'Rick and Morty' just murdered one of your favorite characters
Rick and Morty advertising has never been known for its conventionality (to put it lightly.) Whether its spots showing gruesome journeys through the entirety of art history, or the The Non-Canonical Adventures of claymation Rick and Morty and the stop-motion version of the duo in Buttworld, or their unwilling and obtrusive sponsored content -- no one and nothing is safe in these ad universes.
But the latest Old Spice crossover did the unthinkable. (And, please, if you're not sitting down, take a seat.) ...They killed Butter Bot.
You might remember Butter Bot from the cold open of the Season 2 episode "Something Ricked This Way Comes." He essentially sums up the entire body of Nietzsche's work in the span of a minute.
After Rick casually creates the tiny robot over a plate of pancakes, the new metallic life asks his creator the simple, all-encompassing question. "What is my purpose?"
"Pass the butter," Rick informs.
The dutiful (presumably sentient) servant does as his alcoholic mad scientist god tells him. The other characters carry on with unrelated conversation, as Butter Bot stares blankly into space and the deep void of random existence. "What is my purpose?" he asks again.
"You pass butter," Rick says again, annoyed.
Butter Bot slumps, looking down at his hands and considering the meagerness of their objective. "Oh my god."
"Welcome to the club, pal."
This single joke sparked endless fan spinoffs, and even a real-life functioning 120 lbs flamethrower version of Butter Bot.
But it seems the pain of life's indifference to our search for a higher purpose didn't end at meme-ification for Butter Bot. In the new sponsored ad, Morty's belligerently drunk grandfather interrupts his grandson's sleep to "sell us out" again. A few of his equally destructive buddies, sentient cans of Old Spice deodorant spray, barge into to wreak havoc on the room.
The cans of Old Spice fuck all of Morty's shit up with impunity, including his plumbus (and we all know how arduous the process of making one of those is). But then, the true crime occurs.
One of the them chucks Butter Bot -- the immortal symbol of life's meaninglessness -- into the mouth of another deodorant can, who is here representing the unquenchably hungry mouth of corporate greed.
And that, we assume, is where Butter Bot's journey ends: In the belly of capitalism, while his creator counts all that cash money he just made at his demise.
You shoulda stuck with passing butter, pal.
Topics Advertising
Jess is an LA-based culture critic who covers intimacy in the digital age, from sex and relationship to weed and all media (tv, games, film, the web). Previously associate editor at Kill Screen, you can also find her words on Vice, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Vox, and others. She is a Brazilian-Swiss American immigrant with a love for all things weird and magical.
