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'Cancel Rick and Morty' trends over Dan Harmon's baby doll rape 2009 sketch, fans point to his 2018 apology

Harmon said in his old apology that he realized "the content was way too distasteful and took the video down immediately. Nobody should ever have to see what you saw and for that, I sincerely apologize”

On Thursday, August 13, ‘Rick and Morty’ co-creator Dan Harmon received a fresh wave of criticism for an old comedy sketch of his called “Daryl” that had as its punch, a depiction of pedophilia. But this isn’t the first time Harmon has received backlash for his sketch. In July 2018, the almost-10-year-old sketch resurfaced online, catching the attention of 4chan, alt-right bloggers, and The_Donald subreddit. This resulted in Harmon leaving Twitter. 

The sketch was a spoof on Showtime’s popular series ‘Dexter’. In the offending scene, Harmon’s character is seen breaking into an apartment, pulling down his pants, and simulating sex with a plastic baby doll. 

At that time, in 2018, Harmon had apologized for the sketch. Harmon said, “In 2009, I made a ‘pilot’ which strove to parody the series ‘Dexter’ and only succeeded in offending. I quickly realized the content was way too distasteful and took the video down immediately. Nobody should ever have to see what you saw and for that, I sincerely apologize.”

Adult Swim, which airs ‘Rick and Morty’, too issued a statement then: “At Adult Swim, we seek out and encourage creative freedom and look to push the envelope in many ways, particularly around comedy. The offensive content of Dan’s 2009 video that recently surfaced demonstrates poor judgment and does not reflect the type of content we seek out. Dan recognized his mistake at the time and has apologized. He understands there is no place for this type of content here at Adult Swim.”

More than two years later, the sketch has once again become a topic of conversation. On Twitter, however, going by the reactions, quite a few people seemed to be unaware of the video’s existence prior to this. "Why am I barely finding out that Dan Harmon is a sick f***ing dude, and the fact that i enjoyed Rick & Morty so much. im sad as." 

Another wrote, “Just saw the Dan Harmon ‘Daryl’ pilot...Rick and Morty was my favorite show on tv.”

Another Twitter user said, “Naw like fr man, who the f*** sits there and makes a skit like that man. I used to watch Rick and Morty every week.”

Many, however, pointed out that Harmon had already acknowledged the disturbing sketch and had apologized for it. A fan wrote, "Twitter y'all gotta stop getting so bored and canceling people for s*** they already apologized for. 11 years ago Dan Harmon made that skit and already apologized for it and took the video down."

Another fan said, “The co-creator of rick and morty literally kinda warn yall about the video at the beginning, he clearly is aware it’s a f***ed up skit. Yall reach for anything and everything to cancel someone, plus it was 11 yrs ago before rick and morty even started.”

One fan noted, “Wait.. Y'all didnt see this Dan Harmon video when it first blew up a few years ago? Good luck trying to cancel Rick and Morty btw.”

At the same time, several fans pointed out that other than that sketch being an old one, several animated television shows had far more disturbing content for which there was seldom any outrage. One wrote, “What Dan Harmon did was ten years ago. You people grow up watching South Park and Family Guy. Now you want to cancel Rick and Morty.”

Another pointed out, “Y’all so quick to cancel rick and morty when family guy has a literal child molester.”

One Twitter user wrote about the whole outrage, “i am not a huge fan of rick and morty but calling dan harmon a pedophile for a comedy skit that had a content warning at the beginning of it 11 years ago is stupid and you don't understand what the word ‘pedophile’ means. even if it was done in bad taste, he is not a pedophile.”