Rick And Morty is on schedule for a new season despite, well, everything. But before full episodes come our way, we’ve seen a number of small glimpses of the upcoming episodes. And now there’s a PlayStation 5 commercial to add to that collection of animation.
The commercial is fairly simple, with an animated PlayStation 5 sitting on a small table in the Sanchez family living room.
“OK Morty, go, do the thing,” Rick says as he starts to count money. “They paid us a lot.”
Morty mentions that the console is “super fast” and has fewer loading screens, all of which is true on the PS5. He goes into some details about the haptic feedback on the new PS5 controller and some tech specs before, well, getting bored with it all.
“Man, Rick, this commercial is kinda boring. It’s like… the PlayStation 5 is pretty cool,” Morty says, though he gets immediately talked over by Rick to curse in the same sentence as the console they’re selling.
It’s a quick spot, and doesn’t really get into too much detail, which is kind of the point. The show is no stranger to promotional tie-ins and lending its brand to other brands. The show-branded Dungeons And Dragons, for example, is very fun to play. But as Variety noted, it’s part of a larger marketing strategy for the show that does ultimately see some involvement from its creators.
Creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon are often involved in devising the commercial content, or at the very least get to approve it. The idea is to keep the characters’ fans entertained by giving them more adventures with their favorites, says Melton –and that sometimes means ad partners have to give up some authority.
As the Variety piece noted, a joke about Wrangler Jeans from the Season 4 finale actually sparked one of these deals, so there’s an odd amount of synergy between what the show finds funny and what actually works in the brand partnership world. Hopefully the PS5 spot won’t exacerbate the already tense relationship between next-gen consoles and the already-rabid fans who want to acquire a next-gen console. Rick and Morty fans, as you probably know, have made a mess of promotions in pre-pandemic times.