(Annecy) Reserved for adults, the animated series Rick and Morty, a sort of trashy and crazy Back to the Future, has become a worldwide phenomenon in ten years because it “reflects on the human condition”, according to its fans and his team.
This production from the American channel Adult Swim follows the spatio-temporal adventures of an alcoholic and disgusting scientist, Rick, and his grandson, Morty, a teenager who feels bad about himself and is the victim of his grandpa’s crazy projects.
To celebrate its 10th anniversary and approaching its seventh season, it was treated to a conference on Wednesday dedicated to the Annecy International Animation Festival.
“It shows Rick and Morty is an international hit,” Adult Swim President Michael Ouweleen told a packed house, noting that it airs in 112 countries. “That hasn’t always been the case,” he added of this series originally intended for a niche audience.
The time being at the party, the fate of Justin Roiland, co-creator with Dan Harmon and main voice actor of the series, dismissed in January after accusations of domestic violence since dismissed by justice, has not been discussed.
Michael Ouweleen, co-executive producer Steve Levy and actress Spencer Grammer, who voices Morty’s sister, preferred to return to the explosion of the phenomenon.
It was before the launch of season 3 in 2017, during a visit to Comic-Con, a high mass of pop culture in San Diego, California, that they became aware of it.
“It was crazy,” Spencer Grammer recalled, referring to the thousands of people wanting to attend the screening, the fans in fancy dress or trying to jump on their “golf carts.”
If the global audiences of the series are not available, it is not uncommon to come across fans in the street wearing a t-shirt in the colors of the characters.
Sydney Vercammen, a 23-year-old Belgian student from Rome, was in Annecy on Wednesday. She loves “this series completely crazy and beautiful to watch”. Although she’s “not very elegant” and can rebuff the layman, with her drooling grandfather punctuating her burping lyrics, gory scenes and scatological jokes.
She is, for this reason, perhaps more appreciated by the male sex, she concedes. But she has reinforced the importance of her female characters as “society has evolved” on feminist issues, according to Spencer Grammer.
The series is also appreciated for its many references. We can notably see dogs rebelling in a parody of the Planet of the Apes or the character of the Claws of the Night, Freddy Krueger, in a pastiche of Inception.
Above all, “it explores the human condition” and “asks a lot of questions about the universe, life”, argued Steve Levy.
A statement shared by Chris Le Guelf, author of the book La philosophie Rick et Morty (Opportun editions), published in September.
This “nihilistic” and “uninhibited” series explicitly deals with philosophical and scientific questions”, he explains to AFP.
Especially since the turning point in the first season, where the two heroes abandon their families in a world that has become unlivable to land in another dimension. They take the place of other versions of themselves, deceased after an experiment, and whose bodies they bury in the family garden.
Rick then discovers “that there are as many versions of himself as there are universes, that his death has absolutely no interest, that nothing makes sense, that nothing is serious”. From there, “he will learn to get rid of his illusions” and “accept the absurdity of existence”, analyzes Chris Le Guelf.