‘President Curtis’ Creators On Their ‘Rick And Morty’ Spin-Off

EXCLUSIVE: The Rick and Morty universe is about to expand with the launch of President Curtis on Adult Swim on July 26, and its creators have told Deadline how the two madcap animated series connect.

Dan Harmon called the difference between them “like Doctor Who and The X Files” during an exclusive interview. Where genius creator and grumpy granddad Rick might take collective hivemind Unity as a lover on a faraway planet, President Curtis is more likely to be found hunting the Loch Ness Monster or the Hodag on Earth, or travelling to the moon.

“You have a different perspective there,” said Harmon. “It allows the tonality to stay the same, but it’s not redundant.”

[Very minor spoiler ahead] The show debuts on Adult Swim (and subsequently HBO Max) as Season 9 of Rick and Morty comes to an end on the same day, and the stars of the two shows do momentarily cross in the first episode.

“We wanted to address the elephant in the room of a spin-off, but we spent a lot of time building his own staff and world, and once you get into watching, the goal is you feel it is its own show,” said Harmon.

The series – produced by Harmonius Claptrap, Green Portal Productions and Williams Street – stars Keith David in the lead. Harmon’s co-creator James Siciliano told us how the show was developed as Donald Trump-dominated politics began to take over in the States.

“We started writing this three years ago and we thought things were wild then,” he said. “Things have progressed everywhere, and so we just had to commit to making this show about President Curtis and try to create a version of that guy who is the most fun president to watch.

The pair spoke to Deadline following the screening of President Curtis‘ premiere pilot screening at the Annecy International Animation Festival last month.

Read the full Q&A with Harmon and Siciliano here.

DEADLINE: Of all the weird and wonderful characters in Rick and Morty, why did you decide to develop a series around President Andre Curtis?

Dan Harmon: It was because that was the character who could have their own self-contained world that wouldn’t be redundantly overlapping. You can think of him as like a concentric circle: If we wanted Rick to do an X Files-level mission on Earth, like going to find the Hodag in Rhinelander, Wisconsin or the Loch Ness Monsters, he could do that, but his circle is broader. The comparison I make is it’s like Doctor Who and The X Files. Both involve aliens, but you have a different perspective there. It allows the tonality to stay the same, but it’s not redundant.

DEADLINE: When did you start thinking about spin-offs? The Rick and Morty world is one of the most involved animated series ever created and obviously takes up a lot of brain power to pull together.

James Siciliano: It came up naturally off the Season 5 Thanksgiving episode, where Rick wants to get a turkey pardoned by the President. That’s where the conversation started – just seeing what Keith David brings to that character and that he could sustain that level of toe-to-toeness with Rick. We could also see [President Curtis’] world – Spider FDR, the French assassin hidden in the Statue of Liberty and a little more of the national treasure X Files stuff. That was the fabric of what we wanted to do with the show.

DEADLINE: What happened next? Did you bring that idea to the network? Or were they already asking about it?

DH: My memory is not what it was, but Adult Swim has always been the network. There have been about nine companies who have owned Adult Swim and I that point I think it was owned by Mobile Oil, which was buying Discovery. Anyways, there was a merger and we had to renegotiate if we were going to do more Rick and Morty and if we could do more than that. It’s a joyless answer.  

JS: The idea came from a creative place five years ago. It took a while for that stuff to sort out, and we started working on the pilot three years ago. It has been a long process, through lots of political fun, too.

DH: Certainly. It wouldn’t arise from a contractual thing, but the process was not us taking an easel out with a pointer and saying, ‘Welcome to the world’ to our own bosses. It was more like that creatively we always wanted to do it, and it was made possible due to the longevity of Rick and Morty through different situations in this wonderful game of Monopoly we call Monopoly.

DEADLINE: The good news is you have another merger coming up.

DH: Oh really? I was just hoping for one. Are our new bosses cool people? I’ll Google it… holy…! I’ll be right back. I have to make some phone calls.

DEADLINE: It’s interesting you bring up the word ‘political.’ It’s a show about a president at the time when you have the most divisive American president in history sitting in the Oval Office. I wasn’t sure how that might color my viewing of the pilot, but it didn’t feel that way.

