If you know what Wubba Lubba Dub Dub stands for, you might understand Rick better than a casual one-time Rick and Morty viewer. But even “I’m in pain” catchphrase enthusiasts don’t know much of behind-the-scenes fun facts about the top-rated animated show from Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland.
The apparent role models for Rick and Morty were Back to the Future Doc and Marty McFly characters. Roiland is both co-creator and voice actor for Rick’s character, and he mixes water and beer to create burps while recording Rick’s audio. Outside of these mostly known trivia about the show, there are a few facts you might have missed.
Fast launch for the storied show
After the creators successfully pitched the series to Nick Weidenfeld in Adult Swim, they wrote the pilot episode in just six hours. At that time, Dan Harmon was writing on the sitcom Community, and co-authors of Rick and Morty decided to stay on-premises and finish writing the pilot.
Rick’s Wubba Lubba Dub Dub origins are accidental
Rick’s catchphrase mentioned above came across as an accident. The script for the show had reference to Three Stooges and wrote “wub wub wub wub wub,” but the Roiland got confused and recorded the wrong line. Later the iconic phrase became a trademark despite troubling meaning when translated from the language of the Bird People. The meaning is, “I’m in great pain; please help me.”
It wouldn’t be uncommon for a mad scientist to have frequent burps while talking due to an unhealthy lifestyle. While creators might have insert burps in the original screenplay, the truth is that it also came as an accident. Roiland played with impressions of Doc Brown and Marty McFly and burped accidentally. It was a funny moment that soon became a standard part of Rick’s character.
Rick and Morty as gaming icons
Since the show started in 2013, there were more than a few video games with Rick and Morty as main characters. However, probably the best game so far is Rick and Morty Virtual Rick-Ality. This VR game has some of the show’s trademark humour and dialogues and encompasses a great virtual reality world.
Rick and Morty: Pocket Mortys is a somewhat less successful try on the franchise with Pokemon-like gameplay of defeating various dimensions and collecting badges.
The famous characters also appear in some of the casual online gaming worlds. For example, Rick and Morty Wubba Lubba Dub Dub slot game found its place on one of the Canadian online casino websites, and yeah, it’s as wacky as the show. Blueprint Gaming developed this one back in 2020; it has a pretty standard 20-paylines, free spins feature, and most importantly, it uses some of the references from the show in the form of symbols, so it has that special sauce sprinkled all over it.
Back to the future is not the only role model
Dan Harmon described the Rick and Morty relationship after the first season. The co-creator claimed during one of his commentaries that the pair is parabola for bipolar disorder. A layered meaning behind the complex series got another level where we could see Rick and Morty as manic and depressive sides of one person.
Galactic Juice in Rick’s flask is much more ordinary
One of the most debated theories among fans of the show was the content of Rick’s flask. The beverage inside of the infamous flask had several wild names like “Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster” or “super seed juice.” Dan Harmon revealed to Reddit that he sees much more down-to-earth beverage in the flask. He said it is, well, vodka.