The first season of the American animated television series, ''
Rick and Morty
{{Infobox television
, image = Rick and Morty title card (cropped).png
, alt =
, caption =
, genre = {{Plainlist,
* Animated sitcom
* Adult animation
* Science fiction
* Black comedy
* ...
'' originally aired in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
on
Cartoon Network's late night programming block,
Adult Swim
Adult Swim (AS; stylized as dult swim'' and often abbreviated as s'') is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programmed by its in-house ...
. It premiered on December 2, 2013 with "
Pilot
An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...
" and ended on April 14, 2014 with "
Ricksy Business", with a total of eleven episodes. The first season received critical acclaim.
Cast and characters
The actors and actresses listed below
lend their voices to the corresponding animated characters.
Main cast
*
Justin Roiland as
Rick Sanchez
Rick Sanchez is one of the two eponymous characters from the Adult Swim animated television series ''Rick and Morty'' and resulting franchise. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon and voiced by the former, Sanchez is a misanthropic alcoh ...
and
Morty Smith
Mortimer Chauncey "Morty" Smith, Sr. is one of the eponymous characters from the American animated television series ''Rick and Morty''. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, and voiced by the former, Morty is a 14-year-old boy loosely ...
, the two main characters of the show; Rick is an eccentric
mad scientist
The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or " insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly a ...
and Morty is his kind but easily distressed grandson.
*
Chris Parnell as
Jerry Smith, Rick's son-in-law and Morty's father; a simple-minded and insecure person, who disapproves of Rick's influence over his family.
*
Spencer Grammer
Spencer Karen Grammer (born October 9, 1983) is an American actress best known for her roles as the voice of Summer Smith in the Adult Swim animated science-fiction series ''Rick and Morty'' and as Casey Cartwright in the ABC Family college come ...
as
Summer Smith
Summer Smith is one of the main characters of the American animated television series ''Rick and Morty''. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon and voiced by Spencer Grammer, Summer is a conventional and often superficial 17-year-old teenager, ...
, Rick's granddaughter and Morty's sister; a conventional teenager who worries about improving her status among her peers.
*
Sarah Chalke
Sarah Louise Christine Chalke (; born August 27, 1976) is a Canadian actress and model. She is known for portraying Elliot Reid on the NBC/ ABC comedy series '' Scrubs'', the second Becky Conner on the ABC sitcom ''Roseanne'', Stella Zinman on ...
as
Beth Smith
Bethany "Beth" Smith (née Sanchez) is one of the main characters of the American animated television series ''Rick and Morty''. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, Beth is a veterinarian who specializes in horse surgery, who is struck ...
, Rick's daughter and Morty's mother; a generally level-headed person, who is dissatisfied with her marriage.
Guest cast
Other cast members
Other cast members of the season, who each have voiced one or more characters, include:
Eric Bauza
Eric Bauza (born December 7, 1979) is a Canadian-American voice actor and comedian. His most-known roles include Stimpy on '' Ren and Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon"'', Foop on '' The Fairly OddParents'' and its reboot '' Fairly Odder'', Thunderbol ...
,
Dan Harmon
Daniel James Harmon (born January 3, 1973) is an American writer, producer, and actor. He is best known as the creator and producer of the NBC/Yahoo! Screen sitcom ''Community'' (2009–2015), creator and host of the comedy podcast '' Harmontow ...
,
Phil Hendrie
Philip Stephen Hendrie (born September 1, 1952) is an American radio personality and actor. He is widely known for his voiceover talent throughout the radio and film industry. He came to prominence in the 1990s hosting ''The Phil Hendrie Show'', a ...
, Brandon Johnson, Ryan Ridley,
Kari Wahlgren
Kari Wahlgren (born July 13, 1977) is an American actress who has provided English-language voices for animated movies, TV series, and video games. She got her start in anime voice-overs as Haruko Haruhara in '' FLCL'', and would later land ma ...
, Melique Berger,
Jess Harnell
Jess Harnell (born December 23, 1963) is an American voice actor and singer. His notable roles include Captain Hero in the animated TV series '' Drawn Together'', Wakko Warner in '' Animaniacs'', Ironhide in the first three ''Transformers'' fil ...
, Smith Harrison,
Maurice LaMarche
Maurice LaMarche (born March 30, 1958) is a Canadian voice actor, comedian, and impressionist. He has voiced the Brain in '' Animaniacs'' as well as its spin-off '' Pinky and the Brain'', Big Bob in ''Hey Arnold!'' (1996–2004), and a variety of ...
,
Rob Paulsen, Jesse Mendel, Dan Benson,
Jackie Buscarino
Jacqueline "Jackie" Buscarino (born September 11, 1977) is an American voice actress, writer and producer. She has contributed voice-over work to animated series such as ''The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack'', ''Adventure Time'' and ''Gravi ...
