Overview Rick and Morty season 1 Episode 2 Lawnmower Dog
Jerry complains that the family dog, Snuffles, is stupid, so Rick gives Jerry a device that increases the dog’s intelligence. He and Morty then go into the dreams of Morty’s math teacher to convince him to give Morty an “A” in the class so he can give Morty less homework. They go from dreams of Morty’s math teacher, to dreams of a strong black TV character named Mrs. Pancakes, to dreams of a centaur, and so on. This results in Rick and Morty eventually encountering Scary Terry (a parody of Freddy Krueger, the villain in A Nightmare on Elm Street). The creepy Terry begins to haunt them in many dreams, causing Rick to lose his joints.
At one point, the two stumble upon a dream of a post-apocalyptic city where they decide to hide from Scary Terry until he gets tired. When Scary Terry ends up sleeping, Rick and Morty enter his dreams and quickly convince him to help the duo complete their mission. Meanwhile, after watching several exaggerated infomercials about dogs, Snuffles builds an advanced mechanical suit with a translator so he can talk to humans. He assembles an army of robot dogs and takes over the human race. Rick finds Morty and gives him pills that stop his kidneys.
Morty is later seen lying in a hospital bed in critical condition with Snuffles by his side, trying to keep him alive. Snuffles wakes up (said scenario is revealed to be a dream) and realizes that colonizing Earth is not the answer and that the dog race must not fall to the fate of humanity with its sorrow and cruelty. Snuffles and Morty have a tearful goodbye as Snuffles leaves for another planet to find intelligent dogs where compassion applies and “pet insurance is mandatory.”
After the credits, Rick and Scary Terry are ushered into Scary Class, where they are now taught by Scary Mr. Johnson, who asks to be called Scary Glen. Instead of The Basics of Fear, Scary Glen tells his students that they first need to learn “how to calm down.”
Characters
The main characters
Morty
Rick
Jerry (Cronenberg’s Dimension)
Snuffs
Creepy Terry
Mr. Goldenfold (The Cronenberg Dimension)
Minor characters
Beth (Cronenberg Dimension)
Summer (Cronenberg Dimension)
Centaur
Melissa
Creepy Brandon
Mrs. Pancakes
Scary little girl
Creepy Olderson
Creepy Mr. Johnson
Charge
Death
Scary little girl (in a dream)
Centaur (in his dream)
Mrs. Pancakes (in a dream)
Mr. Goldenfold (in his dream)
Places
Earth
Smith’s house
Transcription
Check out the full transcript of this episode here.
Cultural references
The title of this episode is a reference to the movie The Lawnmower Man, in which a scientist gifts a mentally challenged gardener with superintelligence, only for the gardener to turn evil.
The subplot about Rick and Morty traveling into Mr. Goldenfold’s dreams and later into the dreams of the people in those dreams is a reference to the movie Inception.
These similarities are actually directly referenced by Rick in the episode.
In Summer’s room is a poster of the British punk rock band The Adicts. .
Scary Terry is a parody of Freddy Krueger, a character from A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Mrs. Pancakes’ erotic dream about an erotic party full of people in masks is a reference to the movie Eyes Wide Shut.
Snuffles wanted to be named Snowball is a reference to Snowball from Animal Farm who is tired of being bullied by people like Snowball.
One scene in the film featured dogs playing poker, a reference to the famous painting of the same name. The scene uses a slow-motion sound effect from The Six Million Dollar Man.
The dog is seen playing basketball when Snuffles watches a documentary about dogs, which is a reference to the movie Air Bud.
The Dog universe and Rick’s dialogue at the end is a reference/explanation of the universe in Justin Roiland’s Dog World pilot. Rick’s dialogue suggests that Roiland may still have a desire to adapt it for the show at some point.
Rick also mistook Snuffles name for Ruffles who was supposed to be the main character of Dog World.
Snuffles’ rise to power may be a reference to Caesar in Rise of the Planet of The Apes. Both given increased intelligence by the human, they will take over the world, and both Caesar and Snuffles still have soft feelings for the human.
The rules of dying in dreams are reversed compared to the rules of Inception and A Nightmare on Elm Street. While in the first case dying in a dream causes you to wake up (or go into limbo) and in the second case Freddy Krueger kills his victims in their dreams they also die in the real world, Rick states that if you die in someone else’s dream you die for real and Scary Terry killing the dreamers only wakes them up.
Mr. Goldenfold owns a picture of a black woman similar to the one Dick Hallorann has hanging above his bed in The Shining.
