Digital Media Concepts/Technology Used In “Rick and Morty”

Rick and Morty

Rick and Morty
Created By	Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland
Release Date	December 2, 2013 - Present
Country of origin	United States of America
Number of Seasons	5
Number of Episodes	51
Genre	Science Fiction, Animated Sitcom, Adventure
Original Network	Cartoon Network, Adult Swim
External Link	Website

Rick and Morty is an adult animated, science fiction television series created by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. The show features an alcoholic, mad scientist, Rick Sanchez, and his anxious grandson, Morty Smith, in multiple interdimension misadventures. In every episode, there are many futuristic technology that is used and is invented by Rick.

Main Characters

Rick Sanchez

Rick is voiced by co-creator, Roiland. Rick is an alcoholic, genius mad scientist, narcissist that is not like the typical grandfather. He is also known as "Rick Sanchez of Earth Dimension C-137" in reference to his original universe from the multiverse. Rick is a widow and father of Beth Smith and lives with the Smith family. On multiple episodes, he displays how he does not follow the social standards of love, relationships, and school. Rick seems to know everything in the universe and seems to live off on many interdimension adventures. He takes his grandson on many misadventures that tends to put his grandson in danger in .

Morty Smith

Morty is voiced by Roiland. Morty is the son of Beth and Jerry, Rick's 14 year old naive grandson who is always dragged into Rick's misadventures. He is known for his cowardly, anxious, yet good hearted character who is easily manipulated. Due to Rick's many reckless adventures, Morty often misses school and tends to get traumatized by a majority of them. He often questions Rick's methods with moral and uses guilt to persuade Rick to do "the right thing".

Beth Smith

Beth is daughter of Rick, married to Jerry, and mother to Summer and Morty. Beth's father, Rick had returned back into her life after 20 years and she tries everything she can to keep her father from leaving again. Beth is the family's breadwinner as a horse surgeon and often gets defensive about her career since she always wanted to become a "real" surgeon but had gotten pregnant with Summer at the age of 17.

Jerry Smith

Jerry is very simple minded and insecure, who seems to always gets himself in conflicts with Rick, who he is not a big fan of. Jerry doesn't like how his family has been influenced since Rick's return and makes that very clear. Jerry is currently unemployed since his advertising agency had fired him due to his incompetency.

Summer Smith

Summer is the first born of Bath and Jerry. Summer is your typical, superficial teenager who is obsessed with being popular. From time to time, Summer will join Rick and Morty on adventures while seeking for her grandpa's approval. Occasionally, Summer's brilliance shows to be similar to Rick's.

Gadgets Rick Created

Portal Gun

Rick's most well known and greatest invention is his portal gun. This invention allows Rick and Morty to jump through the multiverse to different dimensions and universes for their many adventures or for a quick escape. The portal gun is small enough that Rick is able to always have it on hand, stored in the inside pocket of his lab coat. The portal gun is run on a bright, neon green fluid that is rumored to be "quantum portal solution" which is highly costly. The portal gun can open multiple portals at the same time as well as various sizes, and is known to be lethal if a person or thing is in the way of an opening portal. It has been shown that the portal gun is able to be used at any moment, even while running away or falling down. The portal gun was first featured in the first episode of the show.

Space Cruiser

The very first creation that was featured in the show's pilot was the Space Cruiser. After storming into Morty's room in the middle of the night, while flying his spaceship intoxicated, Rick informs Morty he had just built the vehicle out of stuff he found in the garage- although in a later episode is shown that Rick first created it in his earlier years. Rick's "car" is known for traveling through space to his and Morty's next adventure and seems to always be filled with empty beer bottles and cans whenever he opens the door. The space cruiser is also well known for its impressive AI security system. In an episode, the space cruiser was instructed to "keep Summer safe" and from there the cruiser showed high intelligence as well as the high security that Rick had built into it- it mentally traumatized a police officer with a recreation of his dead son that ends up melting and dicing up another with lasers. In the same episode, it is shown that the space cruiser is powered by a microverse battery and fueled by dark matter- which he knows how to create. Dark matter is used to create faster space travel.

Interdimensional Cable

The interdimensonal cable is a cable box that has access to all television shows in the entire multiverse on any television that it is hooked up to. The cable box is attached to "crystallized xanthenite", also known as "time crystals" due to its ability to alter the flow of time and bypassing split timelines. The interdimensional cable box was invented to pass time and when there weren't any adventures to go on. The invention is so impressive there are currently two entire episodes just about the shows that are on the interdimensional cable box.

Other Gadgets (Not Created By Rick)

Gwendolyn

Found in an outer space pawn shop, Morty convinces Rick to purchase him a souvenir, that happens to be a sex robot. After Morty fornicates Gwendolyn multiple times, the robot becomes pregnant with Morty's first child, Morty Jr.. Later discovering that Gwendolyn is a reproduction robot from the planet Gazorpazorp to sustain the population. The reproduction robot is built by the females of Gazorpazorp. Their sole purpose is to mate with the male Gazorpians to produce offsprings. First seen in Season 1, Episode 7 "Raising Gazorpazorp".