This should probably be your first clue that something is a bit off.
"We're going on an adventure, Mordi! Classic Reek and Mordi Bushland Adventure! We're gonna go for a drive! Big old drive, Mordi! EIGHT HOUR DRIVE! Mordi, we've gotta go get me cube! We gotta go to Bendigo to get me green cube! We're gonna go to Bendigo, Mordi!"
In 2017, Rick and Morty fans were blindsided by the unexpected premiere of Season 3 on April Fools. The year after that, they waited with bated breath, as apparently Season 4 hadn't even been ordered yet. 2018's April Fools came, and... they got the premiere of FLCL Alternative. But then came a new Rick and Morty episode! Except this one looked a tad different...
Bushworld Adventures is a pastiche of the show itself, created by Michael Cusack (now of Smiling Friends and Koala Man fame), depicting a surreal take on Rick & Morty (now called "Reek and Mordi") — that being what if the entire Sanchez family were bogans? Just 11 minutes long, the short features weird animation, and a lot of insanity that is simultaneously both more mundane and weirder than your average Rick and Morty episode, as Reek and Mordi set out on a perilous journey to Bendigo to get Reek's Cube. Of course, as a result, it's either non-canon... or given the nature of the main show, maybe just another alternate universe.
The short can be viewed online via YouTube
or via the Adult Swim website.
WE'RE GOING TO BENDIGO TO GET ME TROPES, MORDI!
- Adaptational Badass: Jerry the Bush Wizard. Not a phrase you likely ever expected to see. He even has actual magical powers.
- Adaptational Dumbass: More like "Adaptational Insanity" but this version of Reek shows little if any real intelligence and more insanity and delusional behavior.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Reek threatens to shoot Mordi purely because he's sick of his whining. That's a pretty big step from the Rick who once avenged Morty by killing an attempted rapist.
- Adaptation Name Change: According to the description provided for the short, the duo are called Reek and Mordi, ensuring their names are pronounced exactly like in the actual show even when the characters speak with an Australian accent
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Summer and Beth are shown to be trying to protect Mordi from Reek in the beginning of the episode. Whereas in the original show, neither of them really cared much what Reek did with Mordi.
- All for Nothing: After the many misadventures and pitfalls the pair negotiate to get to Bendigo, they finally arrive...but by this time Reek has completely forgotten about his cube and had convinced himself that it was Mordi who wanted to go to Bendigo.
- Ax-Crazy: Reek is more unhinged here than usual.
- Big "SHUT UP!": When Reek threatens Mordi with his gun:Mordi: (unnerved) Why are you holdin' [your gun] to my head, Reek?
Reek: Mordi, shut the fack up! I'm goin' to kill you today, Mordi! You're actually gonna die! I'm gonna blow yer head off!
Mordi: Aaaw, Reek, please! If this is a prank, it's not funny, a'right? Could you just stop the car and let me out? It's actually startin' to scare me a lot.
Reek: SHUT THE FACK UP, MORTY! SHUT THE FACK UP!!! I'm so tired of you! All you do is whinge and complain! It's really gettin' on my nerves, Mordi! - Canon Foreigner: Everyone who isn't part of the Sanchez Family is one, though special mention goes to Uncle Barry, who the second half of the episode focuses on.
- Deranged Animation: A Michael Cusack trademark. Notice how none of characters stay on-model from shot-to-shot.
- Didn't We Use This Joke Already?: When Reek casually kills the gas station clerk:Mordi: Oh, my god! You just killed him, Reek!
Reek: He's a bureaucrat, Mordi! I-I don't respect him.
Mordi: ...Uhm, Reek, I think you said that before. It's out of context here.
Reek: NAAAH! - Disproportionate Retribution: The petrol station shop attendant is holding up Mordi by making a bunch of offers, so Reek shoots him in the head.
- Dull Surprise: Reek's response to meeting the cave goblins is an unimpressed "Oh yeah?"
- Dysfunctional Family: Even moreso than the original. Beth is physically abusive to Jerry and she hates Reek, though the fact Jerry's more friendly with Reek as she tries to protect Mordi from him might explain it. Jerry likes to prank Mordi while he's suffering from a snake bite. The family also stands out in the middle of the street screaming at each other rather than bottling up their issues.
