Um, before we do that, uh, how about you just like give your background of up until Rick and Morty?

So, I didn't really know what I was doing with my life. I was a terrible student. I just, I didn't do anything. I didn't like, I didn't... It was before the era of even making any kind of videos or... So, you know, I didn't really know how to channel my creativity. I mean, I would make like camcorder videos when I was a younger kid and then in high school, I was just getting high and skipping school and, you know, goofing off with my friends. And I didn't really know I wanted to get into comedy; I thought I wanted to maybe because I was drawing, get into cartoons or comic books or something like that. And then I was just, didn't have the discipline for that. And so it was after high school, I just, I was barely graduated, barely gotten to Community College, which turned out to serve me well for being a writer on Community, so, uh, but I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. And then somehow had an epiphany, which I'm going to reveal some biographical information; you go, "that's not really an epiphany." I decided to do standup.

Now, my dad owned a stand-up comedy club, so I was going to stand-up comedy clubs my whole life, and he was a huge... It's a huge comedy club; it's considered one of the premier clubs in the country. And so growing up, I got to see, you know, Gary Shandling, Drew Carey, Ellen DeGeneres, Jim Carrey—I saw Jim Carrey on my 16th birthday with all my friends—and that was still one of the most mind-blowing experiences because it was pre-Ace Ventura, post-In Living Color. Wow! So, he was big, but he wasn't, you know, as big as he would become in the next 10 years after that. And he was so quick.

And I remember we, uh, were all there, and I had one friend—we were like 16, so of course you've got friends of different ages. I had a 14-year-old friend, who's very small, and it's an adult club, but I'm the owner's kid. So, he gets up and he walks across to go to the bathroom, and Jim Carrey, mid-bit, just stops and goes, "Hey, mister, that fake mustache won't fool me." And it was just like the middle of his bit; he just like saw that kid and just made—that—and then we all, like my dad brought us back to the Green Room, shuffled us back there, and you know, opened the door, and he was just like sitting there like just emanating energy, and he's like, "Hey, is it your birthday?" I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "Cool, you want to come back to my hotel room and watch some porno?" I was like, "Uh..." It was what you'd want from meeting Jim Carrey.

So, anyway, so then I, yeah, I was like, "I want to, I want to get involved in comedy," but this is pre any kind of internet video, YouTube, or anything, and even like, I didn't know—all I knew how to do is edit camcorder to VCR, oh like dual VCR thing. Yeah, so I wasn't really doing this. I'm like, "Well, standup is something where you can write comedy, and then you can perform it, and you get an immediate reaction." So, I started doing that and doing the open mics, and then eventually, I was like, "Okay, Detroit is not for me; the place I want to find my comedy voice," so I moved to Chicago, which is a great transition city.

And immediately, I was watching these people on stage in Chicago, and just everyone was blowing my mind just comedically. And so I got involved in that scene, and I met a lot of people there who, like I was—I probably should stop name-dropping—but my comedy class at that time was like Kumail Nanjiani, TJ Miller, Pete Holmes, Kyle Kinane, Matt Broner—these are all guys who I did open mics with—they started, you know, so we all kind of became friends. And that was really my college because I didn't go to college, really. I went to Community College for a year, then transferred to Michigan State, where all I did was watch TV constantly and say, "I just want to write a TV show," and specifically, I wanted to write an animated sci-fi comedy show, okay? And this is before Futurama, dude. Okay? So there's really nothing that existed in any—as far as that particular... as far as like something you like aspired to.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, you're watching—I watched Cohen and I watched old sitcoms like Seinfeld at that time. I'm like, "I like this stuff," but I knew that I wanted something that was sci-fi because I like sci-fi or genre fantasy something— and but also comedy. It was like, I had no clue I'd ever be involved in a show like that. Like, Rick and Morty is literally the exact show that I was fantasizing about at 20 years old. And on top of it, to be able to do it with friends as opposed to, let's say, I got hired on Futurama; it'd be like I'm getting hired on a Fox show because who knows? Either they loved my script and they hired me or I worked my way up from my writer's assistant. But Rick and Morty is like, it's sci-fi fantasy comedy, and it's dark—as dark as my sensibility is— which Futurama never really was as dark as I think ultimately I like to write. And then just doing it with your friends, yeah, which you have a rapport; you have an understanding.

It's like being in a band. I hate using that metaphor; that's just—I actually like using that metaphor, but I feel like I need to say I hate it because it might be perceived as pretentious, but it is because you have a rapport with people as opposed to being hired and thrown into a staff where it's like, "Hey, I assume we're all funny—professionally funny enough to be on the show, but I don't know what your sensibility is."

So, anyway, I think that's a long way of getting to how I got to Rick and Morty, which was, yeah... uh, oh, well, you got to—you got to, yeah. Skipped how you actually got to talk. So then, uh, I was doing standup in Chicago for four years, and towards the end of it, I was like, "I want to make videos." And I remember, and I'm—I’m so Gman, and I referenced him now twice—Dan Gman, a writer-producer on Rick and Morty, and one of the biggest, uh, uh ingredients in making that show great in the last two seasons. Um, we were talking about how we're both driven by proving to the world that we know what we're doing, but also being terrified at being exposed to frauds at the same time.

And so we're angry; we're like, "People are going to respect us and validate that we know what we're doing; we're funny." And so, yeah, so, I saw this guy make a comedy video in the standup scene—like a video video—which was relatively infrequent back then, and I watched it, and I was just so angry. I was like, "I'm going to make a video ten times better than that guy." And so I met—I was waiting tables with a guy named Danny Gelinck, who's now a big comedy director who directed like Children's Hospital, and I mean he directs on, uh, Last Week Tonight—is that what John Oliver's show is called? Sounds right, okay. Yeah, so he just directs tons of comedy.

