‘Rick and Morty’ Mocks Warner Bros. Discovery for Having ‘Not the Good Kind’ of Reality TV

Note: This story contains spoilers from “Rick and Morty” Season 7, Episode 4.

“Rick and Morty” took a swipe at its parent company Warner Bros. Discovery during Sunday night’s new episode, noting that a planet devoted to suicide and depression was like “their whole planet was bought by Discovery.”

Like all episodes of “Rick and Morty,” Season 7’s “That’s Amorte” requires some explanation. The episode opened with Rick (Ian Cardoni) serving his family delicious spaghetti as part of a new weekly tradition. But because this is a show about a nihilistic super-genius mad scientist, that spaghetti can’t just be noodles and tomato sauce. It actually comes from a planet where people’s insides turn to spaghetti after they die by suicide.

Once Morty (Harry Belden) tried to right his grandfather’s ethical wrongs, the episode really got out of hand. Soon after Morty learned about the source of his delicious dinner, “Spaghetti World” turned into a den of depression as world leaders tried to encourage citizens to end their lives in the name of profiting off their scrumptious deaths. At one point, Rick gave Morty a tour of this new and far bleaker world, which replaced its bridge guardrails with spaghetti strainers, lets terrible therapists regain their licenses for free and has somehow dyed its sun “institutional gray.”

“Oh and for TV, wall-to-wall reality television, but not the good kind,” Rick tells his grandson. “It’s like their whole planet was bought by Discovery.”

Immediately after, Morty said, “Jesus Christ, this is depressing.”

“That’s definitely what they’re going for,” Rick responded.

“Rick and Morty” is no stranger to making jabs at Warner Bros. Discovery. For example, in Season 6’s “Full Meta Jackrick,” Rick fretted that the “meta radiation” of the story-focused episode would harm the duo.

“Our credibility is being permanently eroded. Every second we spend here is the equivalent of 10 ‘Space Jam’ cameos,” Rick said in the episode, a nod to Rick and Morty’s much-discussed appearance in “Space Jam: A New Legacy.” But the Discovery jab is the first time the series has specifically joked about its parent company, rather than merely joking about its own role in the WBD universe.

Because how long it takes for new seasons of animated series to be made, Season 7 is likely the first installment of “Rick and Morty” to be written in the wake of the merger. In April 2022, WarnerMedia merged with Discovery to become Warner Bros. Discovery. The Adult Swim original has been repeatedly highlighted by the corporation as being one of its most successful series.

New episodes of “Rick and Morty” Season 7 premiere on Adult Swim Sundays at 11/10c p.m.

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