,
Echo Kellum
Echo Kellum (born August 29, 1982) is an American actor and comedian. Kellum is best known for his roles as Curtis Holt on The CW drama series ''Arrow'', Tommy on the FOX sitcom ''Ben and Kate'', and Hunter on NBC's ''Sean Saves the World''.
E ...
, Patricia Lentz,
Rob Schrab,
Gary Anthony Williams
Gary Anthony Williams (born March 14, 1966) is an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. He voiced the character of Uncle Ruckus on '' The Boondocks'', and a number of video game characters. He also appeared on the television series '' Weeds'' ...
,
Steve Agee,
Tom Kenny
Thomas James Kenny (born July 13, 1962) is an American actor and comedian. He is known for voicing the titular character in ''SpongeBob SquarePants'' and associated media. Kenny has voiced many other characters, including Heffer Wolfe in '' ...
, Vatche Panos,
Cree Summer,
Reagan Gomez
Reagan Amyre Gomez-Preston (born April 24, 1980) is an American television, film and voice actress. She is known for her roles as Zaria Peterson on The WB sitcom ''The Parent 'Hood'' (1995–1999) and Roberta Tubbs on the FOX animated comedy ...
, Megan Adams, Will Jennings, Finnegan Perry,
Jeff Bergman
Jeffrey Bergman (born July 10, 1960) is an American voice actor and impressionist who has provided the modern-day voices of various classic cartoon characters, most notably with '' Looney Tunes'' and Hanna-Barbera.
Bergman was the first to rep ...
, Adam Ray, Scott Chernoff,
Rich Fulcher
Richard Fulcher (born November 18, 1968) is an American comedian, actor and author. He played Bob Fossil and other characters in the British comedy series ''The Mighty Boosh'', and Edward Sheath in the American series '' Jon Benjamin Has a Van'' ...
,
Tress MacNeille
Teressa Claire MacNeille (née Payne; born June 20, 1951) is an American voice actress, whose credits include voicing Dot Warner on the animated television series '' Animaniacs'', Babs Bunny on ''Tiny Toon Adventures'', Chip and Gadget Hackwrenc ...
,
Nolan North
Nolan North (born October 31, 1970) is an American actor best known for his voice acting roles.
After his breakthrough role as Dr. Chris Ramsey on the ABC soap opera '' Port Charles'' in 1997, North moved into voice acting when the show ended ...
, Alejandra Gollas, Lauren Hillman and
Chris Romano
Chris Romano also known as "Romanski" (born March 28, 1978) is an American actor, writer, producer, and director, most commonly known for co-creating, producing and starring in Spike TV's '' Blue Mountain State''.
Early life
Romano grew up in ...
.
Episodes
Production
Series co-creator
Justin Roiland, John Rice, Jeff Myers, Bryan Newton and Stephen Sandoval served as directors, while Roiland, series co-creator
Dan Harmon
Daniel James Harmon (born January 3, 1973) is an American writer, producer, and actor. He is best known as the creator and producer of the NBC/Yahoo! Screen sitcom ''Community'' (2009–2015), creator and host of the comedy podcast '' Harmontow ...
, Tom Kauffman, Ryan Ridley, Wade Randolph and Eric Acosta served as writers; writer's assistant
Mike McMahan
Mike McMahan is an American comedy writer and television producer. He is the creator of the animated comedies ''Solar Opposites'' (with Justin Roiland) and '' Star Trek: Lower Decks''.
Career
McMahan, a native of Chicago, first worked in pro ...
was also given writing credit. All episodes in the first season originally aired in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
on
Adult Swim
Adult Swim (AS; stylized as dult swim'' and often abbreviated as s'') is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programmed by its in-house ...
, and are rated
TV-14
The TV Parental Guidelines are a television content rating system in the United States that was first proposed on December 19, 1996, by the United States Congress, the television industry and the federal communication commission (FCC), and went ...
. However, the uncensored version of the episodes released on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
and
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...
are rated
TV-MA
The TV Parental Guidelines are a television content rating system in the United States that was first proposed on December 19, 1996, by the United States Congress, the television industry and the Federal Communications Commission, federal commun ...
.
All episodes from this season were originally produced and broadcast in 16:9 high-definition on both Adult Swim's SD and HD feeds, resulting in the episodes appearing letterboxed on Adult Swim's standard definition feed. This season began production in January 2013.
Reception
The first season has an approval rating of 96% on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
based on 28 reviews, with an average rating of 8.19 out of 10. The site's critics consensus reads, "''Rick and Morty'' zaps onto screens and makes an instant impression with its vivid splashes of color, improvisational voice acting, and densely-plotted science fiction escapades -- bringing a surprising amount of heart to a cosmically heartless premise."
Home media
The first season was released on DVD
(Region 1) and Blu-ray on October 7, 2014. Before its release, Roiland had confirmed that it would contain uncensored audio tracks.
References
External links
{{Rick and Morty
2013 American television seasons
2014 American television seasons
Rick and Morty seasons