Honourable Mention: Rick and Morty: Rickfending Your Mort

Another Honourable Mention for Rick (Ian Cardoni) and Morty (Harry Belden), this time from Season 7. Previously we have looked at the episodes Big Trouble in Little Sanchez, One Crew Over the Crewcoo’s Morty, and Full Metal Jackrick and all had fleeting visitations, the first one not even showing a vampire, rather referring to the vampire action off-screen.

This time round we get a fleeting visitation but with a view of both vampires and a famous vampire hunter.

dressed like Blade

The episode sees Rick in a (drunken) funk, not wanting to go on adventures. Morty plays his adventure cards (stamped every time they have an adventure, a full card allows Morty to pick an adventure). Rick is doubtful about the validity of the stamps and brings an entity, the Observer (Ryan Hansen), to audit the claims. This doesn’t work out as the pair resent their lives dissolving down to a clip show but, before that point, we see an adventure in a world suffering from a vampire apocalypse.

Kris Kristofferson as Whistler

Dressed awfully like Blade, the pair dodge the vampires by heading into a lockup where Whistler (actually voiced by Kris Kristofferson) is holed up. Whistler starts to show them his multipurpose anti-vampire gun as the vampires press against the windows. Rick and Morty soon become bored and portal out of there just as the glass cracks and breaks giving the vampires entry…

And that’s it, another fleeting vampire visitation – but also a visitation by Whistler. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Rick and Morty: One Crew Over the Crewcoo's Morty

It is an absolute pleasure to be able to feature more Rick and Morty on TMtV (I previously looked at the episode Big Trouble in Little Sanchez). The show has to be one of the edgiest and smart programmes out there and this episode from 2019’s Season 4, directed by Bryan Newton, is up there with the best.

The episode is a riff on the heist genre and to try and explain the multi-layered twisting humour would be to do it an absolute disservice. Suffice it to say that the universe’s smartest man, Rick Sanchez (Justin Roiland) and his grandson Morty (Justin Roiland) pull a (short lived) heist crew together.

Truckula

So why the mention. Due to the fact that one of the crew is Truckula… absolutely and unashamedly a riff on Dracula. We see his truck bite another vehicle and we see him walk into Heistcon with the rest of his crew and, other than a twist walk on later, that is about it. No real vampire action but a pair of fangs and a mention here for Rick and Morty.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Rick and Morty: Big Trouble in Little Sanchez

So, I hadn’t watched any Rick (Justin Roiland) and Morty (also Justin Roiland) and a friend, Dave, had repeatedly suggested I was missing out. “Just watch three episodes,” he said… and I did… and I was hooked. A subversive adult cartoon that is a riff on Back to the Future, amongst other influences, this episode was from season 2, was first aired in 2015 and was directed by Bryan Newton and Pete Michels.

The episode begins with breakfast and a news report of a dead dinner lady with two holes in her neck and her blood drained. Much to granddaughter Summer’s (Spencer Grammer) shock, maverick inter-dimensional scientist Rick agrees it is likely the work of a vampire. However when Summer suggests that he use science to make himself young, go to high school with her and Morty, and help hunt the vampire, he dismisses the notion.

bag of stakes

However, having dropped his daughter - and Morty and Summer’s mother, Beth (Sarah Chalke) - and her husband Jerry (Chris Parnell) off at an off-world marriage councillor's facility, he gets bored. Next thing he turns up at the school having transferred his mind into the body of a teenage clone – Tiny Rick. The episode follows the marriage guidance and Little Ricks popularity at school. We actually don’t see the vampire, just a bag of bloody stakes having killed the vampire gym teacher Coach Feratu.

head vampire emerges

At the end of the episode, in the credit sequence, we do get a scene in the Earth’s vampire headquarters where we get a moment of crap bat and the head vampire (Ryan Ridley) ruling against stupid vampire names when trying to hide amongst humans. And that was it, a fleeting visitation in a brilliant animated series.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Rick and Morty: Mort Ragnarick

Season 7 of Rick and Morty actually had two vampiric visitations. I have previously featured Rickfending Your Mort but the second episode with a vampire was episode 9, Mort Ragnarick.

Like all the previous episodes to feature vampires, we are looking at a fleeting visitation only and, in this case, it is Dracula (as well as the other Universal monsters)

The premise of the episode sees Rick (Ian Cardoni) experimenting by killing Jerry (Chris Parnell) repeatedly and bringing him back – proving that there is an afterlife and that it contains infinite energy. 

summoned Universal monsters

To tap into that energy he goes to Norway in order that he might get to Valhalla and set up a power relay, but a faux pas with Bigfoot sees Rick and Morty (Harry Belden) fighting the Pope, who has usurped the energy and, at one point, Rick summons the Universal monsters to be a part of that battle… will they succeed? As their appearance is fleeting, I suspect you can work out the answer to that.

The episode's imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Rick and Morty: Full Meta Jackrick

Another Rick and Morty season, another fleeting visitation of a vampire. This is episode 7 of season 6, airing first in 2022 and directed by Lucas Gray and Wesley Archer, and is a full-on meta exploration with Rick and Morty (both voiced by Justin Roiland) attacked by Previously Leon a parasitic creature from the Meta Reality. Escaping his venomous influence they chase him through the fourth wall into the Metaverse.

During the episode we do get a constructed moment where Jesus (Christopher Meloni) faces his “previously on” and we see him, for a moment, battling Dracula. And that is it, a truly fleeting visitation yet again.

The episode's imdb page is here.

Dracula Vs Jesus