The Pilot For Rick And Morty Was Written In A Shocking Amount Of Time
If lack of time is the crucial factor that's been holding you back from creating your masterpiece, here's proof that you don't really need that long to make a work of art. Or at least, you don't need that long to put together the script for a single 22-minute episode of a cartoon about a depraved scientist and his bumbling grandson.
"Rick and Morty" co-creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland have revealed that the pilot for their hit series was written in a shockingly short amount of time. Harmon explained to the Los Angeles Times in 2014 that it only took the pair "six or eight hours" to write the first draft of that very first script.
Presumably, the best episodes of "Rick And Morty" took a little longer to write — and that's not even getting into the animating and recording process. The truth of "Rick And Morty," and all animation, is that it's a labor-intensive process. But still, this serves as inspiration to aspiring scriptwriters facing a time crunch.
How did Harmon and Roiland end up in their tight spot? It has to do with the success of "Community" (in that magical time before "Community" got canceled.)
The Rick and Morty creators had to write the pilot in six hours or wait six months
Harmon and Roiland rushed to write the "Rick and Morty" pilot in a single session. As they explained to The L.A. Times, inspiration struck, and they only had a certain amount of time to harness it.
Some time after finishing Season 2 of "Community" and beginning work on Season 3, Harmon and Roiland successfully pitched the idea for "Rick and Morty" to then-head of development at Adult Swim Nick Weidenfeld. After the meeting, the pair found themselves sitting in the empty office Harmon used for "Community" work. Harmon was actually preparing to leave, but Roiland suggested they bash the pilot script out then and there.
Roiland admitted that he tends to procrastinate, but in this case, "I was like, 'It's in my head now' ... for some reason, I was like, we need to do it."
Part of the reason why was that Harmon was about to spend the next six months making "Community" Season 3, which wouldn't leave much time for "Rick and Morty." Instead of putting off the pilot, the pair hunkered down on the floor of Harmon's office — he didn't have any chairs — and finished their first draft.
As Roiland described the experience, "It's not always that fast. It was kind of lightning in a bottle." Little did they know at the time, they'd struck gold.