By the time we were waiting tables together, and we just hit it off, you know, just joking around and riffing like waiting tables together. And so I found out he's in film school, and like I said, up until that point I'd only done VCR editing. So when he showed me how to edit on a computer, my mind was blown. I was like, "You can just drag a song underneath this?" And then we don't—I don't have to record a song in the background in a boom box. And so we made a couple comedy videos together with a lot of these standups.

I gave Kumail Nanjiani his first role, in fact. I confirmed that I hung out with him a couple weeks ago, and I was like, "Was this video Danny and I made, was that your first acting role?" He's like, "Yeah, wow." So, you can look that up. Anyway, uh, we started making videos together, and then I found out about Channel 101. Should I explain what that is for your audience?

Yeah, people won't know what that is.

Okay, so it's still going after 15 years. Channel 101 was started by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab. Dan's the creator of Community and Rick and Morty, and Rob is a director who's directed a lot of stuff, also on TV comedies, stuff like the Sarah Silverman Show co-creator. At the time, they were writing partners, and they were really feeling, uh, the futility of selling stuff. They had made a show called Heat Vision and Jack—pilot with Jack Black—the Ben Stiller directed, but Fox didn't pick it up, and I think it was crushing; it was a selling—crushingly disappointing—they were selling all these shows and movies, but they weren't getting made, and they’re like, "What are we doing? We're just writing and nothing is being seen by anybody." So they started Channel 101 just to make stuff—videos—in 2003 with their friends.

And the framing device, essentially, it's a film festival, but they would, uh, it was set up like it was a competitive TV network. So they would—you'd make stuff, you’d submit it to the primetime panel. The primetime panel was the creators of shows that were currently in the screening, so that gave them the credibility to be judging over, but it's purely democratic. So what would happen is the creator—the five returning shows would be put up against five pilots, and the audience would vote for their top five favorite shows among those ten. So you could get canceled, and you could be off the primetime panel, and then a new person could get on.

So it always was, you know, people would say it's a conspiracy; they're going to put in shitty shows so that they don't have any competition, but no, because anyone with a pure heart and soul—which Dan and Rob do have creatively and, and most of us who became their peers—that sort of came to Channel 101 have this too: like you want the show to be good; you want—you actually want to put stuff in there that's going to make you work harder. That's what made me better when I moved to Chicago. I worked, you know, the people in Detroit were comedy people in Detroit who were, you know, if you were really serious, you moved to Chicago, LA, or New York. So once I moved to Chicago, I was around people who were that much more serious; they pushed me harder. LA— you know, same thing.

And then you're in Channel 101, and you're like, you're watching, you know, Justin Roiland’s early stuff, you know, a guy named JD Rinar did Yacht Rock—these people, they were—all—everyone was getting better, and they’re making you have to get better. Dan and Justin at the time and Rob and at the time the Lonely Island guys had a show in there—Sarah Chalk was in their early stuff, and I was like the girl from Scrubs; now she’s the voice of Beth, which is weird.

So, um, okay, I got to turn this off; this is Rob Schrab texting. Um, so, uh, I—I moved out there because a friend of mine said, "Hey, you know you like that Heat Vision and Jack pilot? These guys, they created the—in Channel 101." And so I moved to LA specifically just to get on their radar and make stuff for that thing because I watched the videos—this is exactly my kind of comedy. And so the first video I made, I submitted it, and was rejected, and it was the most heartbreaking experience. And then I submitted another one, and it got in, but it didn’t get voted back, okay.

And so that's what happens; it just made you work harder. You go, "I gotta make something even better now," and you have to just—it forces you to just keep working harder until you make something that that the audience can't deny, you know? And then when you do that, your peers will go, "Oh hey, man, at the screening, you know hey, nice video; it's pretty funny." And then, eventually, you're getting so good, they're like, "You wanna hang out?" And then eventually, you're getting so good, they're like, "Hey, we just got a TV show; you wanna work on it?" And that's basically how it all... so that's how you're employed, and you have friends, basically. Congrats.

And you know, listen, it's a curse and a blessing to have your employers also be your friends. Let me, yeah, no, I know the feeling. Um, so I think that like you've done a bunch of interviews on Rick and Morty, and like Dan and Justin have also done a bunch of interviews on Rick and Morty. I think what people listening to this will probably be most interested in is like just the sci-fi elements, the random tech elements of it all.

Um, I was wondering if you could just like explain where you get your ideas for stuff or like is it coming from like, you know, sci-fi like fiction of the past? Are you just making stuff up? Where does it come from?

Uh, definitely a big helping of fiction from the past. We, you know, all are all well-versed in every iconic sci-fi genre movie and television show of the past 50 years. Um, okay, fine, maybe not 50 years—let's not—I’ve never seen a Lost in Space episode—but 25, yeah. And, uh, on top of that, one of our writers, Mike McMahon, seems to read every sci-fi book and graphic novel, and I—I mean, you know, I watch a lot of TV and movies, and I read occasional sci-fi books, but I just—he's like an encyclopedia of that stuff. So we'll be talking about all these ideas like, "Oh, what if it's something like this? What if it's like this plot from this book combined with this episode of, you know..."

I always give the example of the Total Rickall episode from season 2, where the parasites are in the house with them. I think— I think McMahon pitched that as, "Oh, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer season five, they introduced his character, Dawn, as her sister." And everyone's pretending—I mean, they're not pretending that—they're treating her like she's always been there, and you know, that is, as a viewer, that she hasn't had a sister for the first four seasons, and so you find out the supernatural explanation for why that is.

