‘Rick and Morty’s Thanksgiving Episode Made Its Director “Never Want to Draw a Turkey Again”

It feels inevitable that Rick and Morty‘s Thanksgiving special would feature our iconic duo being turned into turkeys. But that very silly choice proved to be a bit of a headache for the show’s animation team. In a breakdown of “Rick & Morty’s Thanksploitation Spectacular,” the episode’s writer James Siciliano and its director Doug Einar Olsen explained what went into making their feather-filled episode.

Rick and Morty Season 5, Episode 7 starts with one of those premises that simultaneously feels ridiculous and inevitable. Because Rick (Justin Roiland) routinely violates hundreds of national and international laws each year, he needs a surefire get-out-of-jail-free card. That’s why he transforms himself into a turkey every year and tricks the President (Keith David) into pardoning him.

Initially, the episode feels like “The Rickchurian Mortydate” as Rick and the President try once again to one-up each other. This time around most of their fighting has been turkey-fied, and the battling male egos are still front and center. But when the U.S. government turns an actual turkey back into a human rather than the President, the episode shifts. Rick and the President have to figure out how to work together to bring down this new holiday threat.

According to writer James Siciliano, the idea to turn Rick, Morty, and the President into turkeys came early. “Almost immediately we were like, ‘OK well if Rick does this, then the President has to turn himself into a turkey,” Siciliano said.

That simple decision led to a range of nightmares for the animation team. “Fight scenes are hard enough for action scenes, you know where characters are jumping around a lot,” director Doug Einar Olsen explained. “When you have to translate all of that into turkey anatomy, it’s just a whole new paradigm.”

“Then it became figuring out, well how long are they turkeys? Do we actually want to see them as turkeys this whole episode? Are we hearing them gobble? Like we thought about subtitles,” Siciliano said.

The whole experience left Olsen looking at these birds in an entirely different light. “By the end of this thing, I never want to draw a turkey again,” Olsen said. We don’t blame him.

New episodes of Rick and Morty premiere on Adult Swim Sundays at 11/10c p.m.

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