Chris Longo
Kirsten Howard

Feb 25, 2019

Adult Swim has picked up Rick And Morty for season 4 and beyond…

Rick And Morty has now received a whopping 70-episode order, ensuring the series will continue long past when Cronenberg World becomes reality here in our own dimension. Happily, there’s some chance we’ll all live long enough to see it as well, which is always good news.

The show’s co-creator, Dan Harmon, celebrated the passing of another Rick And Morty year (well, Justin Roiland’s birthday) by crooning a sweet tune in his car for the birthday boy this past weekend and posting it on Instagram. Of course, it was riddled with regular fan comments, including a dig about the whereabouts of season 4. These two must hear that final line a lot. A LOT.

Rick and Morty season 4 cast

Roiland will no doubt be back to lend his voice to both Rick and Morty in season 4. Chris Parnell should return as Jerry, Spencer Grammer as Summer, and Sarah Chalke as Beth.

Rick And Morty season 4 episodes

According to co-creator Justin Roiland, there won’t be any more massive gaps between seasons that there have been before. The job security afforded by the 70-episode order should mean the Rick And Morty factory will run more smoothly.

“[Co-creator Dan] Harmon is in great spirits, we have a great writer’s room. We want the episodes to stay good, but we do also want to try to turn them around a litlte quicker now that we have this big order, I think it gives us the ability to be faster. We’re not going to do these long breaks, these chasms in-between seasons anymore. We’re going to schedule vacation time and just keep the machine going. It’s going to be really cool.”

Of course, this is just Roiland talking about how he feels everything is going. There’s still every chance these jokers will drag their perfectionist feet and not get the next season out the door until 2022! However, he did confirm they’ve been back in the writers’ room and that the ideas are flowing, so the gears are grinding into motion.

Good gravy.

Dan Harmon previously spoke with Entertainment Weekly about a wide-range of topics, including the prospect of filling out a larger episode order for future seasons.

While season 3 was originally set to be 14 episodes long, production delays due to the team’s self-described ‘perfectionist’ tendencies inevitably led to a 10-episode third season. So, could Rick And Morty season 4 fulfil a larger episode order? Harmon seems optimistic, but wants fans to weather their expectations of the quality of an additional four episodes.

“I mostly blame myself for doing 10 instead of 14,” Harmon told EW. “I’m still learning how to do the show efficiently while catering to the perfectionist in all of us. I would like to think I’ve learned enough from my mistakes in season 3 that we could definitely do 14 now, but then I have to say, ‘Yeah but you’re the guy who says we can do 14 who turned out to be wrong so we’re not listening to you now.’”

He goes on to say they need to prove they can make the jump.

“The nice healthy way to approach this is I want to prove it with the first 10 of season 4 — prove it to ourselves, to production, to the network — that it’s so easy that we’ll earn additional episodes. Because I never got this far [working on NBC’s] Community. I fell apart in season 3 of Community and got fired in season 4. Now I’m about to do season 4 of Rick And Morty and want to prove that I’ve grown.”

Rick And Morty is one of the most popular shows on TV right now, so Harmon knows what fans would say on the matter.

“I think the audience would vote unanimously for the idea of 14 episodes instead of 10 on the condition that 4 of them would be [Purge Planet level] episodes.”

Rick And Morty season 4 air date

In an interview with The Detroit Cast, via Dark HorizonsRick And Morty writer Ryan Ridley estimated that we won’t see the show return until late 2019 at the very earliest.

“I’m just shocked that it’s taking – we got done writing season 3 in November of last year [2016] and here we are 11 months later. And then I know how long the show takes to write, let alone animate, so it’s just like, I’d be surprised if there was a fourth season on the air any sooner than 2019 – in late 2019,” Ridley remarked. “They really take their time. I never understood why everybody – all parties, Dan, Justin, and Adult Swim – didn’t get their s–t together, and make the show fast; I just don’t get it. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m sure they all have their reasons. Get your s–t together, you guys. Get it all together, and put it in a backpack.”