00:00Hey, we're the team from Rick and Morty, and you're watching Deadline Contenders Television Nominees Edition.
00:06Edition, edition, edition.
00:22For our show, it wasn't a question of having to continue anything.
00:28It was more surviving a great deal of turbulence, and, you know, Scott was instrumental in that.
00:34He actually came onto the show several seasons ago, but this season's nomination really marks the final achievement of bringing
00:46him on.
00:47So relative to us, it's kind of like this is a new show as opposed to, you know, how do
00:54we keep it going?
00:55It was more like, how do we reboot this thing behind the scenes and on screen?
01:00The show feels so young for a ninth season show, just because I feel like we've got all these things
01:04in place that are new,
01:06that there's like an enthusiasm that just feels like a season two or three show.
01:10I also came onto the show as a fan, so he had set such a high bar that it was
01:14always my goal to just try to achieve it.
01:17And what's cool about season nine is it's the first one that I've heard people even put up there with
01:22the first two,
01:23which, like, you know, really feels rewarding.
01:26This was a show that was grandfathered in from an era of less accountability, less awareness, like less complication,
01:34and just creating a workplace where everybody felt human and grown up was, like, that was enough to take several
01:48years.
01:50Meanwhile, on screen, I mean, maybe you could speak more to that.
01:54I just feel like, you know, I think year by year we were just trying to implement systems to, like,
02:01not make the show kill any one particular person,
02:03because it's a really tough show.
02:05You know, we rewrite constantly, all that sort of stuff.
02:07So by the time nine was in place, all these systems were sort of working and gelling and morale was
02:12high.
02:14And I think you can feel that.
02:15I think you can just feel that in the episodes.
02:18We have a unique show where we're, like, we're not exactly like The Simpsons, you know?
02:22We hope to go as long as they do, but we do standalones and we also do canon.
02:27So, like, people love this show for both those things.
02:30So, like, for us, it was actually really important to front load this season.
02:33We knew we had this incredible Evil Morty episode that we thought would be really cool to hit them over
02:37the head with it
02:38so they can relax and feel like we've checked that box,
02:40because we knew we had another nine episodes that were just killer on their own.
02:44There was a very deliberate and interesting decision made in the early stages of that episode
02:50where we, instead of trying to make the episode incredible using note cards and whiteboards and script revisions,
03:00you know, we really deliberately made the decision that this thing needs to be animated up the wazoo.
03:09And we went to an experimentally different studio that used a process that we can't afford to do in every
03:17episode
03:18for some of those action scenes.
03:20I think the interesting thing about that, because it sounds like a no-brainer.
03:23It almost sounds like...
03:25Like a cheat code or something?
03:26Yeah, like, where you're just like, well, make it better.
03:29Make it look better.
03:30But this was a very script-driven show.
03:33And it's a script-driven industry unless you're making kids' content.
03:37And so, like, that is another behind-the-scenes shift that Martyr and Monica Mitchell and Steve Levy made possible.
03:46Like, behind-the-scenes, creating a workplace where collaboration replaced the auteur model.
03:52Where even an egomaniac like me could actually admit and benefit from the fact that people that went to art
04:01school
04:02actually know better than me how to tell a story.
04:07You know, that a script that even the great me has a hand in is still just a memorandum that
04:14starts a process,
04:15a kind of dance between artists and writers going back and forth.
04:19Yeah, just a yes in that, I feel like Season 9 is the most in-sync sort of flow we've
04:23had with the directors
04:24and art teams in terms of these episodes moving forward,
04:27which is why I feel like the comments on both sides are like people love the writing,
04:31but they also feel like the art has picked up as well, which is pretty neat.
04:34Yeah, we have directors in the edit bay now, you know.
04:38They are, the line between writer and director is, I think I probably came into this show
04:45carrying a toxin from the live-action world where it was important to me as a kid from Wisconsin
04:53that typed for a living to maintain that my species was different from people that were directors
04:59and that everybody needed to know their place and that in TV, unlike in features, you know,
05:05you're the employee here, Mr. Jodhpurz, Mr. Beret.
05:10Sorry, now I'm alienating most of the Emmy voters.
05:13But the important thing is, hang on, that I, yeah, if I brought that into Rick and Morty,
05:19you know, finally we're seeing, like, the end of that culture because it's like, you know,
05:26the, like, gee willikers, like, artists actually tell stories too
05:32and they have opinions and thoughts about, if you're looking at an animatic,
05:36to have people that draw for a living in there and have conversations right there in the room.
05:41It's like, it seems like a no-brainer, but took this show a while.
05:47Yep, season 10 is going to come out at the same time.
05:50It's going to run all the way through.
05:51It's being generated by Palantir as we speak.
