Rick And Morty Renewed For 70 More Episodes, Or More

“A hundred years Rick and Morty!” we heard Justin Roiland belch out in the pilot to what is quite possibly the most successful animated show of the decade. With the current episode count standing at 31, this recommission for 70 more episodes is – well, first off unusual, but more to the point will put them at over 100 episodes. And, with the new seasons dropping around every eighteen months to two years, will put them a fair way towards that goal of running for a century.

There was a good amount of shock recently around how the show hadn’t been recommissioned, which speaks to its sheer popularity. Indeed, it’s so popular that to quote any of the catchphrases has come full circle and is now seen as a bit trite (and let’s not even get into the Szechuan sauce debacle) – though this perception may be a form of counter-signalling, where fans can draw a firm line in the sand and state “we’re not that kind of fan”.

Co-creator Dan Harmon was quoted in GQ as saying “It was a lot of back and forth, but Justin and I just needed enough episodes and the right kind of deal structure that would give us permission to do what we want to do, which is truly focus on the show…we got all that, and we’re both very excited.” If part of the deal was for Adult Swim to commission this amount of episodes, this could well explain the delays in the negotiation – something which infuriated the bad side of the fanbase, who seemed to believe every second Harmon and Roiland spent eating or sleeping was a second wasted.

Still, given the way the labour market goes these days, one can hardly blame them for wanting this amount of job security – particularly Harmon, who was bounced out of his previous creation, the cult sitcom Community, before being hastily bounced back in when the ratings wobbled. And, counter-intuitively, both Harmon and Roiland apparently believe that this rather hefty recommission will stop them from running themselves ragged.