Rick and Morty is one of Adult Swim's most acclaimed and popular shows, a dark comedy about interstellar travel and self-destruction, with a bit of life's meaninglessness thrown into its genre-swirling abyss for good measure. With only 51 episodes over the course of nearly a decade, there are many reasons to search for a show that can fill the void left from Rick and Morty. Maybe you were disappointed by the latest season; maybe the idea of a live-action Rick and Morty makes you want to shoot yourself in the head with a laser gun; or maybe you just like animated shows depicting super-geniuses with substance use disorders.
Or perhaps it's a matter of philosophical perspective. There is something seemingly specific about the way that Rick and Morty sarcastically embraces its own nihilism and existentialism with comedic experimentation, while also revealing an honest vulnerability beneath its cynicism which can at times be heartbreaking. Except, there are plenty of shows which can help you scratch that itch left by the festering rash that is Rick and Morty's absence (and sometimes its very presence). Let's take a look at four shows that, if you enjoyed Rick and Morty, you’re almost guaranteed to like.
4 Bojack Horseman
Nihilism - what an appropriate topic for a cartoon. Bojack Horseman details the life of the washed-up former sitcom star and anthropomorphic horse Bojack (voiced by Will Arnett), who struggles with various substances and self-destructive tendencies. In hopes of restarting his career, he recruits young writer Diane Nguyen (Alison Brie) to ghost-write his autobiography, while unfortunately stuck staring down the barrel at his own obsoleteness and depravity. The hopeless television star embodies one of the most famous lines from Rick and Morty: "Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody's gonna die. Come watch TV."
In other words, Bojack and Rick are twin flames when it comes to being severely depressive, hyper-intelligent, and always about two unfortunate circumstances away from dying by suicide. Though Bojack Horseman is mildly more oriented to an older adult audience, the common themes and addictive personality traits seem to be the same - which is surprising, given one show depicts a 71-year-old man and the other depicts a bipedal horse, but that’s the magic of animated television.
3 Futurama
For fans of Morty specifically, the character of Philip J. Fry in Futurama is equally nerdy, neurotic and enraptured with women who are (for the most part) uninterested in him. On one fortuitous day, pizza delivery boy Fry is accidentally cryogenically frozen for 1000 years, and wakes up amongst the advanced futuristic city of “New New York;” soon, he finds himself accommodated by his very distant, very old nephew and develops a career as an interplanetary delivery boy.
Not only is Fry an alternate version of the loveably obtuse Morty, but his alcoholic sentient robot best friend, Bender (who was originally programmed to bend metal in suicide booths) is about as drunk, vulgar and misanthropic as Rick - though admittedly, less prone to burping. While traveling through space, capturing adorable creatures that turn out to be disturbingly violent, and following characters who are desperate for scientific validation, Futurama is just Rick and Morty in the original era of Szechuan sauce.
2 F is For Family
If the grumbling, chronically irritated patriarch Rick is your favorite part of Rick and Morty, you’ll soon be hooked with the ever-enraged Frank Murphy. F Is For Family details the story of a suburban family who are struggling (and cursing) their way through their 1970s lifestyle; Frank, voiced by Bill Burr, is a former Vietnam vet who always dreamed of being a pilot, yet wound up stuck as the manager of baggage claim. His wife, Sue, is the professionally repressed and eternally disappointed housewife, who has to sacrifice her dreams in order to maintain her family dynamic.
While both characters detail the difficulty of their gendered archetypes in relation to living and parenting as adults in the 1970s, the show also depicts the difficulties of being a young person through the lens of the couple’s children, in part due to it being based on co-creator Bill Burr’s real-life childhood experiences. It also sports an all-star cast including Justin Long, Laura Dern, Sam Rockwell and Vince Vaughn. While F is For Family might not show the intricacies of intergalactic space travel, it does recount the similar themes of family complications, ego and trauma (not to mention alcohol abuse).
1 Inside Job
The moon landing was orchestrated by a shadow government, lizard people are real, and the president is an evil robot who wants to take over the world - you’ve not accidentally stumbled across a QAnon social media page (or an episode of Rick and Morty), that’s the plot of Inside Job. The show’s plot follows Reagan Ridley (voiced by Lizzy Caplan) who is tasked with managing a team of employees who work to disguise the disturbing truths of a reality where most conspiracy theories are in fact true. Alongside a supporting cast of Brett Gelman, Christian Slater and Chris Diamontopoulos, a series of unfortunate circumstances occur inside the walls of the sharply named Cognito, Inc.
Though Reagan’s father is more closely assimilated to Rick in the context of technical characteristics (i.e. gray-haired, bumbling alcoholic inventor with a god complex and a fear of actually parenting his daughter), Reagan and Rick are both similar in their struggles with social interaction, going so far as to have them both be alluded to canonically and by fans as autistic characters. In fact, it’s even been suggested that Rick and Morty and Inside Job exist within the same universe.