But all the former Roiland characters ring much closer to his performances than, say, the Simpson family does in modern episodes where Dan Castellaneta and Julie Kavner are in their 60s and 70s. It’s possible that true obsessives might notice very slight differences in intonation on certain words or phrases. Poopybutthole, and they sound more or less exactly as they always have. Within minutes, we’ve heard a lot from Morty, Rick, and Smith family friend Mr. It’s almost as if Harmon and the creative team want to reassure fans that the rest of the voice cast is still in place, and that all will be well. The new season opens with a scene at the Smith family dinner table where Beth (Sarah Chalke), Jerry (Chris Parnell), and Summer (Spencer Grammer) do most of the talking.

And Rick and Morty enters its own post-Roiland era this weekend with the launch of it seventh season. Solar Opposites returned in August with actor Dan Stevens replacing Roiland as the voice of its lead alien, Korvo. The allegations were enough to get Roiland dropped from any active involvement on both his Hulu series Solar Opposites and Rick and Morty itself. Justin Roiland is, unfortunately, very real, and has been accused of domestic abuse and sexual assault over the past year. It was such a note-perfect recreation of the tone and cadence of Rick’s voice that I began to wonder if Justin Roiland existed at all, or if he was just a fictional alter ego Harmon created while he had a lot of time on his hands during his Community absence. (“Rixty Minutes,” one of my favorite episodes, would debut the week after this conversation.) Throughout the meal, Harmon would punctuate various answers by slipping into an impression of mad scientist Rick.

But this was only a few months into the run of Harmon’s other TV project, the Adult Swim sci-fi comedy Rick and Morty, which Harmon created with Justin Roiland, who also provided the voices of the title characters. We were there to talk about his unexpected return to Community, the NBC comedy he created and ran for three seasons, before being forced out for a year. In March of 2014, I met Dan Harmon at Burbank’s venerable Smoke House for a long interview.

Rick and morty episodes