Rick And Morty / Tropes M to P

Rick and Morty Trope Examples
A - D | E - L | M - P | Q - Z

M

• Macguffin: Rick's Portal Gun is one of his most important and famous inventions in (and outside of) the series. Many of his enemies, including the Galactic Federation, are those who scheme to steal the gun or the formula to the fluid that powers it from him. It is crucial for Rick's multidimensional adventuring and his creation of it is what made him go from ambitious scientist to one of the smartest men in the universe(s).
• Magic Feather: A variant occurs in "Look Who's Purging Now" when the normally meek Morty goes on a bloodthirsty warpath during the Purge. At the end of the episode, Morty is worried that he has several demons to work out within himself, only to be told by Rick that a candy bar he had eaten earlier contained Purgenol, which increases aggression. Cue the shot showing that the candy bar is "Now Purgenol-Free".
• Magic Tool: The season 2 DVD set actually reveals (what are implied to be just a few) uses of the plumbus tool that seems to be used in nearly every other dimension except for a few Earths in the central finite curve. Just a few of the device's uses include toilet-cleaner, portable stove, food utensil, sex toy, religious icon, babysitter, and vacuum cleaner. Of course, you no doubt knew all this as everybody has one.
• Maintain the Lie:
  • In "Meeseeks and Destroy", The Stinger has a servant finding disturbing pictures (most likely of exploited children) in King Jellybean's closet and being ordered to destroy them so the people will remember him for what he represented, not what he was.
  • Zeep at the end of "The Ricks Must Be Crazy" is forced to do this, rather than reveal to his people that Rick is using their entire universe to power his car battery, or else Rick would destroy the "broken" battery along with the multiverse inside it.
  • At the end of "A Rick in King Mortur's Mort", Rick and Morty fake their own deaths so that Morty wouldn't have to cut his own dick off for the sake of interplanetary peace, and the Knights of the Sun were so moved by this they abolished the practice. A squire of the Sun finds Rick and Morty alive right after, and Morty tells him if he reveals the lie he'll have to cut his own dick off and the squire agrees.
• The Man Behind the Man: Or rather, In Front Of The Man. In "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind," Evil Morty is this to Evil Rick, who was only his cyborg puppet.
• Manchild: Rick is about 60 but has the maturity of a teenager, swearing, making dirty jokes, and being involved in rather reckless antics. One example is him finding it hilarious telling an alien race that flipping the bird meant "Peace among worlds". Morty's expression says it all.
• Man Hug: Jerry and Doofus Rick part ways with one. Also Rick and Morty at the end of "Get Schwifity".
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Mr. Needful before he upgrades to his simpler Steve Jobs turtleneck.
• Marilyn Maneuver: Jessica in "Rest and Ricklaxation", when she drops from a portal with Rick.
• Married Too Young: Since Jerry impregnated Beth when they were 17, he decided to stay with and marry her. Unfortunately neither were emotionally mature enough to be married, never mind parent a child. This is just one reason why their marriage is so strained.
• Marshmallow Hell: In "Lawnmower Dog", after Rick and Morty free the rest of the family, Summer pulls Morty face-first into her chest when hugging him. Thanks to recently having had a very awkward encounter with a dream version of her (see Brain Bleach above), Morty is quite uncomfortable by this.
• The Masquerade: Utterly averted. Everybody seems to be aware that Rick's a super scientist, but outside of the family, nobody seems too concerned. The town and school are aware but react with indifference. Rick's unknown outside of town before "Get Schwifty." Considering Rick's on the run from The Empire, he takes no special precautions to hide his presence.
• Meaningful Name: Beta 7 acts like a Dogged Nice Guy to Unity. A common slang term for men who act like that towards women is "beta male," as opposed to Rick's "alpha male" personality.
• Meaningful Rename: A minor character has one in the episode "The Old Man and the Seat". Delivery Drone, originally a robot delivery boy who ran away to join a Robot War in another star system, wrote over the label on his chest so that it instead said Deliverance.
• Medium Awareness: All over the place:
  • Rick says a universe run by intelligent dogs would be interesting to watch "at 11 minutes a pop".
  • In "Rixty Minutes", Rick and Morty comment that TV from other dimensions has a "looser feel" and an "improvisational tone." As they say this, the camera is positioned in such a way that although they're looking at the TV, it seems like they're looking at the audience.
