Rick Sanchez
Richard Daniel "Rick" Sanchez is one of the two eponymous characters from the Adult Swim animated television series Rick and Morty and resulting multimedia franchise. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, he is voiced by the former during the first six seasons of the series,[1] then by Ian Cardoni beginning with the seventh season, and Yōhei Tadano in Rick and Morty: The Anime, after voicing the character in the Japanese dub of the series and various promotional short films. Rick is a misanthropic, alcoholic scientist inspired by Christopher Lloyd's Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown from Back to the Future and Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic from Marvel Comics. In September 2021, Lloyd portrayed Rick himself in a series of promotional interstitials for the series.[2][3]
Not to be confused with Rick Sánchez or Ricky Sánchez.Rick Sanchez
- Rick C-137:
- "Promo Commercial #1" (2013)
- Rick C-132:
- "The Wubba Lubba Dub Dub of Wall Street, Part One" (2015)
- Rick Prime:
- "The Rickshank Rickdemption" (2017)
- Rick C-132:
- "Head-Space, Part Three" (2016)
- Rick Prime:
- "Unmortricken" (2023)
Justin Roiland
- Justin Roiland (2013–2022)[1]
- Ian Cardoni (2023–present)
- Yōhei Tadano (The Anime, Japanese dub; 2016–present)
- Michael Cusack (Bushworld Adventures)
- Christopher Lloyd (interstitials)[2][3]
- Mike Stoklasa (Red Letter Media)[4]
- Santana Maynard (The Rickoning promo)[5]
Richard Daniel Sanchez
The Rickest Rick (Rick Prime)
The Smartest Man in the Universe (seasons 1–5)
Rick
Rick C-137 (main character)
- Birdperson (best friend)
- Mr. Poopybutthole (family friend)
- Mr. Nimbus (nemesis)
- Galactic Revolution
- The Vindicators
- Parallel universe:
- Jerry Smith 5126 (son-in-law)
- Summer Smith C-131 (granddaughter)
- Morty Smith Prime (grandson)
- Hemorrhage (grandson-in-law)
- Morty Smith, Jr. (great-grandson)
- Naruto Smith (great-grandson)
- Thoolie Smith (great-grandson)
Diane Sanchez C-137 (wife; erased from reality)
- Unity (hivemind; formerly)
- Kiara (formerly)
- Daphne (formerly)
- Gaia (formerly)
- Princess Poñeta (CHUD)
Beth Sanchez C-137 (and by proxy Beth Smith C-131 and Space Beth C-131)
The CHUD Heir
American
70+
Known for his reckless, nihilistic behavior, pragmatic moral ambiguity and pessimistic personality, the character has been well received. Rick C-137 is a mad scientist who seems to know everything in the universe and thus finds life a traumatizing and pointless experience. Following the murder of his wife Diane and daughter Beth Sanchez in his native reality (C-137) by his parallel self Rick Prime, Rick dedicates his life to hunting Prime down, developing inter-dimensional travel and building a wall around the segment of the multiverse where Rick is "The Smartest Man in the Universe", dubbed the Central Finite Curve, to narrow his search, massacring countless alternate versions of himself in the process of hunting down Prime before temporarily resigning himself to failure, founding the Citadel of Ricks out of the survivors, and retiring to move in with the family of an adult version of Beth (Smith) from Prime's own native reality (whom Prime had abandoned when Beth was a teenager) out of the slim hope of Prime one day returning so Rick could complete his vendetta, consisting of his son-in-law Jerry and teenage grandchildren Summer and Morty Smith, going on a series of adventures with the latter, over the course of which events in the first and fifth seasons lead to Morty and Summer having two children of their own, Mortimer Junior and Naruto.
The first three volumes of the Rick and Morty comic series follow the Rick and Morty of Dimension C-132 while most issues of subsequent volumes (following the "Head-Space" arc in which Rick C-132 is killed) follow the main Rick (C-137) and Morty (Prime) from the television series, with the final volume ("The Rickoning") and Rick and Morty Go to Hell following another alternate Rick (and Morty) identified as Devil Rick in the latter series, and featuring a Girl Rick designed after cosplayer Santana Maynard by series writer Kyle Starks;[5] the video game Pocket Mortys meanwhile follows the Rick and Morty of C-123.[6] The main character Rick of the franchise and their alternative selves have received a positive critical reception.[7][8][9][10]
Fictional character biography[edit]
Backstory[edit]
Rick Sanchez from Earth (Dimension C-137) is the widowed father of Beth Smith, and the maternal grandfather of Morty and Summer Smith. In the fifth season, it is revealed that his daughter Beth and wife Diane in his home reality were killed by Rick Prime, another Rick from another universe, out of pettiness. This leads to C-137 Rick developing a portal gun and spending the following decades travelling the infinite multiverse in search of the specific alternate version of himself he believes is responsible for the killings. Along the way, Rick befriends Birdperson and becomes a leading figure in the revolution against the Galactic Federation throughout his mid-30s. In one of his many times captured by the Federation, they discovered an element dubbed "Sanchezium" that could be used to restrain him. After being rejected by Birdperson, Rick returns to his journey of vengeance, before ultimately becoming the leader of a fledgling "Citadel of Ricks". The Citadel had originally formed to oppose him after he had killed a number of alternate versions of himself on his journey of vengeance, and under his guidance oversaw the binding of the multiverse's Ricks into a "Central Finite Curve" in which they are all the "Smartest Man in the Universe", manipulating the flow of realities in which his daughter lived to ensure that she met Jerry Smith in order to produce an endless number of hypothetical grandchildren, allowing them to hide from the Federation using their brainwaves. Depressed, Rick eventually abandons the Citadel and casts himself into the multiverse once again, crashing into the garage of a now-adult, living version of Beth of Rick Prime's reality, where Prime had abandoned her and Diane twenty years prior instead. He befriended her son, that reality's Morty Smith, and frequently traveled with him on adventures through space, visiting other planets and dimensions with him (and occasionally Summer Smith).[11] In the third season of the show, it is revealed that he is at least 70 years old.[12]
Other versions[edit]
Citadel of Ricks and Mortys[edit]
The Citadel of Ricks and Mortys is an inter-dimensional society populated almost exclusively by alternate versions of Rick and Morty from across the multiverse, founded by Rick C-137, and ruled by the Trans-Dimensional Council of Ricks, and the Shadow Council of Ricks.
