Anna Daniels
Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon has been hard at work with Justin Roiland on new episodes of the popular Adult Swim animated series. So far we’ve only seen five episodes of the latest fourth season, but with an unprecedented order for 70 total new episodes, we’ve got plenty more to come. In fact, it’s all the time Dan Harmon has been spending on Rick and Morty that resulted in him leaving behind the animation-focused Starburns Industries production company he co-founded back in 2010.
Collider exclusively learned that Dan Harmon officially exited Starburns Industries “some time ago to to focus his time and attention on Rick and Morty.” Considering how time-consuming an animated series can be, not to mention the high stress of delivering such a brilliant show that has built a rabid fanbase, it’s not surprising that Harmon doesn’t have much extra time to spend at Starburns Industries.
More than likely you’ve seen the Starburns Industries logo at the end of episodes of Rick and Morty. It’s the one that features a chef winking and making the “ok” symbol with his hands while an audio clip with a poor Italian accent says, “It’s-a good-a show!” They’ve also been responsible for Moral Orel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole, and they also produced the Oscar-nominated stop-motion animated movie Anomalisa for director Charlie Kaufman. They’ve also been integral to the outstanding animated episodes of Harmon’s NBC series Community, as well as the HBO animated series Animals.
More recently, Starburns Industries has been trying to get their stop-motion animated project Bubbles off the ground. The movie would have been a Michael Jackson biopic from the perspective of the King of Pop’s chimpanzee pet of the same name. Taika Waititi was once attached to co-direct the project, but he left back in May of 2019, supposedly due to a busy schedule. His departure resulted in Netflix axing the project entirely, and it’s more than likely because of the accusations of child sexual abuse by Michael Jackson made in HBO’s documentary Leaving Neverland.
As for Harmon’s departure, this isn’t entirely surprising. Not only is Rick and Morty a big responsibility, but he also recently ended his long-running podcast Harmontown, which was also produced by Starburns Audio, a podcast banner that also includes Dumb People Town and Small Doses.
The good news is that Harmon leaving the company doesn’t seem to have resulted in them shutting their doors or slowing down. They’re going to keep dabbling in stop-motion, traditional 2D, and CG animation, as well as the occasional live-action production. After all, they’re still involved in Rick and Morty, and there could be much more on the horizon for the company in the future.
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