DH: It’s a completely different universe… and we just had to commit to the parallel reality. Especially as we’re animation, we can’t connect this show with what has been going on outside the window – not that we would have ever done a politically relevant show. In terms of satire, the animation pipeline doesn’t allow for that. South Park is the only one to have done it, with their incredible ability to do that, and we would never want to compete. But especially because of times being so weird, it feels like we’re doing some kind of West Wing homage.

JS: We started writing this three years ago and we thought things were wild then. Things have progressed everywhere, and so we just had to commit to making this show about President Curtis and try to create a version of that guy who is the most fun president to watch.

DEADLINE: So what is your president like?

DH: The character himself is a simplistic guy; a natural-born leader who just wants to make America safe for everybody. His strong corner is fighting werewolves, vampires and Paul Bunyon. He’s a very charming guy, but he doesn’t think diplomacy works or that he is doing his best job when he is trying to kiss ass.

DEADLINE: Was there anything you changed from the Rick and Morty canon?

JS: The one thing we ‘retconned’ and adjusted from the Rick and Morty character when we were building our guy out is that in Rick and Morty he is very approval-driven and craves that. That was the first thing when talking about this show – it is almost the opposite. We wanted him to not be rolling his eyes at the job as part of his duty to protect people.

DH: You go to TV for a little escapism, and the thing that drives us nuts about politics, whether we accept it or not, is that the numbers wag the dog. What do you have to say to win an election? We thought about it pretty hard, and what we needed to change about this guy is if you gave him a chance to have his numbers go up but in order to do it he had to lie or cheat, he wouldn’t. He is only doing the job of president because if he doesn’t, someone worse will. This is canonical stuff that will only be revealed if the show lives long in the tooth but we know as writers that his ex-wife, who is not in the picture at the start, was the strategist. He is more like a golden retriever. When he walks into the room people say, ‘I want to have a beer with him,’ which is what gets you elected, but she was the more politically-motivated one. He is divorced from his Yoda. He is not a fraud like Remington Steele, where it was all sizzle, no steak, but it is not the job he would have chosen. He is a soldier and a vampire slayer, and he was a lonely guy who begrudgingly took on this role of serving hundreds of millions of people.

DEADLINE: Without spoiling too much, Rick and Morty make a cameo in the pilot in a very meta scene. Is that one and done for the season for them?

JS: It is one and done for this season. We wanted to address the elephant in the room of a spin-off, but we spent a lot of time building his own staff and world, and once you get into watching the goal is you feel it is its own show.

DH: We didn’t want to do too much out of the gate. We had no problem doing it – there was no impudence there and it’s not like we have to license the rights, so it was matter of giving it space and letting it have its own identity, so that those paths crossing over will feel meaningful.

DEADLINE: Dan, your schedule is incredibly busy with this, Rick and Morty, Krapopolis and execing on Haunted Hotel. How are you juggling everything and what are you adding to the pile next?

DH: Haunted Hotel is a prime example of my strategy for delegating to people who are more talented than you. I don’t have to do anything on that show. I’m a big fan and I helped out – maybe meddled a lot – on the first episode, so if something is working I love being obsolete. That’s always the goal. If my name can put someone at ease to greenlight something – the unspoken guarantee that I have some kind of wisdom and expertize – then you try to plant things. James has been on Rick and Morty since he was a little baby. He is the property of the show.

JS: I was born on Rick and Morty.

DEADLINE: You guys were in Annecy for the animation festival this month. There was some very cool work on display, but what is your broad take about the state of play in animation at the moment?

JS: I don’t know if I’m the guy to answer it. I grew up watching animation and I have no doubt it will continue to be something people want to see. It is a way you can tell stories no-one else can. When people ask, ‘Why is this animated?’ It’s because animation is the only way you can tell these fucking stories. Hopefully that will never go away.

DH: It’s a medium that takes a little extra time to come out of the oven, so the allure of it is you have more control. The pandemic saw an explosion of animation for obvious reasons, but I wouldn’t be shocked if there was now a bit of a contraction because somebody who greenlights a show might not here when it’s finished animating whereas a live-action show set in a brownstone might premiere while they’re there. But I don’t know. I just watch Widow’s Bay.