The Old Funny Future

I decided to see what all of Kevin Feige's fuss was about and started watching Rick and Morty. Though, seven episodes into the second season, I still haven't seen any episodes written by Jessica Gao and Michael Waldron, the two talents Feige hired from Ricky and Morty to mastermind Marvel projects. So far I've enjoyed the show and it's pretty much what I expected--an ultra-cynical, postmodern Adult Swim comedy, not too far afield from Venture Brothers or Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Actually, what it really feels like is Futurama, and the central character, Rick, is like a combination of Bender and Professor Farnsworth.

Some of the plot concepts are genuinely thoughtful, if not quite reaching their potential depth. Last night I watched "Big Trouble in Little Sanchez" in which Morty's parents go to an alien planet for marriage counselling. The aliens' devices create physical manifestations of Jerry and Beth's perceptions of each other--Jerry's Beth is a giant, powerful, and angry bug monster while Beth's Jerry is a whiney worm. Writer Alex Reubens (Key and Peele, Community) takes the concept in interesting directions. The two manifestations are naturally co-dependent so they work together to take over the alien planet. It results in some good gags and a sort of "wrong-sweet" moment when Beth realises the bug monster's existence implies Jerry sees her as the smartest and strongest person he knows. Maybe that is just as far as the concept needed to go.

The first two seasons I've been watching come from those far off days of 2013 and 2015 so the show isn't saddled with to-day's paranoid political correctness. Much of Rick's humour is reliant on him saying and doing fucked up things, like the episode where he accurately describes the love potion Morty has him make as ruffies, or a subtler joke in a later episode where he uses an alien racial slur. I wonder if this is related to the fact that the viewership chart on Wikipedia shows viewership dropping off sharply after the third season. Maybe it just reflects the exodus of viewers from cable television.

Anyway, it's a surprisingly nostalgic experience so far. I used to watch Adult Swim all the time in the early 2000s, back when the concept of cartoons for adults on normal television was kind of a novelty.

Rick and Morty is available on Netflix in Japan and on HBOMax in the US.

Twitter Sonnet #1642

A puppet waits upon the parapet.
Repurposed purses pluck the pouches clean.
Denuded numbers change to alphabet.
Corrupted cats'll cut the cutlass keen.
Returning lances light the seas for eyes.
Repeated words became a mindless noise.
Determined squash becomes the pumpkin pies.
Subconscious basements hide the evil boys.
The vampire dice were sucking all the bones.
Revolving clouds were nothing underground.
Discerning rocks diminished thoughts of stones.
Assorted eyes beheld the mob around.
The joker's fuss results in funny shirts.
Revenge attracts the Ernies more than Berts.