Student Guide

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Rick and Morty
Season 1, Episode 8
"Rixty Minutes"

Rick and Morty (S1, E8) Plot Summary

As the family watches a tv show called "The Bachelor", Rick is dissatisfied with the quality of Earth TV so he upgrades the tv to show programming from every other dimension.

Eventually, the family see Jerry on TV, as a successful actor in an altern[...]

Getting Started

2 ~ 4 minutes

Welcome your students to the lesson and ask them what they thought of today's episode.

  1. What did you think of this episode of Rick and Morty?
  2. Can you give Rick and Morty season 1, ep. 8 a star-rating between 1 and 5 stars?
  3. What factors did you consider when giving your rating?
  4. Are there any particular scenes, characters, or details you're looking forward to discussing?

Sections

Warm-Up

5 ~ 20 minutes

Warm up by asking your students to consider some open-ended general questions:

Q 1
Some of the clips in this episode are parodies of popular commercials and tv shows. Can you remember any tv commercials for cereal, toys or other products?
Q 2
About half of this episode uses improvised material from the co-creator, Justin Roiland. Could you tell which parts were improvised?
Q 3
Would you go to the theater to see “Two Brothers” if it was a real movie? What about a “Ball Fondlers” movie? What about “Baby Legs and Regular Legs” or “Weekend at Dead Cat Lady's 2”?
Q 4
What was your favorite clip from Interdimensional Cable?

Key Expressions

Approx 15 ~ 25 minutes

Review these 11 key expressions from the transcript:

How to use this section

Level 1:For each expression, review the meaning and example with your student, then ask your student to listen/repeat the example sentence after you.

Level 2:You can ask your student to create their own example sentences, using the same expression.

Image Prompt

5 minutes

Tell your students that you will show them an image and ask them a question. They will have a limited amount of time to respond.

Countdown
What device does Rick create? What can it do?

Check Understanding

10 ~ 15 minutes

Let's make sure your students watched the episode and understood what was going on.

How to use this section

As the teacher, you can press the "SEE ANSWER" button to check our suggested answers. Students do not see this button.

  1. What is interdimensional cable?
  2. What device does Rick share with Beth, Jerry, and Summer?
  3. Why is it hard for Summer to find a timeline where she exists?
  4. What convinced Beth to stay with Jerry?

Discussion

20 ~ 35 minutes

Lead students in an open-ended discussion of the scenes, themes, plot and characters in the episode

Q 1
If you discovered that your parents never planned to have you, would it change your relationship with them now?
Q 2
Summer says that her parents forced themselves to be together instead of being happy. Is that true? Would they be happier if they continued raising their kids, but separately?
Q 3
Would Beth and Jerry have been happier as Childfree people who never had kids at all?
Q 4
Can you think of any situation in which somebody would want to buy a real fake door?
Q 5
Morty famously says to Summer, “nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody's gonna die. Come watch tv”. Are these words deep and meaningful? Have you asked yourself philosophical questions before?

Shadowing Practice

10 ~ 15 minutes

Shadowing is a repetition technique for more natural pronunciation.

How to use this section

Ask your students to memorize this passage from the transcript and repeat it back to you, being careful to match the pronunciation, inflection, and emotion they heard in the show.

This can be assigned as homework or practiced together during class time.

Start playback at time: 04:30

Where there are yellow-highlighted gaps in the passage, press on the gap to see the correct text.
1
Give me those!
2
What do you see?
3
Whiteness. Pure whiteness.
4
You're my best friend, Jerry Smith. I love doing cocaine with you.
5
Whoa... I love doing cocaine with you too, Johnny Depp!
6
Haven't we spent enough time on you?
7
I'm performing surgery... but not on a horse, on a human!
8
That's great, Beth! You always wanted to be a real surgeon.
9
I am a real surgeon.
10
Ahh... uh... Summer's turn!
11
Finally! I don't see anything.

Role Play

10 ~ 20 minutes

Students take the roles of characters and act out the scenes by creating their own version of events

Option
1
One student is Beth and the other is Summer. Summer is upset because she was an unwanted pregnancy but Beth tries to comfort her.
Option
2
One student is Rick and the other is Jerry. Rick wants to explain that looking at other lives in other dimensional can only lead to depression. But Jerry disagrees. He thinks it could be interesting or inspirational.

Articles (a/an/the) Practice

5 ~ 30 minutes

Ask your student to click on any incorrect articles, or to click in the space before a word that needs an article.

Some articles may be correct already, but clicking on them will show an alternate option.

As
a
family
watches
an
tv
show
called
"The
Bachelor",
Rick
is
dissatisfied
with
a
quality
of
Earth
TV
so
he
upgrades
the
tv
to
show
programming
from
every
other
dimension.
Restart articles practice?
You have found 0 out of 4 issues

Guessing Game

5 ~ 10 minutes

Ask your student to type letters and try to guess the expression

Some expresssions might have punctuation, like question marks (?), exclamation marks (!), hyphens (-), or single quotation marks (').

“That became boring”
????
???
???
Guess 10 more letters

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