So, I think that's where it started, and then we built on top of that a thing element—like, oh, they're all trapped in the house and they're all suspicious—and then it was like, "Oh, what if we do the D?" I think Gman pitched the idea of, "Well, what if this is a way to do a clip show?" So you're actually throwing the clips, but the clips themselves are not memories in the sense of like a traditional clip show; they're actually part of the sci-fi.

And so it ends up being a patchwork of different references that are hopefully combined enough so we're not doing a spoof of any one thing—what I would never want to do—not that we haven't. I mean, Anatomy Park is, you know, is considered maybe one of the weaker episodes, at least by us, because it's just a Jurassic Park boo-needs-a-Fantastic-Voyage trope. That's been done a thousand times, and you know, we try to do a darker, weirder version of it, but that's not the most ideal episode. We want to really make it feel that the references are, if anything, hidden.

But then, okay, so for like in the Total Rickall episode, right? Like, they ended up getting spotted because it's something like they only have positive memories—something like that—was that something you guys made up or are you just like—?

Yeah, that was, you know, that was one of those moments that, you know, when you get to so far in a script and you're trying to figure out what that—I can't remember. That was probably like the third act twist, I assume. Uh, you're like, "Okay, what is going to solve this problem?" And then that's just when good old-fashioned writing ingenuity comes in, you know? And I don't remember who pitched it, but it was, you know, yeah, the idea of you can identify the parasites because you only have positive memories of them. Unlike your family, you've had all the complicated emotional experiences with that we all have.

Um, but you know, that's that example; that's the anatomy of that episode. But you know, sometimes it's more like, like Morty Night Run, uh, was like, "Oh, let's do like a Midnight Run kind of road adventure," and that's—we're not referencing Midnight Run; there's no, you know, like, "Oh, that's clearly the Rafat Cotto character," but he's green wearing sunglasses with three eyelines. Uh, but it's like, it's that the essence of that, you know?

Um, so, oh well, yeah, go—I don't want to ramble on too much. I forget that...

No, no, you're doing great. What's the title of the episode where it's like world within world within world within world?

Uh, the title is called... God, we don't have any consistent naming formula. A lot of times it's puns with their names of famous movie titles and sometimes just completely... Oh, I think it's the Ricks Must Be Crazy. That sounds right, yes. Yeah, yeah, the microverse and the miniverse.

Yes, where did that come from?

That—Justin had this idea of that Rick had some machine that he would liquefy an entire civilization because it was the only way to create this incredibly delicious dipping sauce he loved—the—oh, the Mulan sauce. This was way before the Mulan sauce, but it was something similar. It was like, you know, which obviously the common theme is that Justin is obsessed with these kind of random things and then we just want to like capture that energy and put it in there.

So, uh, it was just the idea of what could illustrate Rick's character better than he just—he would sacrifice an entire civilization? One of the greatest inventions was creating life, complex life, just to—because once you liquefy it, it just happens to be the most delicious recipe. So, I can't remember; it was always the character that goes in, and a character comes out. I think we actually—for the final version there, the character never leaves, but there's a version where they sort of—the characters go in whatever combination in the earliest version, and then one of the people kind of comes out is so... so from the point of view of the character coming out, it's like, this is where, like, the world of the gods, you know?

Yeah, I don't think they did. We didn't do that. Yeah, but that was a big element. But at some point in early on in the writing of that, it felt a little too much like the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa's tooth becomes—it’s a Treehouse of Horror where her tooth—I think Bart touches the touches some petri dish that her tooth is in, and then the static electricity creates life, and then it has a little civilization, and at the point, where, like, they get to the future, and now there are like nukes or spaceships flying around and attacking Bart and it felt like it was a little too much like that.

And so I think also we—because we were doing the beats where Rick and Morty were traveling, um, repeatedly throughout time period, so they'd get to the medieval period, and it just sort of felt a little too, like, "Oh, I get it, this is like our medieval period but it's aliens and a jar." You know, it's just—it's trying to figure out how to get it so we’re just doing something that hasn't been done by either Simpsons or South Park or Futurama, which is not an easy, uh, cone path, you know, whatever those Highway cone paths when you're doing a driver's training to weave through.

I’ve heard you guys mention that before, but like, do you have someone who has—whether it's like encyclopedic knowledge or is there some like website where you're like plugging in the references you're using? Because it seems like impossible to avoid.

I think it is impossible to avoid, and we haven't done a good job all the time because I remember we were doing the episode Lawn Mower Dog, which had the the Inception thing, and there’s Scary Terry, who's the Freddy Krueger character, and we were way too far down the road, and Mike McMahon said, “Oh, you know South Park did—you know their Inception episode had Freddy Krueger?” We’re like, “Uh, thanks; that would have been good to mention yesterday.”

Adam Sandler, everybody! Adam Sandler impression.

Yeah, but it's like, "Great! Now we're too far down the line to change it," and you know, then you just feel like a hack and none of us had seen it, and the thing is, I love South Park, but I can't watch every episode of that show. They—I mean, let alone remember everything.

Yeah, I think it's just like, oftentimes when I'm working on creative projects, I'm just like, "Is this new?" Or like I faintly remember it. Like, has it been exposure to something?

By the way, there's a feeling that I get that's a combination of self-loathing and self—uh, um... what's the opposite of self-loathing? Um, confidence. Self-confidence, but I'm trying to still make it negative like self-glorifying where I—if I think I've come up with a really particularly brilliant idea, I immediately go, "This had to have been done before."

