Season 3 – Rick Buying Plastic-Sealed Morty
It was difficult to choose the position for the funniest season three false start. The butt-face Morty variant getting caught watching porn that features two faces on an ass is hilarious. However, I adore when a common situation is translated to a distinct setting. Rick at a store choosing between two separate plastic-sealed life-sized Morty’s as if he’s an action figure or fruit to purchase always garners a laugh. The look on the non-chosen Morty’s face when his packaging falls truly seals the deal.
Season 4 – Rick Hunts Down a Two-Headed Goose
In 2019, House House’s Untitled Goose Game, in which you play a mischievous goose who terrorizes people in random and funny situations, blew up the independent gaming scene. So much so that it honked its way into Rick and Morty season 4’s opener. The scene has Rick and the Smiths take cover while under assault by a goose. Pardon. I mean a two-headed goose. It’s Rick and Morty: There had to be a sci-fi twist in there. Some might say it’s not a nod because both the season and game came out in the same year in such a short time span of each other (the game released in September and the season in November). Nevertheless, animation is a time-consuming process. It is possible to speculate how a three-second clip could be produced in such a short amount of time. Besides that, the Sanchez and Smith clan’s fear of a simple, two-headed goose is undeniably humorous, especially given the variety of foes they have faced up to that point.
Season 5 – Morty Sinking a Punt
Undeniably the funniest non-canonical clip out of the entire list if not the whole series thus far. Morty succesfully putting and waving as a crowd of onlookers clap is peak subversion. Morty’s final clip in the season five intro is nothing short of sublime. Given the sci-fi antics that are frequently depicted in the show’s intros and throughout, seeing something so basic and wholesome with a character often tortured and/or in peril always got me cackling. It’s the normality embedded in the randomness that makes the Morty golf bit work so triumphantly as it does. Nothing has ever topped it since.
Season 6 – Rick and Summer Evading a Gigantic Flying Squirrel
That’s the thing I love about Rick and Morty intros. I get older, the opening scene with the duo running from green monsters stays the same. It’s a tale as old as time. Yet, the shift of quality immediately after, with Rick and Summer evading a giant flying squirrel while in flight suits in a desert terrain, has a comedic aspect to it. On a cosmic level. In addition to the dynamic camera movement, the characters are textured with varied colors and hues, and the background art is picturesque and detailed. To see the roughly drawn, loosely animated sequence from 2013 immediately followed up with a fluidly animated and gorgeously lit scene from 2022 takes me out. It’s the perfect “how it started versus how it’s going” evolution. Granted, I get more of a chuckle out of Butter Morty entering a frying pan and freaking out as he slowly sizzles. It’s like if Pixar had a Toy Story series and used clips from 4 while remaining the same quality from the first.
Season 7 – Jerry-Claude Van Damme
We’ve done the wholesome scenes, the odd sci-fi ones, but one that references the star-turning Jean-Claude Van Damne action flick with the series’ most anxious character? Now that’s funny. In this extended shot, Jerry is depicted as perched on two chairs, exuding a sense of relaxation and tranquility, while looking JACKED! Plus, the synth-heavy theme too factors into the offbeat joke. Out of all movies, this sci-fi show pays homage to a 1988 action movie. There’s no reason for it, either. It’s just Bloodsport with Jerry. That my friends is classic Rick and Morty goodness. I Love it.
Rick and Morty season 8 premieres Sunday, May 25 at 11 p.m. ET on Adult Swim.
