Saturday, July 29, 2017

Honourable Mention: Rick and Morty: Big Trouble in Little Sanchez

So, I hadn’t watched any Rick (Justin Roiland) and Morty (also Justin Roiland) and a friend, Dave, had repeatedly suggested I was missing out. “Just watch three episodes,” he said… and I did… and I was hooked. A subversive adult cartoon that is a riff on Back to the Future, amongst other influences, this episode was from season 2, was first aired in 2015 and was directed by Bryan Newton and Pete Michels.

The episode begins with breakfast and a news report of a dead dinner lady with two holes in her neck and her blood drained. Much to granddaughter Summer’s (Spencer Grammer) shock, maverick inter-dimensional scientist Rick agrees it is likely the work of a vampire. However when Summer suggests that he use science to make himself young, go to high school with her and Morty, and help hunt the vampire, he dismisses the notion.

bag of stakes
However, having dropped his daughter - and Morty and Summer’s mother, Beth (Sarah Chalke) - and her husband Jerry (Chris Parnell) off at an off-world marriage councillor's facility, he gets bored. Next thing he turns up at the school having transferred his mind into the body of a teenage clone – Tiny Rick. The episode follows the marriage guidance and Little Ricks popularity at school. We actually don’t see the vampire, just a bag of bloody stakes having killed the vampire gym teacher Coach Feratu.

head vampire emerges
At the end of the episode, in the credit sequence, we do get a scene in the Earth’s vampire headquarters where we get a moment of crap bat and the head vampire (Ryan Ridley) ruling against stupid vampire names when trying to hide amongst humans. And that was it, a fleeting visitation in a brilliant animated series.

The imdb page is here.

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