You know, and so—but there are actual websites—have TV Tropes and movie tropes you can look up, but I think it's almost sometimes it's just too nuanced. Like, how do you even describe this particular bit? You know, it's just so—and you know, the fact is, it's like, it's sorta like when those—they do these videos every now and then of comedians getting busted, like "Did Amy Schumer steal Lou's bit?" I don't know because there's so much standup comedy being generated and there's only so many ideas in the world.

I don't even mean there's only so many jokes; I mean like people are always kinda landing on the same human thoughts about life, you know? So, you know, I can say we have never consciously ripped anything off, and you know, sometimes maybe it's to a fault where you're like, you're trying so hard to stay away from something that you're like, "You're not having any fun."

Well, I was wondering about that with like, I mean, maybe, maybe not South Park or Simpsons or something, but like, you know, an older, uh, you know, piece of fiction where it's just like, "Let's do something almost identical to it," but like basically add the Rick and Morty spin on top of it, and like that opens it up in a new way.

I guess you've sort of done that with a bunch of episodes, like that are like throwbacks, but I wonder if it like goes more nuanced than that with like obscure stuff. Um, God, what was it? It was the one with—the first introduced the Council of Ricks, uh, and it was called a Rick for every season or something like that.

But that episode is—I think—think that it's sort of about a few episodes where, oh, you—you know. Actually, ironically, people did say, "Did you guys rip off the Council of Reeds?" which is a storyline from the Fantastic Four, which is a bunch of Reed Richards from different parallel realities in the Marvel Universe forming a council of Reeds.

No, we didn't know about that, but it's also an obvious place to go with Rick, and but more importantly, the story itself around it just felt like—it felt like a movie compressed in a 22-minute episode. It was like more like a—like not really a familiar story, but like a, "Oh, this would be, this is like kinda a classic." This is a mystery—it was a mystery episode; it was, like, who they were investigating.

You know, Rick was trying to clear his name, so that was the Rick and Morty take on a mystery—a, you know, trying to think of examples of movies. You know, there’s—I mean, The Fugitive, you know what I mean? That's a movie or a show before that about a guy who's trying to hunt the real killer of his wife while he's being pursued by the authorities. So, that was the Rick and Morty take on that trope but that's—or genre or sub-genre.

And I think that's—because I didn't even think of that as being a fugitive spoof because it wasn't—it’s just it's like you said; it's like the Rick and Morty take on a classic.

Yeah, I mean, it's like how many movies are just like, you know, recomposed Greek myths, right? And just like—well, it's sort of the same thing, but not really at all.

Yeah, we do an episode in, uh, season 3 that's—it's not a spoof of anything in particular, but we started referencing very specific movies, and we're like, "Well, this is okay in I'm G to try to weave through this without spoiling anything." It's like, you know, 127 Hours is—I think I might even talk about this in Comic Con, so it's actually probably okay to talk about, but there's an episode where Rick turns himself into a pickle, and it's the only other footage that that's shown—they showed it after the premiere of season—of episode one is season 3, so that's not a spoiler; Rick turns himself into a pickle.

But what the episode really about is he turns himself into a pickle, and then he sorts of gets trapped, and he ends up involved in a situation; one thing one twist leads to another, and he's totally screwed, and he doesn't have the—he doesn't have the same resources that he usually has access to—he's a pickle. He's not himself; he can't reach into his lab coat and pull out his portal or any of his other infinite inventions he has hidden in there.

And yet, he's in the most mundane of circumstances; he's just on Earth. He's a few hundred feet from the house; he's not, but he’s a pickle, so he has to figure out how to get himself out of that with really basic ingenuity. And so we kept talking about 127 Hours or Gravity—like these movies about characters that are just in these situations that they are alone and they have to figure out, you know, what do I do to get out of this?

And so that was a great, once again to do the Rick and Morty version of what that subgenre is. I don't even know what that subgenre is called—a survivalist subgenre, Room Escape type deal.

Yeah, yeah, okay. And, and so then, um, so all the gadgets—you talked about the portal gun and stuff, like, you know, the aliens have random gadgets when they go to a different world; everyone's got different like weapons that they attack them with. Where does all that stuff come from?

Well, that I know. I mean, you know, like the first example that pops in my head is I think that Justin wanted to base the Citadel of Ricks off of something from Halo. I'm not a huge video game person; he is. So there's some big spaceship Citadel thing in the game Halo. And so a lot of times the, the, uh elements of the planets or the technology will be, you know, straight-up visual references like, "Oh, this is, you know, this is like a gun from this movie."

I’m not a big tech person; I never thought about this until just now, but I've never really cared that much about what the tech looks like as long as it—you know, you want to make sure kind of everything feels and looks different, and there’s a flavor to it. But I like the—I’m pretty into the alien design. So I've gotten involved. I’ve gotten—I’ve, you know, talked to art directors and, you know, character designers and been like, "All right, this alien has to look like this. If it looks like this, it's not going to work; it's not going to be as funny."

If it looks like this, it's got to look like, you know, it's got to take it seriously or it’s from this kind of planet, so it's got to have these specific anatomical features.

Um, and it's true; like you—I mean, it’s so funny, though, because there's been so many times when, you know, I don’t—the Meeseeks is a perfect example. I feel like I've talked about this; I'm so sorry if anyone who's watching this like I have already heard this before is going to want more like they want it again. But the Meeseeks, I wrote that episode, and when I say I wrote, you know, it's such a collaborative effort; my name was on that script, but, you know, we sort of write a little bit of everything.

