'Hot Streets' Season 2 Won't Be Like 'Rick and Morty'

If Adult Swim’s newest zany sci-fi comedy Hot Streets does get a second season, you can’t bet it won’t really be anything at all like Rick and Morty. As much as both shows share creative talent, an affinity for the “story circle,” and the same ethos of comedic chaos, they feel remarkably different.

Whereas Rick and Morty might leave a plot thread dangling for years, Hot Streets commits to sometimes tighter storytelling and a Season 1 finale that offered closure to just about every story arc.

That’s not something you could ever say about a season of Rick and Morty.

Hot Streets Season 1 finished airing Sunday night during Adult Swim’s late-night time slot. Even though the network hasn’t officially canceled or announced a Hot Streets Season 2 just yet, but there’s still hope that it might return for more weirdness that feels like Archer meets a sci-fi Scooby Doo:

Hot Streets follows FBI agents Bransky and French, who investigate paranormal activities with Bransky’s niece Jen and a “mystery dog” named Chubbie Webbers. The show is unapologetically crazy and totally unafraid to explore mummies, time travel, satanic texts, and drug-addled dogs. Episodes run around 11 minutes each, bewilderingly brief and nothing short of bonkers.

The creator and showrunner of Hot Streets, Brian Wysol, got his start producing short animated shows for Channel 101 before getting hired to write for Rick and Morty in its first two seasons.

If Hot Streets feels like something Rick Sanchez might watch on Interdimensional Cable, that’s because Wysol wrote “Rixty Minutes,” the episode that first debuted the show’s concept.

Justin Roiland, co-creator of Rick and Morty, remarks in a behind-the-scenes video about Hot Streets, “I’d watch Wysol’s cartoons and go, ‘This guy doesn’t give a fuck!’” Hot Streets, it would seem, might give fewer fucks than Rick and Morty does. The show simultaneously offers compelling sci-fi and downright dumb characters and moments.

Check out that full behind-the-scenes video here:

Justin Roiland’s admiration of Wysol led the Rick and Morty co-creator to lend his voice to Chubbie Webbers (Hot Streets’ version of Scooby Doo) and tons of other side characters. He also serves as executive producer on Hot Streets.

Wysol admitted to Den of Geek the importance of developing his own brand of storytelling: “Being different from Rick and Morty is definitely something that we talked about a lot.” His writing team uses Dan Harmon’s “story circle” method to write episodes. They also make a lot of meta jokes as well. But Wysol says they try to avoid “pop culture jokes” you might see on Rick and Morty.

If Hot Streets does wind up getting a second season, the short runtime of its episodes and honest “mystery of the week” might help in a shorter production time and turnaround.

For all we know, Hot Streets Season 2 might air before Rick and Morty Season 4, so at least we’ve got something to hold us over in the meantime.

You can watch Hot Streets Season 1 on Adult Swim’s website.

Learn more about the characters on Hot Streets: