Rick and Morty’s Craziest Inventions And Gadgets

Somehow, Rick and Morty combine Lawnmower Man, Planet of the Apes, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Inception into a single episode. The trouble starts when Jerry (Chris Parnell) asks Rick to make Snuffles smarter, causing the dog to start performing human functions. If it stopped there, the device would have worked perfectly, but instead, Snuffles keeps getting smarter, eventually leading up to a canine revolution.

Changing his name to Snowball, the hyper-intelligent dog creates more versions of the intelligence helmet, recruiting an army. Meanwhile, Rick’s inception device lets him and Morty travel into the dreams of the math teacher Mr. Goldenfold, and then a centaur, then a legally safe knockoff of Freddy Kreuger. The plots finally come together, but the intelligence helmet is the first of many, many gadgets that cause problems.

A love potion by itself isn’t a crazy invention; plenty of shows have featured a similar plot with the “be careful what you wish for” moral, but none have ever gone as far as Rick and Morty. The potion goes too far and makes everyone obsess over Morty, so he asks for an antidote, and in the wildest twist in the show’s history, the solution worsens everything.

Rick develops an antidote with the small side effect of turning everyone into hideous flesh monsters called out for being from a Cronenberg movie. Unable to save the planet, Rick and Morty take refuge in another universe following the untimely death of their counterparts.

One of the earliest meme moments from the series came when the butter robot asked Rick, “What is my purpose?” Informed that it was to pass the butter, the tiny machine had an existential crisis, which would be horrifying if it wasn’t such an adorable design.

The simplest invention on this list but one of the most memorable, the butter robot, is assembled over breakfast, but why is it one of the few devices to be aware of its own existence?

One of the best gags on Rick and Morty is the plumbus, a device so common no one talks about what it’s actually used for. The bizarre design of the household tool means it can be used for cleaning, heating, and as a radio. Strangely, it can move on its own and clean with no guidance from anyone.

“Interdimensional Cable 2” features the segment “How They Do It” which shows the manufacturing process for a plumbus, giving no clues as to the device’s function. As for how the device can detect its owner’s emotions, that’s never explained, and the one true purpose for the device is best left as a mystery.

Rick is a very smart character, he has the intelligence to develop a microscopic universe that generates the power for his ship’s battery but is caught off guard when it runs out of power. Going inside the battery reveals that the first micro-universe developed the same technology to harness power from another micro-universe. That then goes another layer deeper and somehow ends in a primitive inventor’s duel to survive a harsh jungle.

Rick and Morty does a great job of showing how Rick’s hubris gets him into trouble, and the micro verse is a great example, as it sounds absurd to create an entire universe to function as a car battery. The other plot for the episode featuring Summer and the ship, is one of the most disturbing in the series, as again, the show finds humor in escalating situations to the most absurd conclusion.

Two devices gave fans a glimpse of the potential Rick and Morty had for later seasons, the interdimensional cable box and the interdimensional goggles. The cable box picked up television signals from different dimensions, allowing the family to watch strange shows from truly bizarre and disturbing realities. It was so popular “Interdimensional Cable 2” was a fan-demanded episode in the following season.

The goggles were more limited, showing the wearer what they are doing in an alternate reality, which led to Beth (Sarah Chalke) viewing herself operating on a human instead of a horse while Jerry is partying with Johnny Depp. Exploring the multiverse is the best part of the show, and both these devices push the concept to its true potential.

Rick and Morty often turns wish fulfillment into a nightmare, which is exactly what happens with the Mr. Meeseeks box, beings created to help with a task start to go insane when Jerry can’t cut strokes from his golf game. Beth and Summer (Spencer Grammer) have no problems with their Meeseeks, which help them with their marriage and popularity, respectively, but then….Jerry.

Jerry’s issues with golf get to be so bad that there’s a horde of Meeseeks suffering that they’ve been in existence for minutes, rally around the original, who has the solution that if Jerry’s dead, then his golf game issues will go away. It’s hilarious, twisted, and one of the show’s best episodes.

The most important gadget in the whole series, the portal gun, is what drives Rick and Morty as a series. Using the gun, Rick travels between dimensions for either a lengthy stay or to age some wine, making it the most versatile tool in his impressive, galaxy-destroying arsenal. As for how it functions, well, the series explains a lot, including the origin of the first portal gun, but the green portal goo is never fully explained.

Capable of creating dimensional holes that hang in the air and even multiple portals of different sizes, the portal gun’s only limitation is the fluid reservoir that holds the portal material. Incredibly toxic and dangerous, the fluid itself has been weaponized, even if Rick never quite explains what it is or where it came from.

Regardless, the portal gun is the most iconic of Rick’s inventions and the wildest device with limitless potential.