Rick Sanchez, a depressed, alcoholic, abusive, madman (who also happens to be a genius scientist with the ability to travel through dimensions) returns to his daughter Beth's life after two decades of being silent between the two. He finds her married to an incompetent, pathetic man named Jerry, and the couple has two teenage kids. Summer, the oldest girl, is a rebellious teen looking to have more friends at school, and Morty, the youngest child and a boy, is an anxious, quiet, and sweet kid. Rick makes Morty his sidekick and takes him on hilarious Interdimensional adventures, causing poor Morty to become steadily more miserable due to Rick's insane, abusive, and careless additude.
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After domestic violence and misconduct allegations became public in January 2023, Adult Swim publicly cut ties with Justin Roiland, who had voiced both Rick and Morty since the series began in 2013. Dan Harmon stayed on as sole showrunner, and the show was recast for season seven, which premiered later that year with new actors stepping into the roles.
Harmon and Roiland have admitted there's a huge, detailed backstory for Rick worked out behind the scenes that fans will probably never see in full. They've said they deliberately only drip-feed small pieces of it through the show, because they think the mystery is funnier and more interesting than a full explanation would be.
Keep an eye on the background during any of the show's big interdimensional or portal-hopping episodes, there's a small pink and blue alien creature that the animators have snuck into pretty much every single one of them as a running visual gag for eagle-eyed fans.
In episode 6 of Season 1, the drunk jock that D.A. Sinclair kidnaps is voiced by Justin Roiland, the co-creator and voice of Rick Sanchez himself. It's an easy one to miss since the character barely appears, but the voice is unmistakable once you know to listen for it.
