Rick & Murty Parody

Rick & Morty is an animated series created by Dan Harmon (Monster House, Community) and Justin Roiland (Fish Hooks, The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti). Rick & Morty follows Rick Sanchez, an older, alcoholic, incredible intelligent and potty-mouthed scientist and his grandson, Morty Smith, an awkward, shy, unconfident but intelligent in his own way, on a series of absurd adventures through time, space, and different realities. While each and every episode isn’t necessarily connected thematically, there is a clear narrative running through the show that is moved forward every other episode or so. The show makes use of many tools found in the postmodern toolbox to be funny, or to be critical of society and certain schools of thought.
Pastiche is defined by Fredric Jameson as “like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language. But it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, without any of parody's ulterior motives, amputated of the satiric impulse, devoid of laughter” The theme song is clearly meant to sound like the theme song from Doctor Who. The creators of the show have actually acknowledged that they wanted the theme song to sound like Doctor Who’s theme song (tvovermind). Also, the whole concept of the show and the name of one of the main characters appears to be a clear imitation of Back to the Future. An older, somewhat crazy scientist, and a younger boy go on crazy sci-fi adventures, and Morty clearly sounds like Marty, the younger boy in Back to the Future. And the references take off astronomically from there. Each and every episode is full of pop culture references, sometimes blatant, sometimes more low key, sometimes critical, sometimes simply to pay homage to a piece of art that the creators of the show happen to
They often exist in the titles of the episodes themselves. Anatomy Park (S01e03) is an entire episode that imitates Jurassic Park, in which Rick and a friend created an amusement park inside of the body of a homeless man. Look Who’s Purging Now (S02e09) is an episode where Rick and Morty land on a planet that takes part in a purge, just like the movie The Purge. Morty even mentions the fact that there is a movie just like this scenario. Meeseeks and Destroy (S01e05) is an episode where Rick gives the family a “meeseeks box.” Meeseeks are essential tall blue helpers who exist to complete a specific task, and then cease to exist as soon as that task is complete. This episode is more important when discussing existentialism, but for the sake of postmodernism, the most important part is the title, which is a play on the title of a Metallica song “Seek and