Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for Rick and Morty season five; read at your own caution.

About

Naruto Smith, better known as the Giant Incest Baby, is a recurring character from the animated television show Rick and Morty on Adult Swim. He is the biological son of Summer and Morty Smith, who are siblings, and was introduced in season five of the series where he plays a major role in the story.

Origin

Naruto Smith was conceived and born in episode four of season five in Rick and Morty, entitled "Rickdependence Spray." His conception occurred after Summer donated one of her eggs to be enlarged and used as bait for giant sperm monsters that were rapidly destroying the world, unaware that the mutated sperm was Morty’s. The U.S. Army is unable to stop a malformed sperm named Sticky from fertilizing the egg, launching it into space as a solution. In a parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the baby is first introduced hovering near a satellite (seen below).^[2] In the episode "Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion," it is revealed that the government had kidnapped the baby to use as a weapon. Instead, Summer befriends the baby, names him "Naruto" and teaches him to love. Despite inhabiting space, Naruto appears to form a beneficial alliance with his family.^[1]

Naruto’s existence, as well as the episode at hand, was met with controversial opinions following its premiere. The earliest meme about Naruto was posted to Reddit's /r/rickandmorty^[3] on July 15th, 2021, by u/datadrone. It received 168 upvotes and 14 comments in roughly one month (seen below).

Spread

On July 12th, 2021, a post (seen below) by @DingusXXL was the earliest known tweet about Naruto and the controversy surrounding it.^[4] Debate threads began to appear on Twitter and Reddit about the character and "Rickdependence Spray" rapidly after it was first aired.

On August 5th, 2021, Redditor u/Castiel0001 posted a meme to /r/rickandmorty,^[5] where it became the most popular meme (seen below) about the character as of August 2021. Captioned "If you liked Pickle Rick but hated the incest baby you're part of the problem," it received over 2,400 upvotes and 285 comments in roughly two weeks.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References