- Epic Fail: Reek refuels his car with diesel by accident, and he killed the only person around who might've been able to help fix that.
- Flanderization: Of both the main characters. Reek is notably crazier and more abusive towards Mordi than usual, for example, and even threatens to kill Mordi and himself early on.
- Gonk: Everyone gets hit with the ugly stick to some degree due to the animation, but Beth in particular becomes a stereotypical middle-aged, lower classes Australian housewife.
- Groin Attack: Poor Mordi's penis gets bitten by a snake while he's peeing. Fortunately, he apparently hasn't been poisoned.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Uncle Barry's normal sized wife is only as tall as his knee.
- Implausible Deniability: The bush cave goblin blatantly and casually denies putting fire ants on Mordi's hand despite it being very obvious that he did.(the goblin is shown placing fire ants on Mordi's hand)
Mordi: Ow! He put fire ants on my hand! (shows fire ants crawling all over his hand)
Goblin: Nah, I didn't. - Incest Subtext: When Mordi gets bit on the penis by a snake, Reek seems weirdly okay with sucking the poison out of his penis.
- Informed Attribute: There's never any evidence of Reek's usual intelligence. He seems less like a mad scientist than he does a legitimately crazy old man. He claims to have used science to turn his portal gun into a real gun, but that could easily have been nonsense.
- Land Down Under: The entire short takes place in Australia, with aggressively Australian dialogue. No inter-dimensional or interstellar journeying, it's just people with Aussie accents bumming around in the bush. The "Bush Dimension" is literally just the off-road outback. The intro makes this blatant with everything in it being entirely mundane scenes. Well, aside from the kangaroo boxing and the giant magpie, but still...
- Large Ham: Australian Reek is very loud and theatrical.
- Laser-Guided Karma: When Uncle Barry starts acting out because of his "dementia", he picks up Reek and starts choking him. Given that he threatened to pull a Murder-Suicide on Mordi earlier and murdered an innocent clerk for no good reason, he's utterly undeserving of Mordi rescuing him.
- Murder-Suicide: Reek threatens to do this by blowing Mordi's head off and then driving off a cliff. Fortunately he's interrupted when he notices that the car needs more petrol.
- Mythology Gag: The Deranged Animation and Reek suggesting oral sex as a solution to a problem are both evocative of The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti, the predecessor of Reek and Mordi.
- Production Foreshadowing: A big yellow smiley face floats by the screen in the first few seconds of the opening. That face would later become the Smiling Friends' insignia, two years later.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The entire trip to Bendigo was apparently entirely pointless, as Reek seems to have completely forgotten why they went there in the first place.
- Suck Out the Poison: Mordi gets bitten on the penis by a snake, and Reek offers to suck out the venom. Mordi refuses, on the grounds that it would be weird for him to get his penis sucked by his grandfather. Afterwards, Jerry suggests using a Witchetty grub for that purpose, but then it turns out to have been a prank all along and that there was no venomous snake.
- Swapped Roles: The dynamic between Reek, Beth, and Jerry is flipped on its head, as Beth hates Reek, yet Jerry is on friendly terms with him.
- Troll: Reek and Jerry conspire to mess with Mordi by convincing him that putting a Witchetty grub on his penis would suck out any poison he got from a snake bite.note
- Villainous Friendship: In a reverse of their canon relationship, Jerry is shown to be on good terms with Reek.
- Villains Want Mercy: When Reek is getting crushed to death by Uncle Barry because of his "dementia", he desperately begs Mordi (who he had been a dick to up to this point) to help him.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Mordi getting bit on the penis by a snake is overlooked after Reek and Jerry pull a prank on him.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Beth and Summer give Reek the riot act when he tries to rope Mordi into another adventure. Unfortunately, Mordi is too submissive to not go along with him anyway.Beth: HE'S NOT COMING WITH YOU, LEAVE HIM ALONE!
Summer: (crying) I'm calling the police, I'm calling the police.
Beth: HE'S SICK OF IT! HE'S SICK OF THE ADVENTURES!
