Pickle Rick — Cartoon pickle with Rick Sanchez's face lying on a workbench next to a screwdriver

Pickle Rick

2016catchphraseclassic

Published September 21, 2026

Pickle Rick is a Rick and Morty character and catchphrase from the show's third season, in which scientist Rick Sanchez turns himself into a pickle to duck a family therapy session. The scene became one of the show's most-referenced moments after its August 2017 airing, spawning catchphrase edits, dabbing reaction images, and years later a wave of ironic 'funniest stuff I've ever seen' jokes.

rick and morty memes catchphrase memes ironic memes fandom discourse memes 2017 memes

Overview

The meme runs on two overlapping formats. Early posts leaned on the reveal itself: fans shared the garage-bench moment where Morty flips a pickle and Rick declares 'I'm Pickle Rick!' as an all-purpose catchphrase1. Reaction images pulled the dabbing pose, screenshots from the preview clip, and image macros pairing Pickle Rick with other pickle or cucumber characters.

Around February 2020, the joke curdled into an ironic self-own. Users began labeling the pickle scene as 'the funniest shit I've ever seen'5, mocking the sort of Rick and Morty fan who treated the gag as a comedic peak. A parallel flip-reveal format popularized by Twitter user @_stickfab_ in March 2020 replaced Rick's face on the pickle with different characters3.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (Adult Swim) / Reddit (viral spread)
Date
2016

The pickle version of Rick first surfaced on July 22, 2016, when Adult Swim posted a Season 3 sneak preview from San Diego Comic-Con to YouTube1. The clip shows Rick as a pickle-shaped creature killing a rat and stealing its brain, and it pulled more than 3 million views in its first year4.

Nine months later, on April 1, 2017, Adult Swim aired two teaser trailers for the surprise Season 3 premiere. One clip contained the now-iconic bench-flip in which Morty rolls the pickle over and it shouts its own name. YouTuber Spazz DHN mirrored the trailer that same day, where it pulled over 200,000 views in four months2.

How It Spread

Fans flooded r/RickAndMorty with Pickle Rick images after the April 2017 trailer drop. On August 4, 2017, Redditor Special_Chef ran a side-by-side comparing Pickle Rick to Larry the Cucumber from VeggieTales in the 'you vs the guy she tells you not to worry about' format, pulling around 25,000 upvotes in three days4.

The episode aired August 6, 2017. On 4chan's /co/ board, an anonymous post of a dabbing Pickle Rick with the caption 'PICKLE RICK IS IN THE HOUSE TONIGHT' pulled 390 comments in three days4.

The joke turned ironic in early 2020. Stickfab posted on March 6, 2020 the earliest documented 'Morty flips the pickle' edit, where the pickle stays a pickle, pulling over 129,000 views and 20,000 likes on Twitter3. Instagram edits swapping Rick's face for Beanos and other cartoon characters followed within weeks.

Timeline

2016-07-22

Adult Swim posts the Season 3 SDCC sneak preview to YouTube, first showing Rick in pickle form.

2017-04-01

Two Season 3 teaser trailers air, including the bench-flip 'I'm Pickle Rick!' reveal.

2017-08-04

Redditor Special_Chef posts the Pickle Rick vs Larry the Cucumber side-by-side on r/RickAndMorty.

2017-08-06

The 'Pickle Rick' episode premieres on Adult Swim.

2020-02

Ironic 'Pickle Rick, Funniest Stuff Ever' edits gain traction on Twitter and Instagram.

2020-03-06

Twitter user @_stickfab_ posts the earliest documented flip-reveal remix of the pickle scene.

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Frequently Asked Questions