Rick and Morty fans likely expected there to be an all-around absence of the grandfather and grandson duo in between the two halves of Season 4. However, those expectations can go ride a toy car with Tiny Rick, because the fan favorite Adult Swim characters are back in short-form for a brand new Super Bowl Commercial. Perhaps surprisingly, though, it's not advertising any kind of intoxicant for RIck to fill his flask with.
Rather, Rick and Morty teamed up with the chip company Pringles to deliver a bit of wacky weirdness to this year's Super Bowl LIV, which will see the Kansas City Chiefs taking on the San Francisco 49ers. Not that Rick, Morty or Summer give a damn who's playing so long as they can get some of those chips. Gimme those chips! Watch this video! Chips!
Pringles didn't have any bizarre new flavors to alert Super Bowl viewers about with that ad, but its push is on customers buying the chips and then creating unique taste combinations by stacking differing chips together. For instance, Morty's Spicy BBQ Pizza stack consisted of a BBQ chip, a pizza chip and a jalapeño chip. We might have seen a lot more chip-tastic recipes had Rick not gone and proven that this version of Morty was actually a robotic shill for Pringles. Not the worst obsession-driven robot to have around, I suppose.
After Morty's face off and reveals his robotic interior, Rick breaks the fourth wall by realizing that he and summer are trapped inside a Pringles commercial, which is pretty on brand for this show even without a Super Bowl commercial being involved. The idea of one's drywall being replaced by Pringles advertisements is both hilariously weird and unpredictably off-putting.
Rick and Morty is pretty new to the game of Super Bowl commercials, although it's a resident pro at connecting its branding to others. be it fast food, Old Spice or interdimensional traumas. This will no doubt be the biggest group of people that has ever watched anything Rick and Morty-related, so Adult Swim is likely hoping for some crossover traffic to come out of this. Or, if nothing else, some free cans of Pringles.
Check out the other teaser video that Pringles released, complete with Morty's final recipe from the above ad. I hope they make more of these R&M mashups that get to air after Super Bowl LIV is over and done with.
Planters had its own arguably clever marketing push going for the Super Bowl as well, with the death of Mr. Peanut taking center stage, complete with #RIPeanut. However, the company decided to pump the brakes on those plans in the wake of Kobe Bryant's death by helicopter crash, though it appears the commercial will still air during the Super Bowl proper.
For now, only the first five episodes of Rick & Morty Season 4 are available to stream, and we're waiting patiently to hear when Adult Swim will finally offer updates on the back half of the season. Considering how highly rated those episodes were, I'm hoping the powers that be decide to bring Season 4 back with the quickness in the near future.
