BY: ETHAN CHUN/ STAFF WRITER
On Sept. 25, 2023, a trailer for a new season of the beloved adult animated series ”Rick and Morty” was released. Though fans were excited for its return, they were quick to notice a major change: the voices of the two main characters sounded a bit different.
Since the show’s premiere in 2013, the titular characters were voiced by Justin Roiland, the series’ co-creator. However, on Oct. 15, 2023, when ‘Rick and Morty’ made its official return to Adult Swim, the characters were voiced by Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden. This change was announced on Jan. 24, 2023, when Marie Moore, the former vice president of communications for Adult Swim said, “Adult Swim has ended its association with Justin Roiland.”
This decision was announced nearly two weeks after an NBC News article that explained: “’Rick and Morty’ co-creator Justin Roiland faces felony domestic violence charges,” was released. The article revealed that Roiland had been charged with “one felony count of domestic battery with corporal injury and one felony count of false imprisonment by menace, violence, fraud and/or deceit.”
In the following days, Roiland would also be let go from other projects. Hulu dropped Roiland from the shows “Solar Opposites,” which he co-created and starred in, as well as “Koala Man,” in which he was an executive producer and voice actor. Roiland also resigned from the video game studio Squanch Games, a company he co-created.
The domestic violence charges would eventually be dropped in March. However, Roiland’s reputation would remain ruined due to sexual harassment allegations, announced in the days following the initial domestic violence charges, as well as recent sexual assault and grooming allegations.
On Feb. 9, 2023, reports from multiple women who had worked with Roiland stated that he would make frequent unwanted sexual comments about his sex life towards them, as well as making unwanted advancements towards female employees over text messages. Roiland’s behavior got so bad that after an instance of alleged sexual harassment, Cartoon Network launched an investigation into Roiland.
The most recent allegations made against Roiland detail sexually explicit conversations made with young fans of the show, as well as a sexual assault allegation. Of the 11 people who shared messages with Roiland, three of the people were minors at the time the online conversations occurred.
Despite Roiland being let go from ‘Rick and Morty,’ the show still airs. Contrastingly, Roiland’s absence seems to have impacted fans and critics, who have given the most recent season the lowest reviews the show has ever received. At this time, the first six seasons of ‘Rick and Morty’ have an average rating of 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, and an average audience score of 87 percent. Season seven currently has 73 percent from critics and an audience score of 35 percent. On IMDB, season seven has the second worst-rated episode of the series.
Roiland’s departure from the show came at a time when viewership and support for the show had already been declining. This decline was present while Roiland was still a part of the show. Previous seasons four, five, and six were already unpopular with fans, so complaints about the qualities of the show affected by Roiland’s absence only echo these sentiments. With only eight more episodes of season seven left to air, only time will tell how much Roiland’s absence affects the show.