Justin Roiland Snuck His Rick And Morty Voices Into Other Projects Before The Show Was Picked Up

After years of pitching shows, Justin Roiland has officially hit the big time. While "Rick and Morty" might have felt as much like a roll of the dice as any adult animated comedy does, the Adult Swim series has exploded in popularity over the course of its six seasons (via Parrot Analytics) to the point where the show has been renewed through Season 10 following a short hiatus (via Inverse).

While co-creator Dan Harmon's knack for television writing, skewering popular tropes, and meta-comedy can't be understated, the lynchpin of the success of a series like "Rick and Morty" definitely comes from Roiland's madcap energy. The co-creator and voice actor provides an absurd, insane energy for both of the titular characters (and the occasional side character), often riffing and improvising lines along the way.

While fans will undoubtedly recognize some of Roiland's signature voices in projects made after the success of "Rick and Morty," they might not realize that he has used these voices in previous projects as well.

Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon sat down with The Los Angeles Times to talk about their careers and the surprising success of "Rick and Morty." During the interview, Roiland spoke about the genesis of his two main voices for the series. "This was one of those things. It started just for me, doing these two voices, really bad impressions of Doc and Marty from "Back to the Future"," he recalled. "Our show is so far removed from that, but some of the raw energy behind the voice performances is sort of still intact, especially for Rick." 

Roiland also mentioned that he's been using many of his signature voices since before getting the call that the series was a go. "That phone call couldn't have come at a better time because I was getting very sort of burned out on development. I did keep on these Rick and Morty voices — the voices only, really," Roiland continued. For instance, fans of "Adventure Time" will recognize how similar Lemongrab's voice is to Morty's. Meanwhile, TV personality Bobby Renzobi in "Gravity Falls" is another recognizable Roiland voice for "Rick and Morty" fans.

"I did keep packaging and plugging them into all my projects as I was developing, even if they were tertiary, they were always in there," Roiland concluded. Well, today, those Roiland voices are almost as iconic as the likes of Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin, so it would seem that Roiland is definitely on the right track.