Appearances[edit]
Television[edit]
Rick Sanchez is one of the main protagonists of Rick and Morty, voiced by Justin Roiland for the first six seasons,[27] and Ian Cardoni from the seventh season onward.[28]
Rick appears in the couch gag of the 2015 The Simpsons episode "Mathlete's Feat", with Roiland reprising his role.
Rick appears in the claymation web series Rick and Morty: The Non-Canonical Adventures as a silent character.
Rick will appear as one of the main protagonists of Rick and Morty: The Anime, voiced by Yōhei Tadano, reprising his role from the Japanese language dub of Rick and Morty.
Personality[edit]
Sanchez has been argued to be a toxic masculine archetype, "Tortured Genius Who Is Lonely and Doesn't Care Because Feelings Are Overrated".[35]
In the pilot, he was revealed to be an atheist, as he tells Summer that "there is no God"; however, Rick is later established to be aware of the existence of various afterlives and gods, just lacking respect for them.[36] Harmon has said that "anarchist" is a close ideological descriptor of Rick.[37]
One of the show's creators and executive producers and voice actor Justin Roiland revealed Sanchez was pansexual.[38] This was shown in "Auto Erotic Assimilation", when Rick re-connects with Unity, an ex-lover who is a collective hive mind of assimilated individuals from the planet they occupy;[39] Rick is further shown to be attracted to planets in the Oni Press comic series backup story "Rick and Morty in: The Most Important Lesson", Rick is further established to be attracted to sentient planets, which later serves as the basis for the fourth season episode "Childrick of Mort", where Rick re-connects with ex-lover Gaia, a planet, whom he met on a "Planets Only" dating website.
Development[edit]
The character was created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, who first met at Channel 101 in the early 2000s. In 2006, Roiland created The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti, an animated short parodying the Back to the Future characters Emmett "Doc" Brown and Marty McFly, and the precursor to Rick and Morty.[40] The idea for Rick and Morty, in the form of Doc and Mharti was brought up to Adult Swim, and the ideas for a family element and Rick being a grandfather to Morty were developed. Rick was voiced by Justin Roiland for the first six seasons of Rick and Morty and promotional material, Roiland considering his voice for Rick to be a "horrible Doc Brown manic impression",[41] "I was having fun doing these really crappy Doc Brown and Marty McFly impressions. During the middle of a line a burp came out naturally," said Roiland, addressing the creation of Rick's ubiquitous burping habit.[27] while Ian Cardoni voices the character from the seventh season onward.[28]
Addressing Roiland's and his own portrayals of Rick in a series of promotional interstitials (directed by Paul B. Cummings) compared to Doc Brown, Christopher Lloyd stated "that he felt like Doc and Rick were like two brothers that took different paths".[42]
Reception[edit]
The character has received a positive reception. Speaking of Rick's relatability and likability, Dan Harmon stated that "we've all been Rick. But Rick really does have bigger fish to fry than anybody. He understands everything better than us. So you give him the right to be jaded and dismissive and narcissistic and sociopathic".[7] Emily Gaudette of Inverse wrote that fans have "come to love [Rick] over two seasons of misadventures".[8]
David Sims of The Atlantic noted Rick's "bitter amorality" and called the character "a genius who comfortably thinks of himself as the universe's cleverest man and is grounded only by his empathy toward other people, which he tries to suppress as much as possible", therefore writing that Rick's selflessness at the end of the episode "The Wedding Squanchers" is "the most surprising twist possible".[9] Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club wrote that "[Rick] slowly realizing that he loved his grandkids and his daughter (and tolerated his son-in-law) no matter how many times he swore at them helped to give the character some necessary depth", and that "behind all the catchphrases and the crazed energy ... There's something dead and sad and fucked up in the guy".[10]