'Rick and Morty' April Fool's Is "Nothing Like" Real Bendigo, Mayor Says
The Australian mayor was "quite staggered" by the parody.
Rick and Morty — or at least crudely drawn versions of them — traveled to the land down under for Adult Swim’s April Fool’s parody. In the vulgar short, Rick and Morty, now a pair of extremely irate Australians, cause trouble in the city of Bendigo. The mayor of Bendigo, a real place that almost 100,000 people call home, is a little confused by what’s happening.
Mayor Margaret O’Rourke told Guardian Australia that she had never heard of Rick and Morty prior to this short, but she watched the 11-minute cartoon and was “quite staggered.”
“Obviously there are different tastes for everyone,” O’Rourke said of Rick and Morty, before addressing her city’s unexpected and newfound popularity. “But I believe the Google searches have soared ever since it was released, and people would know by those searches that Bendigo is nothing like what’s in the parody.”
“In some ways I guess any publicity is good publicity,” O’Rourke continued. “Bendigo is a very vibrant and beautiful place and nothing like what has been displayed.”
The parody was created by an Australian animator, Michael Cusack, but he told the ABC that he has never been to Bendigo, which looks like a Mad Max-esque wasteland in the short.
“For some reason, Bendigo sounded funny to me, I don’t know what it is, but it’s something behind that name, that it seemed right to use, so I went with it,” he explained.
April 1 was a busy day for Bendigo, as it turns out. April Fool’s Day was also Easter, and the city’s biggest tourism event of the year is the annual Easter festival. Hopefully, Rick and Morty fans don’t descend on this nice-seeming city and mess up the place.
Rick and Morty Season 4 does not have a premiere date yet, as it hasn’t even been officially confirmed yet.
