The Mayor Of Bendigo Is “Staggered” By The Way Her City Was Depicted In ‘Rick And Morty’

The Mayor of Bendigo has insisted that her city is “a very vibrant and beautiful place”, after it was depicted as a desolate wasteland in a recent parody of cult cartoon series Rick and Morty.

The city in central Victoria played a major part in the vulgar animated short, which was released by Adult Swim as an April Fool’s Day prank. Written and directed by Australian animator Michael Cusack (creator of YOLO and Damo and Darren), the fake episode, titled Bushworld Adventures, follows crudely drawn Australian versions of Rick and Morty on a trip from Wollongong south of Sydney to Bendigo to recover “a green cube”.

Bendigo mayor Margaret O’Rourke told The Guardian on Tuesday that she hadn’t seen the show before, but that she watched Cusack’s short after hearing about it on the radio.

She said she was “pretty staggered” by what she saw, which yeah, that checks out.

“Obviously there are different tastes for everyone,” said O’Rourke. “But I believe the Google searches have soared ever since it was released, and people would know by those searches that Bendigo is nothing like what’s in the parody.”

“In some ways I guess any publicity is good publicity,” she added.

Can’t believe @MichaelRCusack has single handidly saved the bendigo tourisim scene. Next thing you know Dubbo and wagga wagga going to be hitting him up. pic.twitter.com/cqpTtolSUu

— Michael Brennan (@MilkPls69) April 2, 2018

Cusack, for his part, has told the ABC that he’s never actually been to Bendigo, and that he only chose the city because he thought the name sounded funny.

“It genuinely was going down the list of Australian towns and thinking ‘what’s the funniest name?'” he said. “I was thinking ‘Wagga Wagga, Newcastle, nah, not really’, then I was like, ‘Bendigo’.”

You can watch Bushworld Adventures on the Adult Swim website.