And Dan does so much of the final dialogue passes and stuff. So the Meeseeks started out as, you know, this voice, this concept that Justin pitched, and then I wrote the episode, and I wrote the episode script, and I still in my head pictured them as tiny little—for you at home—creatures like the size of Smurfs or something, okay? And Justin—and it was—I'm not kidding, it was the Blue Dress-Gold Dress of the writer room because half the people reading the same script imagined them life-size, and half imagined them as tiny little gremlin things or smaller than gremlins.

And so—and I just—I guess the script was written in a way we never really thought about their scale, you know? So there's a scene where Jerry and Beth are in the restaurant, and they all bust in, and I remember thinking like, "Oh, it'd be funny if they're like on the table, like, you know, three apples high like in Jerry's face with a gun."

And everyone's like, "No, no, no. It's like a life-size with a gun; that's going to be terrifying!"

So, anyway, it's those conversations, though, that are important because you're like, it's a very different concept if they were Smurfs versus what they ended up being, you know?

And then on top of that you have just, what do they look like? Are they complex? Are they simple? Are they blue? Are they monochroma? How do you decide for, you know, the six-foot Meeseeks versus the, you know, the little munchkin version?

Lots of debate.

Yeah, lots of debate! Yeah, you gotta discuss it, you know. And like I've said, it was so evenly divided that it wasn't like just me fighting for them being small. It was like other people too.

And then you eventually you figure out what's the best way, and like every other argument we've ever had, eventually the episode gets finished and made and comes out. And then you just kind of forget about all the problems like, "That would've been better if they were two feet high," but then you're like years go by, you're like, "Who cares? It's the thing that like someone watching it can't know." I mean, maybe now they can know, but...

Yeah, um, have you ever done like a—I don’t know if it's like a director's cut animation where you're like, "I kind of wanted them to look like this so can you, you know, edit that in and then throw it in as an extra like a..."

Yeah, well, there's been lots of storyboarding that we've redone, and, you know, revised and that's what ends up getting us in trouble. We'll just—because it's animation, we'll be like, "We're going to rewrite the script and you can redraw it," you know? It's not—not a good thing to do 'cause we're not a Fox show with, with unlimited or at least near unlimited funds.

Um, so there's lots of stuff that we've had this like totally, uh, alternate versions of scenes there. And, and the premiere of season 2, which is a really just soul-crushing, heartbreaking episode to break that no one has ever been ultimately satisfied with its final result.

Um, that we kept revising and changing and, and we—we could never really land on what the logic of that episode was. It was the one where the things keep splitting.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And so it's like a split-screen episode, and we just could never figure out what the logic was 'cause at the end of the day, admittedly, unlike Futurama, none of us on the staff have—we are barely educated; we're not mathematicians. We don't really know that much about science. We're writing from the point of view of tropes and genre stuff; we want to tell good stories. We're more scientists of story, if you will, as supposed to like, we don't really know how any of this [ __ ] works.

We should have a science adviser.

So, uh, so that episode, we—we at one point—it was so—there's a whole running thing where Morty had gone and gotten some short shorts, and no one calls attention to it because, you know, the world has been frozen between season one and season two, and so you find out that they've just been running around having fun looting department stores, and Morty at some point grabbed short shorts. And he's walking around, and at one point Rick starts leaning into him, berating him, and he points out the short shorts and roasting about the short shorts. It's like, “What is this, the new look for season 2?” and starts breaking the fourth wall while you're hoping that you get one of these limited edition alternative action figures with short shorts Morty.

Like you just start, which I love, by the way. I think that's one of the funniest parts of the show is that you can weave in and out of the fourth wall, but still you're still invested in the story.

But anyway, not that scene end up being in the air, but it's on the DVD I think, and yeah, that—and, by the way, even more of that in season 3, there's like we rewrote some episodes so much that there's animatics that are like so different than the final product.

Yeah, well, that's what I was wondering. I mean, like season 3 isn't out yet except for the first episode. Um, I was wondering if you could jump into that, like what can we expect? Like what kind of weird things are coming up without revealing everything?

What I like about the show and from a broad point of view personally is that people seem to be invested in the reality of the show. In other words, you know, people are wondering about certain characters, "Oh, when is that person going to come back? What's happening with that character?" And the fact that anybody cares about characters that were introduced once in season one and like intriguing ideas like the eyepatch Morty, who's the evil Morty—you know, what was that character going to come back in season 3?

I think that we stay true to the idea of those, the world is real, there are consequences. At the same time, we're going to have lots of one-off things, but there's consequences. Both, I mean, you know, you saw in the first episode that they get divorced; that has consequences that play out through the whole season.

But there's also consequences that are outside of, you know, some of the stuff that that you've seen already is going to play out more in season 3.

Okay, yeah. So along those lines then of like random things that like maybe get addressed, maybe don't get addressed, uh, I have a question from another YC person, uh, Kat Minik. Um, her question is, "Can you make Roy the game? Can we make it? Will you make it? Will we—the writers of an animated comedy show create a virtual reality simulation? Can we get funding for it?"

I think is the question.

I mean, maybe we could figure it out.

Uh, maybe we already have, and that's what this is.

Oh, [ __ ]! We're in Roy!

Was the second—and Ryan?

Yeah!

Uh, yeah, what was the second one called? I think I might have pitched that joke—the whatever the Roy sequel, I think it was Dave or David or something like that.

Yeah, um, so the answer is no because we're incapable of that, but also maybe we already have.

