Written by: Sophie Taylor | Designer
Content warning: mentions of domestic violence
Rick and Morty. Since its initial release in 2013, averaging 1.52 million viewers per episode, it is a cartoon loved by many. Its latest season, season seven, has created a lot of buzz since people started realizing that in this upcoming season, Rick and Morty would be voiced by different people. The show was created by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland and Roiland has voiced both Rick and Morty for the past six seasons.
In May 2020, Roiland was charged with two felony counts, one for domestic battery and one for false imprisonment, from an incident with a woman he was dating. After these charges, Roiland was dropped from Rick and Morty and other shows such as Solar Opposites.
Now, with the man who voiced the two main characters in his show being fired, many are asking what happens next? As people began to find out Adult Swim and Hulu severed ties with him, they began to question who would replace him. Turns out, we wouldn’t have an answer until the seventh season aired Oct. 15 of this year.
The search for the new voice actors took about six months, with thousands of applicants auditioning. Scott Marder, who helped Dan Harmon in the selection process, said that finding the right person to voice Rick took so long that they considered going global in their search.
“No one sounded exactly like Rick. It was tricky,” he said in an interview with Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter.
It was also important to note that the voice actors were chosen so that fans couldn’t recognize the change in voices, unlike Roiland’s character, Korvo, who in the show was shot with a “voice fixing ray” altering his voice.
After the voices were revealed, congratulations are due to Ian Cardoni, the new voice of Rick, and Harry Belden, the new voice of Morty. Fans have already started making comparisons between the old voices and the new ones; some have said they welcome the new takes on the characters, but others say that the “improvisational tone” that Justin Roiland brought to the characters just isn’t there anymore.
Many fans are also upset that Sean Kelly, a voice actor who gained a lot of recognition for sounding exactly like Rick and Morty, was not offered the role of both Rick and Morty, similar to how Roiland played them both. Many comments on TikTok videos regarding the voice change are all about Kelly. Before the release of the new season, comments were begging for Kelly to be chosen.
Even now, comments say Kelly was robbed and still deserves the part. As more episodes and seasons are released, fans will have to decide: is the show good enough to keep watching after such a big change, or is it not?
Contact the author at howldesigner@wou.edu