05:54We're not allowed to see it until it airs, but we hear good things.
05:58We just had to do an interview shorter than this one with weirder cameras down the hall,
06:05and apparently now we can just go home and get universal basic income.
06:09That's what they said.
06:10Putting Jacob on it was the easiest decision ever
06:15because that director who's in the edit bay, that's Jacob.
06:21I mean, he, every time from seasons ago, you know, every time we write into a script,
06:28hey, maybe the artist can go nuts with this,
06:31Jacob has been instrumental in turning those into award-worthy and story-driving scenes.
06:41So he was the obvious choice.
06:43The only concern is, is that going to destroy the show?
06:46You know, but that's all matter of schedule.
06:48High class problem.
06:49Yeah, yeah.
06:50I think we treat every season pretty similarly.
06:53I mean, you know, we normally come in for like a blue sky period and just throw everything at the
06:57wall,
06:58and it's supposed to be just the most joyful, safe room type period.
07:02And it usually, you know, in a few weeks' time, it's impossible to ignore the ones that we're just excited
07:07about.
07:08It's the ones we keep wanting to talk about.
07:09Like, the last few seasons, that's ended up netting the bulk of the new seasons of the show.
07:14And even if you've come in with ones that you thought were beloved hangovers from the previous season that we
07:19didn't quite get to,
07:20if they can't compete with the new energy of the new one, they just kind of fall behind.
07:24But that's been successful for us.
07:26Like, season 10 is honestly as exciting as 9.
07:29Like, back to what he was saying before, like, when we were dealing with, like, needing to replace the voices
07:35on the show,
07:36what was most difficult about that was just knowing that we were already sitting on the writing of 9 and
07:4010,
07:40which just felt like it was maybe some of the best stuff we've done.
07:43So that, for me, was, like, this fire that I'm like, we've got to find a new Rick and Morty
07:47because it would be, like, criminal if those things had not been able to, like, make it to air.
07:51So I feel extra pride that we were able to, like, get over that mountain and be up for an
07:56Emmy for it.
07:56I think the biggest question, and whether you're asking this between the lines,
08:01but this is the question that I have, which is how possible is this tomorrow?
08:06Because we know there was a big peak, and we know the pandemic kind of created an illusion of a
08:11huge demand.
08:12Like, all of a sudden, everybody was developing an adult animated cartoon for obvious reasons.
08:17But now, economically, I mean, animation is a high-risk, high-yield thing.
08:27It's not slop.
08:28It's not driven by an algorithm.
08:31It's, like, you know, it takes a long time.
08:33It takes longer to make your pilot than the average executive's job is going to be secure.
08:38Ironically, yeah.
08:39I don't mean that to be crass because I could say the same thing about actors, writers, everybody.
08:43I mean, Venice is sinking.
08:45So I guess I, I mean, that's my cynical fear, I should say.
08:49Like, I hope that those things aren't true because we've seen common side effects, you know, rise up.
08:58And it is very clearly so, you know, its success is in a sort of unprecedented humanity that wouldn't be
09:09possible in live action
09:10and wouldn't even be possible in the sort of Simpsons, come Rick and Morty, come Bob's Burgers sort of style.
09:18That it, all of a sudden, someone was able to pitch and sell and execute that show that has, like,
09:24this completely new way to reach humans.
09:27And so that's, that's, that's the counter to my cynical argument.
09:31But it's super important.
09:32I mean, I hope they keep taking chances on it.
09:34I mean, it's the stuff my kids watch, you know.
09:37Rick and Morty, you were weaning them onto it.
09:40Animation lowers the resistance in the audience.
09:43It, it, it, it's not the way a hypnotist does.
09:45It's not a trick.
09:47It, it, it, it gives them an ability to uncross their arms because the show is saying, we know we're
09:55not totally fooling you.
09:57This isn't, um, we, we can both see this as a cartoon.
10:00So, like, can you, can you give us a second?
10:03And it just sort of has a tendency to reach, um, uh, larger audiences by, by doing that.
10:10But then you can quickly, like, re-engage their cynicism as soon as it turns out.
10:13No, this is state-run propaganda.
10:15These drawings are of, uh, rats running across a map of Europe.
10:19You are being poisoned.
10:20Um, but during that low resistance, which, you know, you're not going to get watching a, who's the sexiest on
10:27this island show.
10:28No shade.
10:29Great, great show.
10:30No shade.
10:31Watch season 12 of No Shade.
10:55Um, but, uh, yeah, that, that's, that's why, fingers crossed, adult animation continues.
11:03To be a thing because I believe that, you know, what Mike White does with White Lotus can be done
11:10even more effectively in, with animation.
11:13It's a medium that, that has a huge use for redeeming humanity.
