Since it debuted in 2013, Adult Swim’s show Rick and Morty
has become a massive hit. Earlier today, Comedy Central and series co-creator
Justin Roiland announced that they’re making another 70 — that’s right, 70 —
episodes.
The animated science fiction show is a staple of Comedy
Central’s Adult Swim; it follows Rick, a brilliant-but-cynical alcoholic
scientist and his impressionable grandson, Morty, as they embark on a variety
of zany adventures across the multiverse.
Comedy Central didn’t announce when the series would resume,
and Roiland noted that he’s anticipating the deluge of tweets from the show’s
fans, asking when season 4 will arrive. While there was just over a year
between seasons 1 and 2, that hiatus extended for nearly two years between
seasons 2 and 3 (with one episode released months earlier, on April 1st, 2017).
At the end of season 3, one character broke the fourth wall, telling the
audience that they’ll “see ya in season 4 in, like, a really long time.” (Still
no word on when that return date will come.)
After the first 31 episodes from the first three seasons,
these 70 episodes will bring the series to the ideal syndication length of 100
episodes. For fans of the show, it’s a relief knowing that there’ll be more to
come. Since the third season ended in October, the show’s creators, Roiland and
Dan Harmon have noted that negotiations for the next season had “gotten
complicated.” Now we know why: 70 episodes is an enormous, unprecedented
renewal order, the equivalent of seven more seasons of the show. If it
continues at its current eighteen-months-per-season pace, that could keep Rick
and Morty on the air for the next decade. It’ll still be behind other classic
animated adult comedies in its lane: Futurama ran for seven seasons with 140
episodes, while The Simpsons has aired 637 episodes over the course of its
29-year run.
While the show has gained a huge amount of popularity in
recent years, its fanbase has gained a reputation for being particularly toxic,
so much so that the show’s creators have denounced their behavior, particularly
after a truly bizarre stunt promotion from McDonald’s resulted in tantrums from
raging fanboys.
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