  • The same episode runs the concept of alternate universes in two different directions, and one turns out to be significantly funnier than the other. Rick says to the characters stuck in the B-plot "you guys clearly backed the wrong conceptual horse."
  • When Morty and Summer express concerns about their parents in "A Rickle in Time", Rick says that "They're probably living it up in some pointless grounded story about their shitty marriage." The B-plot does indeed involve Beth and Jerry in a grounded story about their marriage.
  • Throughout the series, Rick (and sometimes other characters) will make references to seasons or episodes of the show. For some examples of each:
    • Rick celebrates the "end of Season 1", states that he'll accomplish a certain character arc even it if takes him "nine seasons", and notes that he destroyed a certain technology "a few seasons back". Beth also notes in the Season 3 finale that from now on, the show will be "like Season 1, but more streamlined".
    • All three of the anthology episodes (the 8th episode of each season) has Rick directly mention a previous episode, sometimes by name. And in The Teaser of "The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy", he calls it a "Rick and Jerry episode".
• Meta Fiction: "Never Ricking Morty" finds Rick and Morty on a very literal Story Train that represents the story-telling process. The whole episode waxes the creative story process and is aware of itself and the meta concepts. The two eventually find themselves in conflict with the Story Lord, who attempts to break the fifth wall by tapping into possible storylines that haven't happened. Morty questions if anything they're experiencing is canon, to which Rick states that it could have been. The train's story literally derails itself when it's revealed to be a toy that Morty bought from the Citadel of Rick's gift shop, which Rick is very proud to see Morty's participation in consumerism.
• Mind Rape: Being a gaseous creature, this seems to be Fart's only method of attack. Of course, since it can turn a perfectly adjusted person suicidal in less than a second, it's hardly anything to sneeze at.
• Missing Mom: Not much is known about Rick's ex-wife, Beth's mom. Not even her name, which may or may not be Diane. There have been some hints that she's dead in the present day, but it's not confirmed. Rick states that his marriage to her failed, but there are also indications that he still has feelings for her on some level.
• A Mistake Is Born: Jerry and Beth only got married because they accidentally conceived Summer when they were teenagers.
• Mister Seahorse:
  • The Season 1 opening title sequence shows a scene where Jerry is getting ready to give birth.
  • "Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat" features a caterpillar version of Mr. Goldenfold, who births a few caterpillar larvae.
• Monster of the Week: Rick & Morty would deal with a one-shot villain or rogue alien species in each episode.
• Monstrous Germs: In "Anatomy Park", the various diseases are portrayed as hideous monsters who chase the protagonists around in an homage to Jurassic Park.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Twice in "Meeseeks and Destroy". First, a Giant accidentally smashes his head and dies from the trauma, almost leading to Rick and Morty being convicted as murderers; and secondly, when Morty is almost raped in a restroom. It even cuts to Rick singing karaoke and the ridiculous Mr. Meeseeks brawl in the middle of the latter.
  • The Stinger for "M. Night Shaym-Aliens" has Rick drunkenly enter Morty's room, telling him he's a good kid and a trooper for putting up with all the crap he's been through. A sweet, if slightly disturbing, gesture. He then pulls a knife and holds it to Morty's neck, screaming at him to tell him if he's a simulation or he'll cut his throat. After a minute of this, Rick passes out on the floor, leaving Morty confused and terrified.
  • The A plot of "Rixty Minutes" is a series of absurd sketches improvised by the voice actors, with the framing device being that Rick has upgraded the family's cable to pick up channels from other dimensions. The B plot is the family having an existential crisis after learning of a dimension where Beth aborted the unplanned pregnancy that would have been Summer, and as a result, Beth and Jerry didn't get married and ended up with their dream jobs instead. The mood switches again when the Beth and Jerry from the alternate dimension are revealed to be unhappy in their dream jobs and still in love with each other.
  • "Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat" has this in the scene where Rick C-137 in a clone body of Wasp Rick is having dinner with the Wasp version of the Smith family. The genuinely heartwarming interactions between the family is juxtaposed with the heavy Black Comedy of them eating Caterpillar Mr. Goldenfold and his babies alive.
• Moon-Landing Hoax:
  • Suggested in "M. Night Shaym-Aliens" that the aliens faked the Earth-Moon Landing when Rick, Morty, and Jerry run past a simulation of it.
  • During their fight scene in "The Rickchurian Mortydate", Rick and Mr. President run past numerous sound stages of faked historical events, including a lunar lander and the planting of the flag on the moon. The government also apparently actually carried out the murder of Tupac Shakur and staged the JFK assassination, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and George Washington crossing the Delaware.
