u/AzathothAzoth

Abed Gheith is a staff writer on Rick and Morty's two Interdimensional Cable episodes.

Before that he created multiple series and pilots for Channel 101, and he formed the animation group Comics Sacrifice with Justin Roiland and Sevan Najarian, which produced House of Cosbys. He's also credited as a writer on the video game High on Life. Community's character named Abed is also inspired by him.

[Transcript]

Hey everybody. it's Kieran from Fandom Empire. I'm here to bring you guys part two of my interview with Abed Gheith, staff writer for Interdimensional Cable parts one and two which is what we're gonna talk about today.

So tell us, you're saying that Interdimensional Cable, you and your brother both helped out a lot with that. I've heard that you guys helped them with the Little Bits sketch, but tell me a few other ones that you guys came up with.

A.G.: We were both on Interdimensional Cable together. So, the weird thing is most of our ideas were in Rick and Morty as those little shorts. He had the most and I had the most. It was like a competition. The funny thing about when I worked on that show was I took a lot of older ideas that I had that I've been kind of... Harmon loves the Little Bits thing because it was a restaurant idea that I had and I used to talk about it a lot, and he would always ask me about it because he would remember it being insane, and like it'll never be a restaurant, so I just put it in Rick and Morty, 'cause well this is what Harmon likes about me, you know, that he thinks is funny. Because that was a hard show to write on in the sense that you had to always blow people's minds, you know. I love sketch comedy but it's really, really hard and you almost have to just go insane and hope that somebody gets it. So that's what it was like writing, and then I had another idea about, I pitched a show to some person once about, like, Weekend at Bernie's but a dead cat lady. And they didn't like it. You know, they thought it was too gruesome. So, with Rick and Morty it's like well this will work. The thing that someone else didn't like I felt was always funny. So then when I pitched it in the room, it's like everyone could visualize the little cats like holding up a dead body you know, and like doing everything for her and she's like decomposing.

Yeah, they made that particularly gruesome and terrible. Like, there's bugs inside the lady's mouth and everything. It's just crazy that the guy's like oh I find you so charming.

A.G.: Well, that's exactly the tone that I pitched, you know. Because everyone's like how's that gonna be a show? She just gets more and more rotten each episode and they're like you can only do eight of those! Well, you could have her in the coffin and the cats are still walking her around. I don't know. That's why you hire a writing staff. To come up with all this stuff.

Perfect, yeah. No, those are great and those are regarded as some of the best Rick and Morty episodes. They're obviously the ones that are the best to re-watch. I rewatch them when I'm ready to go to sleep because, I'm like okay well if I fall asleep ten minutes into this I still got like five, six sketches in there, so.

A.G.: Was Ants in the Eyes the first one?

Yes, yes.

A.G.: I have a really good memory of us screening that episode for a bunch of people at Starburns at the time, and I think Andy Dick was in the back, and of course he doesn't know what he's watching. But the minute Ants in the Eyes Johnson came on, he was howling with laughter. He was like oh! oh my god! like he couldn't take it, that was a huge compliment to me. There's like a contention of who came up with that one, but I think it was me because my brother said it was me, and he's got a better memory than I do. Because we were throwing ideas around so much that, I have another friend in the writers' room who took credit, but my brother says it was me which makes sense because ants in the eyes sounds like my idea. It's just a funny visual. If I could see this drawn, it would make me laugh. You know? It's perfect. His eyes were full of ants, that's it. That's your joke. He doesn't have to do much, you know. And it's funny.

It's funny, it's very much like a Saturday Night Live sketch where they build a sketch out of one thing, one sentence. The sentence is like hey, a man is falling out of a building but then there's also an insurance man falling and he tries to sell him insurance and you're like how's that going to go on for 10 minutes? like, they should die! what's more interesting than that? you're like no we'll just keep doing it.

A.G.: I mean he could do anything. The Real Fake Doors Guy, it doesn't matter that that's his job. He leaves and, he's a psychopath when he leaves, and that's kind of the funny thing about a character like Ants in the Eyes 'cause, I think he's in an electronics store selling stuff, but he could be a game show host, he could freaking work at a veterinarian clinic, it doesn't matter. It's just, you wrap this around this funny visual. That's more about what, for me, working on that show was like. It was a room full of people just goofing off and there was no rhyme or reason to anything, it was just making each other laugh. And then Harmon would kind of like turn, like my hamster in the butts idea, his head would turn and he would be like wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute... and he would ask me serious questions about the mechanics of the butt and the hamster inside. Like what's inside the butt? is it an apartment? and I couldn't answer him, I had no answers. This is an idea that, you throw stuff at the wall if it sticks good if it doesn't then you got something else. And he just zeroed in on that one particularly, and I was confused because I was like well it's funny, but I don't know the answers to your questions.

Yeah, that's what I thought, that's kind of what I get from the writers' room at Rick and Morty, because we've seen a lot of posts on Instagram and things like that from Dan Harmon and he'll show like a table full of sticky notes with dumb note- like with dumb ideas on it.

A.G.: Right, that's what you do I mean you just vomit out stuff. I showed up at the meeting, I think the first episode, I had a hundred ideas in a notebook, and a hundred ideas is crazy, right. But I know if you give them a hundred, five will make it, like five are just right. Ball Fondlers was one of them. But my idea for Ball Fondlers was different. It was like Ninja Turtles, and they all fondle each other's balls until they get powers. Which sounds so horrendous, but I think Justin he just latched onto that one where he kept laughing and he was drawing it, like you said on a post-it note, them fondling each other's balls and cracking up. It's funny to us because of the idea and the picture of the thing, you know. And then Dan took it in a different direction with they're like the A-Team which I like that a lot, that's actually better. So it was like a super team. Me and Justin started the madness and he took it into a great direction.

Yeah, that's how I envisioned the writers' room being, so it's actually really cool to me that that's kind of how it is.

A.G.: The bit with the baby legs was not what it became. It was just a character and I talked about him. He has to live in the world with baby legs. And then Dan made him like a cop which is hilarious. He just gave him his- this is where he fits. I love that that is a thing because that is just ridiculous, you know? I mean what's his story? How did he end up like this?

And they don't explain- it's not explained or anything you just have to accept it right?

A.G.: Yeah, I mean it's just his name makes you laugh. You know? When you hear the name, you crack up, like little bits, you just crack up. But also you know that whatever you write Justin's gonna just do his Justin thing, and it's gonna be funny no matter what. He just has to say the guy's name and be like, I'm this guy. Look out! and it's funny.