Season 1, Episode 08:
Rixty Minutes
"Jerry, you don't get it. This is infinite TV, from infinite universes."
Written by: Tom Kauffman & Justin Roiland
Directed by: Bryan Newton
Directed by: Bryan Newton
"Now who wants to watch random, crazy TV shows from different dimensions... and then who wants to narcissistically obsess about their alternate self?"
— Rick Sanchez
Original air date: 3/17/2014
Rick is bored by reality TV, so he upgrades the family's cable box to be able to receive programming from 'every conceivable reality.' When they find a reality where Jerry has become a movie star, Jerry, Beth, and Summer all choose to explore that reality with a device that Rick gives them. Meanwhile, Rick and Morty continue watching 'random crazy TV shows from different dimensions'. Jerry, Beth, and Summer soon discover that if Beth had had an abortion before giving birth to Summer, she would have become a 'real surgeon', and Jerry would have become a movie star, doing cocaine with Johnny Depp and sleeping with Kristen Stewart. While Summer finds that every reality where she wasn't aborted is far worse for their parents. She decides at this point that she will 'move to the South-West, and, I dunno, do something with Turquoise.' Morty talks her out of it by explaining the events of "Rick Potion #9". Meanwhile, Jerry and Beth's relationship is given a boost when they see their alternate universe counterparts hooking up.
This episode contains examples of:
- The Anti-Nihilist: Despite everything he's seen and been through, Morty seems to be this, as his speech to Summer shows:I'm better than your brother. I'm a version of your brother you can trust when he says, "Don't run." Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere. Everybody's gonna die. [beat] ...Come watch TV?
- Artistic License – Animal Care: Alternate reality Beth keeps large parrots like macaws and cockatoos in old-fashioned bird cages that are too small for even a parakeet, let alone large birds.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Jerry and Beth at the end.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Beth, Jerry and Summer's desire to see how their lives turned out in alternate realities only left them arguing and incredibly depressed when Summer learns she was almost aborted and Beth and Jerry start blaming each other for their problems. Rick lampshades this when he goes into the kitchen for snacks and muses on how unhappy they seem.
- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Invoked with most of the shows Rick and Morty watch.
- Bloodier and Gorier: The Strawberry Smiggles commercial is like Lucky Charms, only with bodily dismemberment.
- Bottle Episode: The entire episode consists almost entirely of Rick and Morty watching TV (though in staying in the spirit of the series, it is interdimensional TV). The majority of the dialogue heard on the shows was ad-libbed on the spot by the voice actors, something that Rick and Morty both lampshade.
- Brick Joke: Early on while Rick's changing channels, we see hamsters living in human butts. The Stinger sees the family visit this world.
- Brutally Honest: The subplot escalates into this. Jerry and Beth blame each other for the problems with their marriage, as well as blurt out that they considered getting an abortion.
- Call-Back: Morty explains the events of "Rick Potion #9" to Summer when she was about to leave, and he and Rick mention the events of the previous episode when watching Gazorpazorpfield.
- Weekend at Dead Cat Lady's House II was made by My Man! Pictures.
- Colony Drop: The Moon is going to crash into the Earth in Two Brothers. Because you have to escalate from elderly Amazon grandmas and UFO-piloting Mexicans somehow.
- Creator Breakdown: In-universe example, an alternate version of Jerry suffers one after writing and directing Weekend at Dead Cat Lady's House II.
- Creative Differences: In-universe. According to Rick, SNL's Bobby Moynihan and Piece of Toast hate each other because of this.
- Creepy Child: The two children attack the Strawberry Smiggles leprechaun by holding him down, slicing his belly open and eating his cereal out of his stomach, all while completely stone-faced.
- Department of Redundancy Department: With a side of Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking.Gazorpazorpfield: You dumb, stupid, weak, pathetic, white, white... uh, uh... guilt, white guilt, milquetoast piece of human garbage.
- Dramatic Drop: Beth drops both the glass and the bottle of wine when she sees Jerry knocking on the front door in one of the alternate realities.
- Eye Scream: Ants-in-My-Eyes Johnson.
- Feel No Pain: Ants-in-My-Eyes Johnson can't feel anything due to a nerve disorder, demonstrated by him catching fire and not noticing.
- From Bad to Worse:
- Mr. Top-Hat Jones is captured by the children and has his stomach cut open. He pleads for mercy from Heaven, only to see demons.
- Two Brothers has the brothers facing ever-more nonsensical threats until finally the Moon itself just drops in to kill them.
- Future Slang: Jerry in Cloud Atlas mentions tru-tru.
- It's a Wonderful Plot: Played around with. Summer, Jerry and Beth all find out that if Summer hadn't been born then her parents would have been able to become rich and successful. While any reality she 'is' born in is as dull and boring as her current one. However the version of Beth that's a human surgeon is sad and alone, while the movie star Jerry has hit rock bottom in his career.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: The Two Brothers trailer says it's "In Theaters Now... Coming This Summer".