• Moral Myopia: Beth spent years putting Jerry down because she thought she was better than him, but was very offended when she found out she was holding him back as well.
  • The entire family is this to Jerry to the point where they come across as Holier Than Thou, since they repeatedly call him out for his mistakes despite making those same mistakes themselves.
    • Season 4 has an example of Morty Calling the Old Man Out in The "Old Man And The Seat" for creating a phone app with Rick's temp even though he was warned not to. Yet Morty could have avoided the conflict of "Rattlestar Ricklactica" if he had both stayed in the car like he was told, and ignored the dead snake astronaut.
• Motivational Lie: In "Get Schwifty", Rick tells Morty that his portal gun only has enough charge for two trips: one to grab their family and one to get off-planet. This is to get Morty to focus on placating the Cromulons rather than worrying about his family. Rick blows his own ruse when he casually portals out to pick up some snacks for Ice-T.
• MST3K Mantra: In-Universe example. For every disturbing thing Morty sees or experiences, Rick's advice is "Don't think about it!"
• Multiboobage: In "The ABCs of Beth", Jerry starts dating a Green-Skinned Space Babe named Kiara, who has three breasts.
• The Multiverse:
  • Rick exploited this in "Rick Potion No. 9" by simply slipping into one universe where he and Morty suddenly died after curing the Cronenbergs. Apparently, he hasn't managed to find very many universes where they both died in such a way that everything's okay afterward.
  • There's an entire group of alternate Ricks who have banded together to form a society known as the Council of Ricks. However, the Rick we know refuses to be affiliated with them. This refusal to join the Council makes "our" Rick the "Rickiest Rick there is." By default, that makes Morty the "Mortiest Morty."
• Mundane Utility:
  • Rick builds a self-aware, sentient robot to pass the butter, which is about an inch out of his reach and which he could have easily just leaned forward and grabbed in a fraction of the time it took to build the robot. When the robot finds this out, he's devastated.
  • Rick created a Pocket Dimension, manipulated the intelligent life within into generating massive amounts of power, and then channelled that power into... his car battery.
• Mundane Solution: When Rick is about to destroy the Galactic Federation, his grandchildren suggest two options: Summer suggests that he'll set all their nukes to target each other. Morty suggests reprogramming all their military portals to disintegrate their entire space fleet. While Rick appreciates the Hoist by His Own Petard nature of these plans and claims that he's "almost proud," he ultimately decides on this and reduces the value of their credit-based economy to zero.
• Musical Spoiler: At the end of "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind", The Reveal that Evil Morty was actually behind the events of the episode is punctuated by Blonde Redhead's "For the Damaged Coda" playing in the background. In "The Ricklantis Mixup", this same song starts playing again moments before it's officially revealed that Evil Morty is the true identity of the newly-elected President Morty.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • This hits Rick at the end of "Auto Erotic Assimilation," when Unity's note to him makes it clear that his manipulative personality ends up bringing down all of his loved ones. It's enough to make him attempt suicide.
  • One of Morty's removed memories in "Morty's Mind Blowers" reveals that his mistaken belief that the new school guidance counsellor was up to no good and resultant actions against him led the man to commit suicide, causing Morty to react like this.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The o3o expression the characters use is one of the few things from Doc and Mharti that hasn't been changed.
  • At one point, Rick says that a whole world populated by dogs would make an interesting TV show. This is a reference to an actual pilot Justin Roiland made in the past.
  • Certain parts of Cronenberg-Rick might bring back some...memories.
  • The Clone Degeneration invoked with the gradual mental degeneration of the Meeseeks brings to mind the defective Cosby clones from Roiland's earlier Web series House of Cosbys. The alternate-dimension TV channels are also a similar concept to the series' nonsensical final episode involving alien satellite transmissions.
  • There are a few instances where Rick tells someone to "lick [his] balls." It's one of his catchphrases in "Total Rickall", where he follows it up with claiming that he "says it all the time", and he plays samples of himself saying "balls" to annoy Morty in "Get Schwifty." In the original "Doc and Mharti" short, Doc repeatedly asks Mharti to lick his balls as part of his science experiments.
  • In "Big Trouble In Little Sanchez", Tiny Rick makes a drawing of Doc.

