Rick and Morty Writer

Ridley describes drifting through school before trying stand-up, partly because it let him write jokes, perform them, and get an immediate response. In Chicago, he learned alongside comics including Kumail Nanjiani, T.J. Miller, Pete Holmes, Kyle Kinane, and Matt Braunger. He later moved to Los Angeles to make videos and meet the creators behind Channel 101.

Ridley explains that Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab started Channel 101 as a way to get their work in front of an audience after projects failed to get made. At monthly screenings, audiences voted on which shows returned, creating pressure to improve. Ridley says working among ambitious peers helped him grow and eventually led to work with friends on television.

Rick and Morty’s writers draw on familiar science fiction, television, and film, then combine influences into new stories. Ridley describes Total Rickall as blending an idea from Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a sci-fi explanation and a clip-show structure. For the pickle episode, the team discussed survival stories such as 127 Hours and Gravity as a starting point for Rick solving a problem without his usual tools.

Ridley says visual references and character design help give the show’s technology and alien worlds distinct flavor. The writers’ room debated whether the Meeseeks should be tiny or life-size, a choice that changed how the characters and their scenes would work. Animation revisions could also produce very different versions of scenes, though repeated rewrites were costly and sometimes left the team dissatisfied.

Ridley was developing original shows and considering videos about climate change, while noting that writing a pilot from scratch is difficult. His advice is to make work for yourself and take the risk of pursuing an idea you have not seen before. He credits Rick and Morty’s appeal to a mix of Dan Harmon’s writing, Justin Roiland’s voice, recognizable family dynamics, and the artists’ visual work.