- Improv: All of the interdimensional TV shows are just the actors ad-libbing, mostly in a purposefully bad way for the sake of comedy. Lampshaded with Morty comments that TV from other dimensions has a "somewhat looser feel."
- I'm Standing Right Here: Played for Drama when Jerry and Beth get into an argument in front of Summer, during which Jerry reveals he talked Beth out of aborting her, and both of them are too involved with each other to appreciate how much this information upsets her.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In regards to the show's retroscripting:Morty: Huh, seems like TV from other dimensions has a somewhat looser feel to it.
Rick: Yeah, it's an almost improvisational tone. - Low-Speed Chase: Jerry from an alternate timeline leads the cops on a slow-speed Hot Pursuit in a lawnmower.
- Naked Nutter: The alternate Jerry Smith ends up suffering a meltdown that begins with him stripping down to his underwear; by the time the Smiths catch up with the news report, he's already shaved off a huge chunk of his hair, tried to cut off his toe and eat it, been resuscitated by the medics, stolen a mobility scooter and led the police on a Low-Speed Chase across town.
- Non-Indicative Title: Ball Fondlers, which features no balls or fondling thereof. It's a parody of The A-Team.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Apparently also a stock phrase in the universe where humans evolved from corn.Corn Villain: We're not so different, you and I, we're both corn of action.
Corn Hero: Yeah. But one of us is dead corn! - Of Corpse He's Alive: Weekend at Dead Cat Lady's House II has the Crazy Cat Lady being moved around by her cats.
- Oh, Crap!: The movie about a guy eating shit leads to this when he gets a court order forbidding him to do that.
- Overly Long Gag: Most of the alternate reality programming uses this gimmick.
- Photo Montage: The stinger shows the family trip to the Hamster-in-Butt-World in a series of photographs.
- Police Are Useless: Watching the coverage of the alternate Jerry's slow-speed pursuit, Rick openly wonders why the police don't just take him out with a bullet to the head.
- Popcultural Osmosis Failure: Jerry doesn't know Cloud Atlas.
- Rule of Symbolism: When Beth finally chooses to accept the real world, the device she is viewing her alternate, ideal life on is on low battery.
- Seinfeldian Conversation: Rick and Morty chit-chatting about the two actors who played Garfield.
- Sex Sells: The Turbulent Juice commercial, which features buff, attractive men wearing tight clothing suggestively spraying a substance all over themselves and various locations in a house. But it's so obsessed with showing off sex that it never actually got around to saying what the commercial was selling. Morty is understandably confused.Morty: What in the hell?!
Rick: Sex sells, Morty.
Morty: Sex sells what? Was that a movie, or, like, does it clean stuff? - Skewed Priorities: Rick calls Jerry, Beth, and Summer out on being more interested in their own alternate selves instead of alternate TV. He rubs it in when it blows up in their faces.
- So Proud of You: Rick is proud of Morty for watching TV with him rather than being like the others and obsessed with alternate selves.
- Springtime for Hitler: Heavily implied that "Weekend at Dead Cat Lady's House II" was this for the Jerry of that universe. As even the Jerry of the normal universe thinks that movie just ended the career of whoever made it before finding out it was him (and even after learning it was him he was more confused than anything). It actually appeared to do very well and the Jerry of that universe has a breakdown and admits he hates being a celebrity.
- The Stinger: When the whole family sees the Hamsters-in-Butts World and starts asking Rick questions about it, he decides to just take them there in person to answer them, resulting in a family vacation.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: The criminal in the "Baby Legs" short is seen carrying a box labeled "Not Drugs."
- Take That!: At the start of the episode, there's a parody of The Bachelor, which Rick calls stupid.
- Tempting Fate: When the leprechaun in the Strawberry Smiggles commercial keeps going on about how nobody will get his Strawberry Smiggles because they'll all be in his stomach, you know something bad is going to happen.
- That Came Out Wrong: Beth casually remarks that her and Jerry achieving their dreams likely meant Summer was never born, only to state this word-for-word (without even pausing for breath) when she realizes how badly Summer could take that.
- Vocal Dissonance: Baby Legs, despite the legs and diaper, looks like an otherwise average middle aged man yet has a high pitched, whiny voice.
- What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: In-Universe, despite featuring necrophilia, Weekend at Dead Cat Lady's House II somehow got a "G" rating.
- Who Writes This Crap?!: Jerry ridicules Weekend at Dead Cat Lady's House II until he finds out his alternate self was behind it.Jerry: I wrote and directed that. What am I, nuts?
- Wunza Plot: He's Baby Legs. He's Regular Legs. They fight crime.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: The two brothers expression eventually slips from action movie cool into this once the moon comes crashing.
"Infinity's a big number, Jerry. I don't remember the channel."