N

• Naked People Are Funny: In "M. Night Shaym-Aliens!", Rick figures out that he and Morty are being monitored by a race of aliens. The aliens also happen to be really uncomfortable with nudity, so Rick and Morty strip to have some privacy.
• Name and Name: Rick and Morty.
• Never My Fault:
  • Beth blames all of her failures on Jerry. After their separation in Season 3, she starts blaming it on her kids, and later, her dad.
  • Rick repeatedly uses his intelligence and/or alcoholism to absolve himself of responsibility for his actions. A particular example of the latter happens in "Vindicators 3: The Return of World Ender", where he refers to Drunk Rick (himself on a blackout-drunk bender) with third-person pronouns and acts like he's someone else completely.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Season 7th's promotional commercials showed a whole bunch of random adventures from different episodes. It turns out the majority of those shots were taken from just one episode alone.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Rick constantly encouraging Morty to "purge" in "Look Who's Purging Now?" causes Morty to go psycho and almost kill Rick.
  • Rick's overthrow of both the Council of Ricks and the Galactic Federation from "The Rickshank Redemption" gives Evil Morty and Tammy, respectively, the opportunity to take over what's left of each.
  • Several episodes showcase how Morty's misguided attempts to do good end up backfiring horribly. The massive death and destruction Fart causes after Morty frees him in "Mortynight Run" and the hostile snake civilization Morty accidentally uplifts in "Rattlestar Ricklactica" are particular examples.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: One of Rick's biggest Jerkass moves in season three was manipulating Beth and Jerry into getting a divorce. Even if he's right that they're bad for each other, he makes it clear the only reason he did it was to spite Jerry for wanting to turn him into the Federation. He and Beth have a heart-to-heart later on where he offers to clone her so the original can be free to explore the universe and her dreams. Come the Season Finale, he offhandedly says that if she were a clone he'd kill her for becoming self-aware, causing her to freak out and run to Jerry, disavowing Rick once and for all. Rick brings a shotgun to kill Jerry but admits he can't do it after seeing how he messed up.
• Nipple and Dimed: Lampshaded by Summer when a Powder Keg Crowd who are divided by their nipples ask Morty and Summer to show them theirs:
  Morty: [pulling up his shirt to show his nipples] We're neither. S-see?
  Summer: [Not pulling up her shirt] Yeah, take my word for it.
• No Accounting for Taste: Beth and Jerry. If they're the focus of an episode's plotline, it's probably about their struggling marriage. Deep down, they still care about each other, but there's so much resentment between them that the only reason they're still together at this point is for the sake of the kids. Well, that and Status Quo Is God. This finally becomes averted in Season 3: the two decide to separate and divorce at the beginning of the season, and while they do get back together by the end, they've both had significant Character Development in the meantime and give the impression that they won't be as miserable together anymore.
• No Dead Body Poops: Ruben's death causes such a buildup of fecal matter in his sphincter that it overloads the artificial barrier Rick built there, destroying the enlargement ray at the base of his colon.
• No Indoor Voice:
  • Mr. Meeseeks! (Look at him!)
  • The Cromulons, though it'd be a difficult task for a moon-sized talking head to take it down a notch.
• No More for Me:
  • Beth attempts to kiss Mr. Meeseeks just as he disappears. A waiter asks if she wants more wine, and she decides she's done.
  • In an alternate universe where chairs and people are reversed, a chair discards the rest of his booze after seeing Rick and Morty walking around.
• Nominal Hero: Rick is just barely a hero by him caring about his family, and there being even worse people.
• Non-Indicative Title: The family likes a show from an alternate reality called Ball Fondlers. It's basically just The A-Team, a peppy action show with no fondling of balls or even any innuendo. Rick does do a fondling motion with his hand when suggesting it to Morty and Summer, but that's it.
• Non-Standard Character Design: The characters in the "Strawberry Smiggles" commercial have regular-looking cartoon pupils instead of the weird squiggly things all the other characters have.
• Noodle Implements:
  • In "Auto-Erotic Assimilation", Rick tells Unity that he wants to perform a sex act involving a hang-glider, a crotchless Uncle Sam costume, and a football stadium full of redheads and men who look like his father. Becomes subverted when we get to see what these are used for shortly afterwards.
  • The plumbus is one of these, a result of the writers improvising an entire documentary of how it's made (involving other noodle implements as well like Schleem and a Grumbo).