Yeah, I think in the virtual reality—in the virtual reality game, Virtual Rickality, I think it's called. I think Justin told me there's a scene—a Easter egg where you play a knockoff version of Roy. It sounded hilarious! I played some of that game, but I didn't get this far.

You find like a bootleg Roy, and then you're—so you're playing a virtual reality game within a virtual reality game 'cause it's the virtual reality Rick and Morty game.

So, yeah, I get just like, we should step back and explain what the actual Rick and Morty virtual reality game just came out, right?

Yeah, yesterday.

Yeah, that's a—a game where you're, it's a virtual reality game where you're, you're a clone of Morty. So when you appear in the game, you're in the garage, and Rick and Morty are standing there and yelling at you, and then you do different things, and you, you know, obviously, it's somewhat limited in where you can go virtual reality, and you can't just run around, but you go to like different worlds.

I think you can teleport to three or four different worlds; you can go in the house, which is pretty mind-blowing because it's weird. I remember I played the level where I was just—Justin put me into the scene in the house, and I'm like, "This is the house! Like, this is the living room! This feels so weird like I'm not used to experiencing it from that perspective."

But so funny! Was there like any, like disconnect between like the house you imagined writing and the virtual reality house that's been created?

Well, the disconnect is pretty great because I—you know, Justin pointed out something because you're standing in front of the TV, so the couch is behind you, and then to your—let’s say the TV's this way—to my left was the sliding glass door, which I know we've used a lot. You know, the party episode takes place in the house, but I never really thought about it.

And Justin says, "That's Mike Chilean; this is Mike Chilean's parents' house." Like that sliding glass door and the way it looks outdoors, I never would have thought that until I was physically in the space and I looked over and I'm like, "Oh my God! That is Mike Chilean's parents' house." Like this is, that's—I totally see it now! But I never would have thought of that watching it.

I mean, I forget what color hair Beth has. Like in my mind, for some reason, she's a brunette, and I always forget that she's a blonde because most of my experience of the show is in my head. I don't consume it as much as some people do because I don't—I sometimes I don't even watch the final episodes, you know?

Yeah, I believe like, you know, and if anything, I'm watching most of them when they're in the animatic stage when they're all black and white. So sometimes I actually forget what the characters look like—like what their out—I, you know, the Rick's color palette. Like, there's a joke in, uh, in the first episode where he says, "I used to wear blue pants," and then to write that joke— which McMahon did—like, I think we had to look at Rick and Morty on a sheet of paper and be like, "Oh, okay! So he has brown pants, I think, uh, blue—blue shirt, a white lab coat."

And then even like when Rick takes his shirt off, like what he looks like underneath blew my mind once. It's like, "Oh God! What is he—oh yeah, I hadn't thought about that!" That's a good point.

So, okay, so the Roy thing is an Easter egg in virtual reality. So, Virtual Rickality, I think that's what it's called.

Okay, if I know how we name our property, our titles.

Yeah, I think so, 'cause then there's like the Instagram thing that it—it—Rick’s Diverse. Um, what about the other—like I played some of the other ones, the other games; like what has just like caused you guys to like jump into all these random digital property things?

Well, that's not us; is this Adult Swim?

Yeah, I think they're driving it. I mean, I—I certainly, you know, I don't—I was sort of involved; I consulted a little bit on the some of the web content that bridged season 2 and season 3 which is out and, you know, the thing where, um, it's like a—a website that's in theory you're kind of, uh, it's the Galactic Federation's website.

Okay, these guys—carrot. I think the company's called—they did a bunch of content for that. I think they also designed the Rick’s Diverse, but that's like driven by Adult Swim and, and whoever they subcontract.

Yeah, we've had more direct say on the DVD special features and um, a little bit; Justin oversees some of the merchandise. You know, like what the figures are going to be or look like or pitches for ideas for what you they could do, you know, for different kinds of stuff that I may or may not be able to talk about.

But I had a lot to say personally on the, on like the some of the DVD stuff. Like I remember for the season 2, there’s a lot of debate about what the little, um, thing that we’re going to have in the season—that was the Jack Chick tract which is from the Council of Ricks episode, or there's the—the good Morty Jack ship track, so we just printed up real ones and put it in.

And then for the second one, we really had a long conversation about what should it be, and we finally landed, well, it should be a plumbus instruction manual, and then we should—we should do the joke should be like some alien language first, and then this—then we're usually Spanish or French would be as the English translation.

So, uh, yeah, but nothing—I haven't had a lot to say about other stuff or certainly I can't speak for what Justin and Dan have been saying, and that's true for the VR game too because I figured like you just have this room of nerds and they're like, "Oh, we should make a VR like the accounting game too; that was like-Aleyma Y's accounting thing, right?"

Yeah, I was getting confused because the guys who created the Rick and Morty VR game did J-Simulator, so I always get—but accounting was Justin's project with the guy who said The Stanley Parable.

Okay, I don't know.

Yeah, I think they did that in like a week, the initial build of that. But, um, anyway, I wish I was more involved in the Rick and Morty virtual reality because I do have one, uh, nit to pick with it, and I think I'm—I I maybe I'm being a dick, but, uh, because because the guys did a great job, the Alchemy guys, um, and I think they kind of just created that from scratch.

Like, you know Justin, I'm sure, wrote a lot of the dialogue because that's what he does, and he's great at it, uh. But I think they conceived the whole game, and they—it—they did such a great job, but maybe I shouldn't even say this, but my one beef with it was like because you're a clone Morty that keeps uh dying, and then you go to a limbo, and then you can push a button and get respawned, I was like, "Dude, why wasn't it a Meeseeks?"

