‘Rick and Morty’ Creator Dan Harmon Tells Us Whether Evil Morty Was Inspired by Trump

“Political thoughts were circling all of us,” Harmon tells TheWrap

Evil Morty on "Rick and Morty"

“Rick and Morty” brought back Evil Morty in a recent episode, leading some fans to wonder whether the installment of the Adult Swim series was inspired by Donald Trump’s recent presidential run.

The seventh episode of Season 3, entitled “The Ricklantis Mixup,” featured the villainous iteration of one of the title characters, who waged a surprisingly successful political campaign within the Citadel.

Given that the power-obsessed Evil Morty delivered debate speeches that appealed to the working class, was Trump on the writers’ minds while they were creating the episode?

“There couldn’t have been a Trump parallel except in the sense that the campaigning was happening while we were in the writers room,” co-creator Dan Harmon told TheWrap. “So political thoughts were circling all of us, but we were trying to craft more of a timeless story there, like Robert Redford in ‘The Candidate.’ Just any kind of political City Hall thriller story there.”

Harmon admitted that the “Rick and Morty” team wasn’t always certain about how to bring back Evil Morty, who previously appeared in Season 1 of the series that was co-created by Justin Roiland.

“Early on, and I can’t remember when, I think it was me who was pushing…” Harmon said before pausing and adding, “I feel like I don’t want to show how the sausage is made, because then people are going to be like, ‘What do you mean, you’re making it up?’”

He continues about Evil Morty: “There was a decision at one point that was, like, ‘This guy could just be a guy who ends the story this way. Or we could connect these dots and continue forward.’ That’s the tough thing with Evil Morty — what do I say that’s not either spoiling something or, even worse, revealing that we don’t think about it enough.”

“Rick and Morty” airs Sundays at 10/9c on Adult Swim.

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