• Noodle Incident:
  • In "Rick Potion #9", Rick has to figure out how to deal with a virus that turned the entire human race minus his family into nightmarish mutants. After a commercial break we see Rick and Morty returning to a perfectly restored neighborhood and Morty congratulates Rick for "finding the crazy solution like you always do." Then the two are killed by a bomb, and the real Rick and Morty arrive via a portal and take their place.
  • In "Wedding Squanchers", Birdperson tells Beth that he and Rick once fought in a vicious war, and are now considered terrorists by the Galactic Federation. However, he never says exactly what he and Rick did during that period.
  • Half of the clips in the opening sequence are these. Says Roiland at a ComicCon...
  "The idea with the opening credits is like there's three real episode clips, and then there's three completely fake made-up things every season, and we just love that you don't know what is what until the last episode, y'know?"
  • C-137 Rick's and Morty's adventure in "The Ricklantis Mixup." All we know is that Morty hooked up and likely had sex with a mermaid and wants to go back.
  • In the cold open for "Rickfending Your Mort" Morty made "receipts" for all the adventures Rick took him on in case he refuses to honor his "One Morty adventure for every ten Rick adventures" cards.
• No Such Thing as Alien Pop Culture: Averted. We get to see pop culture from other planets, other dimensions, you name it.
• Note to Self: In "Total Rickall", when Rick first discovers the mind-altering parasites trying to infiltrate the family, he writes the current number of family members on a piece of paper and tapes it to the wall. Whenever the parasites multiply and try to disguise themselves as new family members, Rick kills the likely suspect. The parasites beat this by implanting a new memory in which Rick wrote the number for a nonsensical reason rather than for a logical purpose, foiling that plan.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The ending of season 5 changes the possibilities that the series can move forward with, which is saying something considering that there's a very loose definition of what types of adventures and storylines that are prevented from happening in the first place. Evil Morty destroyed the Central Finite Curve that sealed off all the infinite universes where Rick is the smartest man in the universe from the rest of the multiverse and now opens up the possibilities for new villains and characters who can challenge Rick. The Citadel of Ricks has been destroyed, with an untold number of Ricks and Morties killed in the process. There's a subtle implication that portal technology may not be as reliable to use anymore and dimension hopping may not be possible. Finally, with Morty now fully aware of Rick's background, and the relationship the two have with each other won't be the same. This was then completely returned to Status Quo Is God in Season 6 Episode 6, where even Rick lamented that he was hoping to get a season, or at least a 3-episode story arc out of the changes.
• Not Helping Your Case: In "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind", when Rick is suspected of having killed several Ricks from other dimensions, he decides to act rude and unhelpful to the Council, then kills several Security Ricks in his escape.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Stated word-for-word and lampshaded:
    Evil Rick: We're not so different, you and I.
    Rick C-137: Uh yeah, duh!
  • Played straight and subverted with the Council of Ricks. Rick calls them all a bunch of sellouts but admits that, like him, they all can't resist tormenting Jerry. Similarly, Rick picks on Doofus Rick just as much as the Council Ricks do. The similarities end when the Council of Ricks marks off Mortys as their main resource and not as their respective grandsons, the moment evil Rick/Morty baffled that C-137 Rick!Prime actually loves his grandson cements this.
• No, You: When Jerry and Beth are packing away Rick's stuff, he tells them that they shouldn't be messing with it because it's beyond their reasoning. Jerry retorts "YOU'RE beyond our reasoning!", and Rick counters with "Takes one to know one!"
• Nuke 'em: In "Get Schwifty", the general constantly advocates nuking the Cromulons. When he finally manages it, it's about as effective as flicking embers into someone's beard.

O

• Obfuscating Stupidity: A strange example: Morty's irregular brainwaves literally obscure the normally distinctive brain emissions that would otherwise allow the numerous multiversal governing bodies to track the various alternate selves of the mad scientist. This is at least part of the reason that every Rick hangs out with a Morty if possible, essentially hiding someone else's intelligence by the former's stupidity.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Rick and Jerry very much act this way with each other, though to be fair, they probably wouldn't like each other anyway. The creators say that Rick hates Jerry due to circumstance as he blames Jerry for ruining Beth's life by impregnating her when she was only 17.
• Obvious Beta: invoked The simulated world in "M. Night Shaym-Aliens" has quite the number of bugs in it, to say the least.
• Odd Couple: Rick and Morty themselves.