Because then he could—he could be destroyed or whatever to fulfill his purpose, and therefore die and then you're—instead of limbo or hell or whatever, you're in the Meeseeks box, and we could actually depict what that would look like, which could be—I would have loved to have pitched that because, because that could have been so cool.

It could have been like a Doctor Who thing or like a Hellraiser like, you know, bizarre imagery of what a Meeseeks looks like, you know?

Um, but that's just me as a writer, you know? I don't—I don't know like what, you know, what makes the most sense from a video game point of view, you know? I mean, I imagine people want to be Morty, right, like when they're playing a game.

Well, but you're not, you know? You're still interacting with Rick and Morty; you're the—you're a clone Morty. So, you don't actually even talk, you know? So, and, but they did incorporate these things called “you seeks,” which are these Meeseeks that are involved.

So Meeseeks are in the game, but I was just—okay. That's just me putting my writer hat on, you know, and I don't want to tell anyone how to do their job certainly and I think those guys did a great job, but that my one thing? I'm like, that would have been so cool to—'cause I think that's what's fun about any time you do content like a video game is being able to actually show other aspects that the show might not show you.

You know, the show is more—we've talked about how we'd bring back Meeseeks, and if we were, we do probably want to really explore a different aspect of it. Um, but that's one way to do it right there: is show what the inside of the Meeseeks box looks like—that would have been really cool.

Fair enough! Um, so, uh, so what else are you working on now that like Rick and Morty season 3 is all written, squared away?

Um, what's coming up for you?

Just developing some stuff, trying to get out—get my own show. You know that expression; it's better to reign in hell than serve in heaven?

Nope!

Oh, that's one of my favorite expressions. It means that would you rather be a servant in one of the best shows on TV or would you rather be the in charge of a show that nobody cared about?

Oh, so what show that nobody cares about are you working on?

Uh, you know, I've got a few different ideas; you know, I'm trying to crack. Writing is hard, man! It's, you know, it's—writing a pilot is hard because it's just nothing, and then you have to figure out how to make it something, you know?

Coming aboard any TV show, I came aboard Rick and Morty after the pilot, so at least I sort of understood—we're still figuring out those characters, by the way, even to the—to the through season 3. But there's something that you can start playing with, which means, oh you know, like I love writing Morty when he's angry because it's just so funny to write him like really angry and pissed off at Rick.

Uh, and you know that's because a lot of times he's not—he's early on he was like, "Who? Who?" You know, sort of low status, you know? And now to actually put him in a high-status position where he's like, give reading Rick the riot act is fun, but you only—that's only fun because you're twisting the convention around when you're trying to come up with something from scratch, it's like, "What's the convention?" Let alone, "How do you twist it?"

So, yeah, so that's a long way of saying that I'm just, you know, I'm developing a few different shows and seeing what sticks.

Wow, that's a metaphor I have heard before.

What's that?

Yeah, that's metaphor throwing a lot at the wall and seeing what sticks.

That's spaghetti.

Oh, thanks, man! That's what sticks, um, if I learned one thing today!

Yeah! What about the, uh, all your YouTube ideas?

Oh boy, okay, so I want to start a YouTube channel.

Well, honestly, okay, here's the sincere answer because I don't have any ambitions to make a career out of YouTube, but what would be nice is that, you know, I'm starting to get those email requests about, "Hey, I'm a writer. What can I do?" I'm like, "I—I can't really give any advice."

Because what, as I already laid out, it's so hyp-specific and right place, right time. And it is for everybody, but you know, I don't know; I was thinking about maybe making videos just sort of talking about different things I like to—I like to live stream, and so just sort of just kinda having fun, just—and not worrying about something being good enough to make money off of—

Which is—that's what happens when you're developing a TV show from my perspective is like, "Is this going to sell? Is this going to make money?" It's like, "What if you just were creative and didn't have to worry about that?"

So, but the other thing I want to make videos about is climate change because I want to really figure out how I can like—like a serious—well, maybe comedy, but like with a real purpose is that what you're saying—to finally expose the myth that is climate change, that it's a hoax and that the government is just trying to tax us all until... Oh, sorry, I'm a climate change denier.

No, that's good. I'm a flat earth guy, so, uh, go for it.

Yeah, here's your pedestal! Well, you know, I'm totally—that's my big issue. I'm obsessed with it, and to be clear, I was joking. I'm obsessed with finding a solution to climate change which starts with acknowledging that it's real.

And so, but I'm like, I'll join these organizations, and I'll go and I'll be like, you know, this is great, and I love to, you know, I love to table and volunteer and march, but like is that really the most impactful use of my skill set?

So I like watch some videos online that are anti-climate change, and I'm like—the ones that are pro-climate change are usually pretty dry, and I'm like, "Maybe I can make something somewhat entertaining." I don't know, you know? That's my little dream I have—using my communication skills and comedic abilities to do my little part to save this little blue dot.

Well, um, this has been awesome; this really great.

Co, you got everything you needed?

Uh, yeah, I think so. I mean, is there like—are there any words of wisdom you want to share for people who aspire to be Rick and Morty type writers?

Uh, like if—or do you just not reply to those emails?

Or, you know, I'm not great at it, uh, but I have said I have replied to him a couple times and said, because the problem is, you—you like I'll get a Facebook message or an Instagram message or a Twitter DM, and I'm like, "I just forget and lose track of everything."

Um, but you know, it's funny because I will say that I think now, uh, is it's such a weird time because Dan and Justin and I are all within the same sort of age range, and man, we grew up in a world where, you know, all we wanted was superhero movies and sci-fi shows, and there were so few and far between when we were teenagers.

