5 Adult Cartoons Way Better Than Rick And Morty

When "Rick and Morty" first started, you could make a case for it being one of the best adult cartoons on TV. Not the best – among other competing toons, "Bob's Burgers" was hitting its stride around the same time and "BoJack Horseman" would soon blow everyone away shortly after. But "Rick and Morty" was fresh, funny, and easy to obsess over. Nine seasons into its prospective 100 year run, however, the show is no longer as exciting as it once was. While it hasn't gone downhill to the same extent as other long-running animated series and still occasionally produces a brilliant episode, its overall quality has grown inconsistent.

If "Rick and Morty" is still your favorite adult cartoon, more power to you (so long as you're not the kind of fan who talks about their "very high IQ"). But there are many other shows in the medium, both predating "Rick and Morty" and premiering in its wake, that manage to exceed it in humor, storytelling, or both. This list highlights five such superior cartoons that all "Rick and Morty" fans should give a chance.

As dark cartoon comedies about depressive, problematic anti-heroes, everyone has made comparisons between "Rick and Morty" and "BoJack Horseman" – and those comparisons are generally so favorable towards "BoJack" that we don't even need to mention it on this list. But while the near-unmatched brilliance of "BoJack" is common knowledge among adult animation fans, creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg's subsequent series "Long Story Short" hasn't become nearly as popular despite its similar excellence.

Lighter and more grounded than its predecessor but no less thoughtful and ambitious, "Long Story Short" is a nonlinear sitcom showcasing different stories, from the 1990s to 2020s, in the lives of a Jewish-American family known as the Schwoopers. The way it plays with the expanse of time allows for profound character development at a fast pace, and you'll feel more for the Schwoopers in one season than you have for the Smiths in nine seasons of "Rick and Morty." And amidst all the thoughtful examinations of faith and family, the series is still incredibly funny, packed with great puns, wacky visual gags, and relevant satire.

To prevent anime from completely taking over this list, we're limiting our spotlight to the one with the most in common with "Rick and Morty." The parallels between "Space Dandy" and "Rick and Morty" are coincidental but almost uncanny: they premiered on Adult Swim within months of one another, and both mix high-concept existentialist science fiction with ridiculous crude humor while making creative use of the multiverse.

While "Rick and Morty" got all the hype from a mainstream press still not fully attuned to anime in 2014, "Space Dandy" might actually be the more fun of the two shows. It's certainly more chill, approaching its violent alien adventures with a Zen attitude that's refreshing next to the constant anxiety of "Rick and Morty." And it's absolutely the more beautifully animated of the two; director Shinichirō Watanabe treated "Space Dandy" as a playground for all the most talented animators in Japan (and a few from overseas) to go wild drawing in whatever style they wanted to try out.

Adult cartoons don't just have to be "Rick and Morty"-style raunchy comedies. If you're looking for a great action cartoon for older audiences, "Primal" is one of the best you can find in America. Like creator Genndy Tartakovsky's previous series "Samurai Jack" (which was technically a family show until its adults-only final season), "Primal" keeps its storylines simple but finds real power in its methods of storytelling.

Following a caveman and his T-Rex buddy fighting for survival in an anachronistic prehistory filled with the most metal Robert E. Howard-meets-Jack Kirby pulp fiction nonsense you can imagine, "Primal" still finds sensitivity amidst all the carnage. It expresses essential fears, as well as the joys that make life worth fighting for, all with nary a single line of intelligible dialogue. The animation, courtesy of Studio La Cachette in France, is as gorgeous as television gets. The worst you could say about "Primal" was that the end of Season 2 wasn't fully satisfying – and so they somehow made a completely insane third season to retcon that conclusion on a much stronger note.

With five seasons under its belt, "Harley Quinn" did double duty as both an over-the-top, adults-only parody of DC's heroes and villains, as well as a genuinely thoughtful and compelling interpretation of the crew. The writing team — led by Justin Halpern, Patrick Schumacker, and Dean Lorey — knew how to both poke fun at these characters while also nailing their appeal. Come for the slapstick ultraviolence, stay for the sweet romance between Harley Quinn (Kaley Cuoco) and Poison Ivy (Lake Bell), one of the best cartoon couples of all time.

"Harley Quinn" made the tragic character of Clayface (Alan Tudyk) utterly hilarious, turned King Shark (Ron Funches) into a lovable daddy, and found such sympathy for the Z-list villain Kite Man (Matt Oberg) that he somehow earned his own spinoff show. It also gave us the last Batman (Diedrich Bader) origin story we will ever need. Each season shifted the narrative focus, so every fan will have their favorite and least favorite arcs; but, having seemingly ended on a satisfying finale, the show avoided overstaying its welcome.

This recommendation comes with the warning that the fourth and final season of "The Boondocks," made without the involvement of creator Aaron McGruder, is worse than any season of "Rick and Morty." Still, the highs of the first three seasons of "The Boondocks" are very high, and one bad but easily ignorable season weighs down its legacy less than the mixed bag of the past five or so years of "Rick and Morty."

Based on McGruder's comic strip of the same name about a Black family living in the suburbs, "The Boondocks" never shied away from controversy. Going too far was the name of the game – and yet, much of the humor still holds up. It's dated, but in a way that's both a fascinating time capsule and Cassandra oracle; it nailed the likes of R. Kelly and Tyler Perry dead to rights long before #MeToo, and its laments about the struggles of radical activism have only gained poignancy in the era of Black Lives Matter.

The anime-style animation looked better than almost every other animated sitcom at the time and lent itself well to the show's wackier action beats. The cast, led by Regina King doing amazing double-duty as both young activist Huey and his brother Riley, along with the late and great John Witherspoon as Granddad, was exceptional. Vulture ranked it the best Adult Swim show of all time, and it's easy to understand why.