• Of Corpse He's Alive: The episode "Rixty Minutes" has a fake trailer of a movie where a bunch of cats manipulate the corpse of their owner to convince people she's alive. She's still very obviously dead; with green soft tissues and a maggot infestation. Strangely enough, this is a sequel.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • In "Rick Potion #9", Rick gets this when he hears it's flu season (since the potion he gave Morty will spread like wildfire if combined with the flu virus), and Morty says this word-for-word twice.
  • "A Rickle in Time" had this, when 32 Ricks were attempting to fix 32 broken collars:
    16 Ricks: Now hand me that flat-head screwdriver.
    Other 16 Ricks: (in unison with above line) Now hand me that Phillips screwdriver.
    16 Ricks: Actually, make it a Phillips.
    Other 16 Ricks: (in unison with above line) Actually, make it a flat-head.
    (Time splits in half again, creating 32 new variants)
    All 64 Ricks: Ohhhhhh, shit.
  • Rick and everyone at the wedding reception in "The Wedding Squanchers" when Tammy reveals herself as a deep-cover agent for the Galactic Federation and has the building surrounded.
  • Morty has one of these in '"The Rickshank Redemption" When Rick is ranting about how he got rid of Jerry and the government because Jerry threatened to turn Rick in.
    Rick: Ohhh, it gets darker, Morty! Welcome to the darkest year of our adventures! First thing that's different? No more dad, Morty! He threatened to turn me into the government so I made him and the government go away!
    Morty: Ohhhh fuck...!
• Once a Season:
  • In-universe, in Planet Music, there's always one planet per season that protests the show and gets disqualified.
  • For the series as a whole it appears a movie-based episode. Inception for Season 1, The Purge for Season 2, and Ensemble Cast superhero movies such as The Avengers for Season 3.
  • Allusions to Interdimensional Cable, if not whole episodes devoted to it.
  • Fan favorite characters like Gearhead, Birdperson, Tammy and Mr. Poopybutthole have appeared at least once per season as well.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: In the episode "The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy", Jerry mentions in passing that he has wondered about having a vagina. Afterwards, Groupon reminds him on every occasion about his vagina fantasies, leading to Jerry proclaiming "I don't want to be known as the vagina guy."
• Only a Flesh Wound: Rick tries to invoke this in "Total Rickall" when he gets tired of playing Spot the Imposter, instead intending to shoot everyone in the shoulder so only the weaker parasites will die from their wounds. It doesn't pan out because, understandably, no one likes getting shot and the parasites manage to take his gun.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: You wouldn't expect this show to get so serious at times.
  • In "Auto Erotic Assimilation", Rick tries to kill himself after Unity tells him that his reckless and self-destructive nature only ends up causing the people around him to suffer. The DVD commentary to the episode reveals that the chemical he drank before doing it was meant to synchronize all his parallel selves - He wasn't only trying to kill himself, but also all other versions of himself in other dimensions.
  • When Morty almost gets raped by King Jellybean in "Meeseeks and Destroy", Rick figures out what happened, and proceeds to murder the king with a single gunshot.
  • Beth and Jerry found out about their miserable lives without each other in "Rixty Minutes", and realizing how good they have it together after all.
  • Rick turning himself in "The Wedding Squanchers" after overhearing the others talking about him and realizing how much of a burden he is to them. When calling the Galactic Federation to share his location, he asks for his family to be able to have a safe life on Earth.
• Open-Minded Parent:
  • Tammy's parents are incredibly accepting of the fact that their high school daughter is marrying a middle-aged alien. It helps that they're actually robots to help her cover identity.
  • Beth is usually pretty okay with Morty and Summer getting involved with Rick's antics. She also defends Morty's use of a sex robot when Jerry wants to intervene, saying that would mess up his development.
• Over-the-Top Roller Coaster: The episode "The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy" centers on a roller coaster that exists in a theme park protected by an immortality field, meaning no one in the park can die as long as the field is operational. Aside from the fact this means the coaster can be incredibly outlandishly dangerous, it has an added threat: the apex of the highest peak actually barely extends past the immortality field, a fact utilized for an assassination attempt.
• Overnight Age-Up: Male Gazorpians reach adulthood in one day. Being half-human, Morty Jr. goes through typical human stages of growing up, including teen rebellion, in that time span. By The Stinger of the same episode, Morty Jr. has grey hair and has written a bestselling novel, whereas none of the other characters have aged nearly so far.
• Overly Long Gag:
  • The "Rick and Morty forever and forever, a hundred years" moment at the end of the pilot goes on for over a minute.
