From a planet where everything is on a cob to a planet where suicide produces spaghetti, the titular duo in Rick and Morty has visited some truly ridiculous worlds across the show’s run. Rick and Morty is both one of the funniest comedies on the air and one of the most inventive and imaginative sci-fi shows on the air. In the series’ very best episodes, these two genres meet as the writers cook up mind-bending sci-fi premises that are also ludicrous enough to get a big laugh. A good way to get one of those laughs is with an absurd planet design.
In just about every episode of Rick and Morty, the eponymous hard-drinking inventor and his mild-mannered grandson visit a faraway alien planet. They went to a planet where everything is on a cob, they accidentally teleported to a planet full of giant, gooey perverts, and they temporarily relocated to a tiny planet more than 100,000 times smaller than Earth. From a planet with its own purge law to a planet exclusively populated by Hitlers each planning their own “Final Solution,” there are a ton of strange worlds in the Rick and Morty universe.
10 Dwarf Terrace-9
Season 2, Episode 10, “The Wedding Squanchers”
When Birdperson’s wedding turns out to be a sting operation and the Smiths become fugitives in need of a new home, they settle down on Dwarf Terrace-9. This planet is identical to Earth in every way… except it’s really, really small. Dwarf Terrace-9 has a circumference of 330 yards, which makes it 132,808 times smaller than Earth. Rick manages to walk from one polar ice cap to the other in less than a minute. The only other lifeform on the planet, a race of small pigs, is hunted to extinction to make one breakfast.
9 Purge Planet
Season 2, Episode 9, “Look Who’s Purging Now”
Rick and Morty discover a planet with a real-life purge law in the season 2 episode “Look Who’s Purging Now.” This episode is a hysterical parody of The Purge movie franchise and its assertion that making all crime legal for one day a year would actually help to reduce crime rates. At the end of the episode, when Rick tries to introduce a normal social structure to the planet, it only takes a couple of minutes of debating for them to start killing each other again.
8 Boob World
Season 4, Episode 5, “Rattlestar Ricklactica”
Boob World has never actually appeared on-screen, but it’s been mentioned in three different episodes, starting with “Rattlestar Ricklactica.” Based on the Boob World hats that Rick and Morty wear whenever they visit, Boob World seems to be a planet-sized breast-based theme park. In season 5, episode 7, “Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion,” Rick and Morty take Summer to Boob World because bringing a female guest will get them in for free. Apparently, Boob World’s objectification of women led to some bad press, so the planet rebranded itself as a safe space for female empowerment.
7 Zeplar Prime
Season 6, Episode 8, “Analyze Piss”
When Rick gives Jerry an Iron Man-style high-tech suit in season 6’s “Analyze Piss,” Jerry becomes a superhero, searches the universe for evil, and comes across a planet called Zeplar Prime. Unable to properly control his superpowers yet, Jerry accidentally launches a nuclear attack that destroys the planet. At first, he’s worried he might have taken innocent lives, but the alien news reports that Zeplar Prime was populated entirely with Hitlers, and Jerry saved billions of lives by preventing all their respective Holocausts.
6 Screaming Sun Earth
Season 2, Episode 10, “The Wedding Squanchers”
While the Smiths are searching the universe for a new home, they come across a planet that’s nearly identical to Earth, with breathable air and a sun that can sustain life. But when they arrive on the planet and that sun rises, a problem presents itself: the sun is a sentient being, and all day, every day, it screams at the top of its lungs. And on top of that, the days on this planet last 42 hours, so the Smiths have to find another planet to live on.
5 41-Kepler B
Season 7, Episode 4, “That’s Amorte”
When Morty wants to know the secret ingredient in Rick’s famous spaghetti in season 7’s “That’s Amorte,” he’s horrified to learn that Rick gets his delicious spaghetti from the innards of people who have committed suicide. On the planet 41-Kepler B, cooked spaghetti magically appears inside the corpses of people who have taken their own lives. The episode takes a ludicrously dark turn when 41-Kepler B’s world powers realize there are people on other planets who will pay good money for their suicide spaghetti.
4 Snake Planet
Season 4, Episode 5, “Rattlestar Ricklactica”
After Morty is bitten by a snake astronaut in “Rattlestar Ricklactica,” Rick searches the snake’s planet for an antidote. This uncovers a widespread snake society whose culture and history are almost exactly the same as that on Earth (except they’re snakes, and they communicate with hisses). They have snake jazz, a Snake Abraham Lincoln, a Snake Adolf Hitler, a Snake World War II, and a Terminator-like dystopian future. This was the most ridiculous way imaginable to finally introduce time travel into the Rick and Morty universe.
3 Alphabetrium
Season 2, Episode 5, “Get Schwifty”
When Rick and Morty are tasked with writing a hit song as Earth’s entry in an intergalactic version of the Eurovision Song Contest, they recruit the help of rapper Ice-T. As it turns out, Ice-T isn’t originally from Earth; his homeworld is Alphabetrium, a faraway planet inhabited by an ancient race of element-based beings shaped like letters of the alphabet. This planet is also the home to Helium-Q, Hydrogen-F, Magnesium-J, and Sulfur-P. Alphabetrium is such an absurd concept because the entire premise was extrapolated from Ice-T’s stage name.
2 Glorfingr 7
Season 1, Episode 11, “Ricksy Business”
During an epic house party in Rick and Morty’s season 1 finale, “Ricksy Business,” Morty accidentally transports the entire house to Glorfingr 7. Glorfingr 7 is populated by big, gooey creatures called Wharborgarbors, who are characterized by their obsession with sex. The Wharborgarbors love to push the boundaries of sexual exploration, and they love to be used as sex toys. They’re 30 feet tall with 40-foot tentacles. In the post-credits scene, Abradolf Lincler is seen being passed around the Wharborgarbors’ holes. Even by Rick and Morty’s standards, it’s a shocking sight.
1 On A Cob Planet
Season 2, Episode 10, “The Wedding Squanchers”
When the Smiths go on the run from the Galactic Federation in Rick and Morty’s season 2 finale, they try to find a new home. One planet that they visit initially seems to be almost identical to Earth, and a beautiful place to life. But Rick is horrified to learn that everything is on a cob; mountains, animals, and even atoms are on a cob. Perhaps the most ridiculous thing about this planet is Rick’s terror at the sight of the cobs. The show has never explained why Rick found the cobs so alarming (and it’s funnier that way).
