Lower The Ceiling

During the summer, Rick And Morty's third season became one of the top comedy hits on TV, at least in the most valued demos, 18-24 and 18-34.

It made me wonder how producer Dan Harmon felt about doing so well after coming off Community, another great show, but one that was never a hit.

But then I thought about the numbers. Community ran for six seasons and 110 episodes.  For a flop, that's pretty good. Rick And Morty have only done 31 episodes. At the rate they're going, it would be quite an achievement to make it to 100.

And how many watched? (That number is getting trickier to measure with fewer people watching a show when it airs.) Even in Community's first, most-watched season, it rarely had over five million viewers.  By it's fifth season, and last on a TV network, it was averaging around three million.

How many watch Rick And Morty (at least at the time it airs). The numbers have been going up each season, which is a good sign, but even in its latest season it's only averaging about 2.5 million viewers.

So congratulations to Dan Harmon on creating a hit show. But part of the trick was moving from the big networks to Adult Swim, where expectations are lower.