  • "WHY DID YOU EVEN ROPE ME INTO THIS??" "CUZ HE ROPED ME INTO THIS!!" "WELL, HIM OVER THERE, HE ROPED ME INTO THIS!!" "WELL HE ROPED ME INTO THIS!!"
  • The cereal commercial in "Rixty Minutes".
  • The fake door commercial, enough that Morty has to ask Rick to not change the channel, and then gives up on it himself.
  • Personal space!
  • In the first episode of season 1, Rick goes on a rant saying Rick and Morty will go on for "a hundred years". 3 years and 120 days later, when the first episode of season 3 premiered, Rick goes on another rant and mentions they've got "97 years" left to go.

P

• Papa Wolf: Rick may be an incredibly flawed individual with practically no regard for the lives or well-being of others, but there's one moral misstep he will not forgive you for: messing with his grandkids.
  • Also, when Beth and Jerry disagree or fight in front of Rick, he echoes this trope by typically taking his daughter's side, belittling Jerry in the process.
  • Jerry is a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass with extra Moron and a side of Butt-Monkey who will field any Idiot Ball that is hit anywhere near him, but when his family is threatened, he can step up to the plate to keep them safe.
• Paranoia Fuel: In-Universe for Rick in The Stinger of "M. Night Shaym-Aliens" when he bursts into Morty's room drunk and, after an out of character moment of praise, pulls a knife on him and demands to know if he's still inside a simulation.
• Parents as People: Both Jerry and Beth often show concern for their kids and the effect Rick's antics can have on them, however, they are continuously hindered by their own psychological problems and their failing marriage.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: The Galactic Federation is an intergalactic Empire controlled by one alien species that turns the worlds it conquers into Police States.
• Perfectly Cromulent Word: Morty protests that "schwifty" isn't an actual word.
• Person as Verb:
  • After inflicting Body Horror on the whole world, Rick says that he "Cronenberged" the place.
  • When Summer is screwed out the business by her boss, she states that she's been Zuckerberged.
• Pet the Dog: Rick is a foul-mouthed, abusive asshole scientist who's rude to just about everybody, but he has quite a few moments of this (especially with his daughter Beth and grandkids Morty and Summer, but even sometimes with his son-in-law Jerry and other people as well) that hint at a Hidden Heart of Gold.
• Piss-Take Rap: "Flu Hatin' Rap" from "Rick Potion #9".
• Planet of Hats:
  • In "Rixty Minutes", there's a universe where Earth is populated by corn people, and one where it's populated by hamsters living in human butts.
  • All Zigerians are scammers who are prudish towards nudity.
  • Several alternate universe versions of Rick and Morty in "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind", including a cowboy version, multiple alien versions, a robot version, and Cronenberg Rick and Morty.
  • In "The Wedding Squanchers," when searching for a replacement home planet, the Smiths happen upon a large Earth-like planet where everything — strawberries, flowers, birds, mountains, ants, and even atoms — is on a cob. Upon this revelation, Rick hastily makes the family leave and nixes relocating there, for reasons never explained.
  • In "Edge of Tomorty", Rick travels to several different dimensions: one where the whole world is fascist, another inhabited by shrimp-people (which is also fascist), a third world of teddy bear people (which, once again, is fascist), and a fourth where everyone is bug-people (which isn't fascist!), including wasp versions of the Smith family.
• Pocket Dimension: In "The Ricks Must be Crazy", Rick's car is revealed to be powered by one. One of the inhabitants created his own, and one of its inhabitants, in turn, discovered his own.
• Political Overcorrectness: In "Something Ricked This Way Comes", when Rick tells Morty that the microscope he got from Summer's boss will make him retarded, Morty tell him that he probably shouldn't use that word because, even though he was speaking objectively and the microscope would have literally made him mentally retarded, it would still offend "powerful groups who feel like they're doing the right thing". Rick's response? "Well, that's retarded."
• Poorly Disguised Pilot: Parodied at the end of the second episode. Rick suggests that the world populated by dogs "could be developed into a very satisfying project for people of all ages", and that he would watch it "for at least eleven minutes a pop".
• Poor Man's Porn: While living with the tree people, Morty was without access to internet porn and instead used an extra curvy piece of driftwood.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: At the end of "Meeseeks and Destroy" Rick makes an Arsenio Hall reference, making Beth and Jerry laugh, but then Beth says she doesn't get it, as she's too young.
