Much like any adult cartoon featuring a dysfunctional family or group of people, Rick and Morty likes to have a go at the serious and established fantasy and sci-fi franchises. The show itself is one but its clear trademarks are the meta jokes and the irreverent parodies and caricatures of other fandoms.

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Needless to say, Rick and Morty has established its own cartoon tradition of parodies and sometimes even combines them in a single episode. Not only does this provide ice-breakers from the rather toxic dynamics between Rick and Morty (or between the Smiths) but it also gives the characters a fun new playground, starting with:

THE AVENGERS/SAW

Rick and Morty with the Vindicators.

For some reason, Dan Harmon regards "The Vindicators" as the worst episode of Rick and Morty. It's a jab at the immensely successful and popular Marvel Cinematic Universe today and makes it so that the Vindicators, which is the spoof version of the Avengers, are not who they pretend to be.

As a result, Rick goes Jigsaw on them and apes the Saw movies where he places the Vindicators under a deadly torture gauntlet. It's a dark take on mainstream superheroes and how hypocritical they can get under the right circumstances.

MAD MAX

rick and morty haemorrhage

It's hard to find a post-apocalypse fandom in the 21st century that wasn't inspired by Mad Max. It was a trendsetter and obviously a low-hanging fruit that Rick and Morty grabbed. It just so happens that there was a parallel dimension in the show where the whole Earth did turn into Australia during a drought... permanently.

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The references were blatant enough and there was even a bootleg version of Immortan Joe from the most recent Mad Max movie, Fury Road. Of course, it's only mandatory that the show makes fun of Mad Max's conventions.

ALIEN

It took a while for Rick and Morty to actually adapt the Alien franchise's tropes into its own self-contained stories but the show managed in its fourth season. The whole "Promortyus" episode in Season 4, Part 2 was essentially a nod to the Ridley Scott films.

Even the title was a wordplay of Prometheus, a supposed prequel of Alien. Meanwhile, the signature Alien mini-mascot, the face-hugger is there and was handled well in all its disgusting and invasive splendor.

INCEPTION/A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

Scary Terry in Rick and Morty

Rick and Morty has already flexed in its penchant for dual parodies in an episode as early as Season 1, Episode 2, "Lawnmower Dog." It's where both Rick and Morty try to invade Mr. Goldenfold's dreams to incept an idea that he needs to make Morty pass in Math... because coercing or extorting him was out of the question.

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Anyway, it was a hilarious nod to Christopher Nolan's Inception but with a twist; both Rick and Morty went way too deep into the dream and ended up meeting more verbally ghetto and less successful mockery of Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street. They ought to include Jason Voorhees in the future.

JURASSIC PARK/FANTASTIC VOYAGE

Anatomy Park Rick and Morty

Season 1 is chock full of parodies that episode following "Lawnmower Dog" is also another parody episode. This time around, Rick and Morty took shots at the Jurassic Park fandom except the park was replaced with a dying human being.

That also makes it a double whammy where the episode also incorporated elements of Fantastic Voyage which is a film about a futuristic surgery that uses miniaturized humans instead of regular-sized surgeons to cure the affliction. As usual, it's a more scatological take on both sci-fi movies.

TERMINATOR

Yet another low-hanging fruit for the Rick and Morty franchise would be the Terminator series where murderous robots travel back in time to change the future. Rick and Morty explored this concept with flying colors in the episode "Rattlestar Ricklactica."

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The catch is that the robots were replaced with intelligent snakes from another dimension. They wanted to either preserve or kill Morty in order to undo or change what happened to the snake civilization in the future. No need to analyze it, just chalk it up to time travel being confusing.

THE PURGE

Look Who's Purging Now Rick and Morty

The Purge has always been an interesting big idea in Hollywood that could have been explored more gracefully. Rick and Morty surely did explore this potential but it was more comically rather than gracefully.

Either way, there was an episode dedicated to The Purge called "Look Who's Purging Now." It oddly involved Amish beast-people, making their purges more up-close and personal. Turns out, it was a therapeutic experience for Morty.

OCEAN'S SERIES

Heist movies don't get many parodies (unless you count the Fast and Furious franchise) which was why it was one of the most memorable joke episodes of Rick and Morty. The whole episode is just Rick revealing heist and double-crossing schemes on top of schemes which were never mentioned prior so the viewers will know they're a surprise.

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Moreover, the whole recruitment of old colleagues and obscure friends perfectly sums up how ridiculous heist movies are, especially the Ocean'series; it has spawned four films in total where they do nothing but steal and introduce themselves suavely before thefts and betrayals.

DOCTOR WHO

Rick & Morty Season 4 Episode Titles Mock Alien, Star Wars & Other Sci-Fi Movies

As soon as Rick Sanchez pulls out his portal gun and reveals to Morty that there are a limitless number of parallel universes to Morty, it became clear what the cartoon wanted to be. It's akin to Doctor Who where each episode is a different place or period.

Except in Rick and Morty, no time travel is involved because it has way too many paradoxes. Still, one cannot deny just how similar Rick is to a Timelord who, in its own show, is pretty much an omnipresent being capable of being everywhere.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Finally, here's Rick and Morty's second major inspiration for a premise. The whole show is basically a bastardization of Back to the Future except it deals in parallel universes instead of time travel... and also Rick is an alcoholic and neurotic Time Lord from Doctor Who.

Even the names of the protagonists are awfully familiar-- Doc and Marty from Back to the Future, do those names ring any bells? Regardless, Rick and Morty just seems to be getting started, there are bound to be more parodies on the way.

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