And so now we're living in a world where like that's everything and we're able to do a show where we can take all of that and just like run it through a a filter and put it on TV.

So if you're a genre fan, I can't tell if this is like the best time to be a genre writer creator, uh, aspiring or the worst time because it's like, you could say it's the best time because people are more open to that now. But it almost might be the worst time because it's so saturated.

Well, I think the core idea is actually really interesting, which is like make the stuff that you really want.

Mhm.

Because like, I mean, it's like basically your generation that's allowed that to happen, right? So it’s like if—thank you, we are pioneers! Amazing, man! But you know what I mean, right? So it's like if you're 15 now, like you just make the stuff that like you really want to make, and like may hopefully, eventually people are into it.

Yeah, and that's—that really is the—that's the number one advice is just make the stuff that you want to watch, and you really—you have to just make it for an audience of one and, of course, hope that that ends up resonating with an audience of millions.

Um, because that's how you make money, but, uh, but you— you know, like I—you know, and it's hard because it's like I—there's, there's ideas I have for shows, I'm like, "This is the kind of show that I've never seen before," which means it's terrifying because you're like, "How do I explain this to somebody?"

But if I can execute it properly, then it's a show that's never been seen before, and that could be great! It could also be a total failure, but it could be great. At least it's—it’s a risk that could pay off.

So, yeah, I think that that's—that's the important thing is just making stuff just for yourself. And when we—when we made season one of Rick and Morty, no one knew what the show was or cared what the show was so we’re just like making ourselves laugh, you know.

And then we had no clue it was going to be—we're like, "Well, it's an adult swim show, so like it'll be as popular as an adult swim show." It's going to be, you know, and somehow it’s really struck a chord that I'm just shocked by because, you know, the fact that the McNugget sauce became a thing that was like ridiculous.

The fact that, you know, I see, you know, like celebrities wearing Rick and Morty t-shirts, I'm just like, "What is going on? This is—" it still feels like just, you know, a group of friends who’ve been doing this stuff. Like I said, we've made stuff for, for just for free for ourselves. We made a podcast, made a web series that nobody paid for that were just like whatever, and you know, and to actually make something that people see and, you know, is—is we making a living off of is pretty crazy.

Have you been able to like discern why it has such an outsized impact for like just this random show?

Yeah, I, well no, I've really tried to figure it out because I thought, well, I mean I think Dan's a visionary brilliant creator and writer, and so I think there's—it's no surprise that anything he writes is going to resonate. At the same time, I thought, "Well, but clearly it's a combination of that and Justin's voice, which I've, I remember from the second I saw Justin on, on camera, which was live-action, not even animation, back in 2004 at Channel 101, I was like, that guy's hilarious; his voice is hilarious. I want to work with that guy."

And, uh, so I thought what's that combination of that Jan sequ—his voice, if I may—with Dan's writing? But then again, it's popular internationally in Russia and all these other countries where it's just dubbed over with not Justin's voice.

So, you know, it's like, is that—it’s the—it’s—it's the Rick character is just one of those characters like—I know like Cartman or a can't think of other examples where you’re just like that guy just—that guy [ __ ] says the [ __ ] I want to say but I'm not smart enough or ballsy enough to say it, so it's a really just a cathartic kind of character.

And then it's a family show, so that appeals to people because I think it feels somewhat like a real family as opposed to maybe a Family Guy, which you're like, "I don't know; they're just characters bouncing off each other." This actually plays in real family dynamics.

And then it's just also pretty to look at because the animators and the artist and the crew—finally I'm—I'm stopping focusing on what the writers do—they do such a good job, the directors and everybody, it's just so... um, I watched the first episode of season 3 like so many times, not because I was so in love with the writing or the U, uh, jokes, but I was like, "Man, this is just so visually beautiful!”

So it just—it's—it kind of covers a lot of demographic voting blocks. If it was a candidate, it would, yeah, do really well in the polls.

I guess the last question that I have about that is, um, what’s the deal with the pupils? Like the hand-drawn, not circular?

That's—that's absolutely Justin's signature aesthetic because he—I think from the early days of his cartoons, he did that.

Oh, I haven't seen those.

You never seen House of Cosby's?

No!

Oh my God! Sorry! House of Cosby's was what put Justin Roiland on the map. I'll never forget! It was January 2005, Channel 101 when that thing debuted. It blew the roof off the place, which is the opposite reaction of my show, Jack Everlasting, which kept the roof firmly on.

In fact, you might even say it sucked the air out of the room.

Um, but, but, yeah, it's a show where a guy clones Bill Cosby, and it's hilarious.

All right, so if people want to like pay attention to what you're up to, how can they follow you on the internet?

Hit up Ryan Ridley at Twitter, Ryan Ridley at Instagram. I do do live streams pretty regularly. I'm the CH—what—on-brand myself Chuck Lorre of live streaming because I have about 10 to 15, uh, live streaming shows I do.

I do a show called I Don’t Feel Like Writing Today, which is a show that I do whenever I don't feel like writing. I do a show called Law and Abed, where my friend Abed Gai, who is the basis of the Abed Nadir character in Community, talks to me about some of his legal situations, and I learn about the law that way.

I do a show called Late Night with Ryan Ridley, which just can't sleep; I just start, you know, live streaming.

So anyway, that's a real fun time, and I’ll also answer questions about Rick and Morty or writing or whatever.

Um, I don't know, you—yeah, that's perfect! We shouldn't have even done this podcast; I should have just gotten you on a live stream.

All right man, cool. Thanks!

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Done!