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: Many episode titles are puns of other works, like "The ABCs of Beth" being a pun on The ABCs of Death.
• Potty Failure: Happens to Summer twice: First in "A Rickle in Time", out of the shock of Morty knocking out Rick, and again in "Total Rickall" during the elevator flashback, though both aren't explicitly seen, but mentioned by Morty the first time and Summer the second time.
• The Power of Love: Played with in "Morty's Mind Blowers". One of the memories is of Morty being possessed by a demon worm, which Rick, Beth, and Summer discover can be coaxed out of Morty by telling him they love him. However, they can't help but crack jokes at Morty's expense as the spectacle becomes more disgusting and drawn out, leading to the Power wavering and creating extended discomfort for Morty.
• Powered Armor:
  • In "Lawnmower Dog", Snuffles builds walking, humanoid exoskeletons for himself and all the neighborhood dogs, due to becoming an Uplifted Animal with genius intellect by way of a helmet Rick invented to make him smarter. Models with yellow Tron Lines are combat-capable, sporting shoulder guns; whereas blue denotes civilian.
  • In "Look Who's Purging Now", Rick and Morty have Summer send each of them a set of this so they can defend themselves from the Purgers trying to kill them. Unfortunately, Morty hits his Rage Breaking Point and gets a little kill-happy with his, forcing Rick to knock him out. Rick then lets Arthricia borrow Morty's armor, and the two of them use it to slaughter the rich people who orchestrate the yearly Purges.
• Prison Rape:
  • In "Meeseeks and Destroy", Rick and Morty are about to be sent to Giant Prison. Rick bemoans that, if someone drops the soap, it will land on them and crush their spines. It would be really easy to rape them, then.
  • The fourth-dimensional lifeform in "A Rickle in Time" tells Rick, Morty, and Summer that they're going to Time Prison.
    "You know what they do to third-dimensional lifeforms in Time Prison? Same thing they do in regular prison, only forever!"
• The Problem with Licensed Games: In-universe, lampshaded in Rick and Morty's Rushed Licensed Adventure. It's right there in the title! The characters frequently complain about not being able to perform certain simple actions because the developers were too lazy to implement them (The game is actually not that bad for a free-to-play Flash game).
• Product Placement:
  • Blatantly lampshaded in "Total Rickall". A flashback shows Rick walking into the living room with his arms full of Nintendo 3DSs, rambling on about how they can take advantage of the Walmart sale to turn a profit and sell them for more money because they were all the limited edition The Legend of Zelda versions. In the end, he turns right to the camera and yells "Nintendo! Send me free stuff!" Apparently, Justin Roiland did this once in real life.
  • Done again in The Rickshank Rickdemption with the Mulan Szechuan sauce. This caused such an out-of-universe demand for it from the fans that McDonald's actually brought it back in a limited capacity.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality:
  • The collateral damage wreaked by Rick's schemes, whether implied or shown outright, is often absolutely gruesome in its sheer body count, but receives no serious repercussions for it, week after week. He's destroyed an entire reality just through incompetence, and that's probably not the first, and he stated that he once made the same mistake Beth did (in which she accidentally shot a genuine family friend whom she thought was an evil parasite) on "a planetary scale".
    • In general, Rick does the same things (or worse) than the people the show paints as villains without it being ever really relevant. He dislikes government for how controlling they are, yet he rules his family with an iron fist and severe gaslighting. He hates fascists, yet he considers himself a superior being with no issue to kiill those he deems "inferiors" (which, as stated above, includes several genocides). The galactic government keeping prisoners into stasis and feeding them a virtual reality was considered crossing a line, it's then discovered Rick does the same to people with no apparent reason. Rapists and slavers are considered utterly despicable when they are secondary characters, yet Rick is both things. And the list goes on.
  • Averted and played with in "Mortynight Run". After Rick sells a gun to Krombopulos Michael for an assassination, Morty argues that's as bad as pulling the trigger. Morty then goes and tries to save the life of Krombopulos Michael's target, causing hundreds of casualties as a result. Rick doesn't let him hear the end of it.
• Punch a Wall: Jerry does so after having to say goodbye to Doofus Rick.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Parodied by Scary Terry, the "legally-safe knock off" of Freddy Krueger living deep in Mr. Goldenfold's dreams: not only is terrorizing people literally just his day job, after he's done he goes home to a perfectly normal-looking suburban house, complete with an equally-scary wife and infant son.