TikTokers Want Creator to Replace ‘Rick and Morty’ Co-Founder in Series

• Fans are lobbying for TikTok creator Sean Dorrough to replace Justin Roiland in ‘Rick and Morty.’
• The Warner Bros. Discovery brand cut ties with Roiland after domestic abuse charges surfaced.
• Dorrough called the experience “surreal,” and said he’s confident he could do the role.

Fans of 33-year-old TikTok creator Sean Dorrough are lobbying to have him replace “Rick and Morty” co-founder Justin Roiland in the series. This comes on the heels of the Warner Bros. Discovery brand cutting ties with Roiland after domestic abuse charges surfaced.

Dorrough, a Sacramento-based creator whose “Rick and Morty” impressions have earned him 2 million followers on TikTok and 67,700 followers on Instagram, told Insider he began doing impressions after another kid in foster care taught him how to mimic “Donald Duck” at six years old.”I’ve been doing impressions ever since,” he said.

Just six months ago, Dorrough said, he quit his decade-long career in car and insurance sales to pursue being a TikTok creator and voice actor full-time. Now, he’s experiencing the “surreal” phenomenon of hundreds of thousands of strangers online rallying behind him. Fans have flooded Dorrough’s accounts, tagging Adult Swim and leaving comments like “Replace Justin for Rick and Morty,” and “Any calls from Adult Swim yet?” en masse.

Initially, Dorrough had only mastered Morty’s voice, the sidekick grandson of Rick, but, in response to viewer requests, he spent a few months learning how to mimic the show’s other main characters — namely, Rick, the show’s nihilistic mad scientist; Mr. Meeseeks, a turquoise-blue being who pops into existence for a single purpose and dies upon its completion; and Lemongrab, a lemon-faced heir to the Candy Kingdom. All of the characters were voiced by Roiland, and while Dorrough said some impressionists can do a wide range of voices easily, these impressions came to him exceptionally quickly. “I think we’re really just kind of a vocal match,” he told Insider.

In an interview with “Vanity Fair” in which Roiland critiqued “Rick and Morty” impressions, he echoed the same sentiment about the pair’s vocal cords about six months ago. “That’s scary, scary, scary close,” he said. “If you were to play that next to me doing it, people would have a hard time knowing which was which.” Continuing, Roiland said he had told Dorrough personally that they could record together and people wouldn’t be able to differentiate, though he noted that Dorrough’s “Rick is not there” yet.

A top recent comment on the video reads: “He was interviewing people for his job without even knowing it lol.”

Dorrough told Insider he’d reached out to Roiland about a year ago after noticing an interview in which Roiland mentioned Dorrough’s impressions. Since he’s hired for imitation, Dorrough said he’s “been very careful along the way to make sure that I don’t step on anybody’s toes” — including seeking permission from Roiland to launch a Cameo. And, Dorrough told Insider, it’s why he doesn’t “dub a lot of cartoons.”

“I don’t want to be deceptive in any kind of way,” he said. Fans, however, have overlaid Dorrough’s impression onto the cartoon.

Earlier this month, the Warner Bros. Discovery brand severed its ties to Roiland in the wake of the discovery of  domestic abuse charges against him, first reported by NBC News. According to the complaint, Roiland was charged by the Orange County District Attorney’s office with one felony count of domestic battery with corporal injury and one felony count of false imprisonment by menace, violence, fraud, and/or deceit, as Insider’s JP Mangalindan and Azmi Haroun previously reported.

As a spokesperson previously told Insider, “Adult Swim has ended its association with Justin Roiland.” But, the show is expected to continue and Roiland’s voice roles will be re-cast, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

So far, Dorrough said he hasn’t heard from anyone connected with the series, but he believes he’d be up for the role — should it ever be offered. 

“I’m very familiar with the characters, their mannerisms, and their personalities,” he told Insider, later adding: “I am confident that I could do the role.”

Overall, Dorrough is taking the phenomenon of the internet rallying behind him as a gift. “I’m just super grateful to be in this position.”