{"id":746980,"date":"2026-07-06T18:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T18:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/746980\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T18:51:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T18:51:13","slug":"how-rick-and-morty-spinoff-president-curtis-will-retcon-its-main-character","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/746980\/","title":{"rendered":"How ‘Rick and Morty’ Spinoff ‘President Curtis’ Will ‘Retcon’ Its Main Character"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rick and Morty<\/a>\u2018s first spinoff that isn\u2019t a variation on Rick and Morty (like its short-lived anime variant<\/a>) arrives in just a few weeks. President Curtis<\/a>, focusing on the mainline show\u2019s POTUS voiced by Keith David, hits Adult Swim July 26, following Rick and Morty\u2018s season nine finale. In a new interview, co-creators Dan Harmon and James Siciliano talked about why President Andre Curtis was their top choice among Rick and Morty\u2018s supporting characters to get his own series\u2014and how he\u2019ll be slightly different than the man we\u2019ve previously seen in action.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Deadline<\/a>, Harmon explained that Curtis, being the leader of the free world with his own mysteries to poke into, was \u201cthe character who could have their own self-contained world that wouldn\u2019t be redundantly overlapping.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea for President Curtis has been percolating since season five back in 2021, when Curtis played a big role in \u201cRick and Morty\u2019s Thanksploitation Spectacular<\/a>\u201d (you know, the one where Rick and Curtis\u2019 feud escalates to them both turning themselves into turkeys).<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where the conversation started\u2014just seeing what Keith David brings to that character and that he could sustain that level of toe-to-toeness with Rick,\u201d Siciliano recalled. \u201cWe could also see [President Curtis\u2019] world\u2014Spider FDR, the French assassin hidden in the Statue of Liberty, and a little more of the National Treasure\/X-Files\u00a0stuff. That was the fabric of what we wanted to do with the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s the same President Curtis from Rick and Morty (with a single crossover cameo in the first episode to prove it, apparently), he won\u2019t be quite the same as before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing we \u2018retconned\u2019 and adjusted from the Rick and Morty\u00a0character when we were building our guy out is that in\u00a0Rick and Morty, he is very approval-driven and craves that. That was the first thing when talking about this show\u2014it is almost the opposite. We wanted him to not be rolling his eyes at the job as part of his duty to protect people,\u201d Siciliano said.<\/p>\n

Added Harmon, \u201cWe thought about it pretty hard, and what we needed to change about this guy is if you gave him a chance to have his numbers go up, but in order to do it, he had to lie or cheat, he wouldn\u2019t. He is only doing the job of president because if he doesn\u2019t, someone worse will \u2026 it is not the job he would have chosen. He is a soldier and a vampire slayer, and he was a lonely guy who begrudgingly took on this role of serving hundreds of millions of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Curtis also stars Jim Rash and Stephanie Beatriz; it arrives July 26 on Adult Swim.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rick and Morty\u2018s first spinoff that isn\u2019t a variation on Rick and Morty (like its short-lived anime variant)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[115519,184042,88,320596,30355,30356,92],"class_list":["post-746980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-adult-swim","tag-dan-harmon","tag-entertainment","tag-james-siciliano","tag-president-curtis","tag-rick-and-morty","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}