Victorian city was featured in Australian animator Michael Cusack’s short, which aired on Adult Swim on April Fools’ Day

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The mayor of an Australian city featured in a parody of the popular cartoon Rick and Morty has welcomed the sudden spike in internet traffic about her community, saying “I guess any publicity is good publicity”.

The rural city of Bendigo in central Victoria was featured in the 11-minute Australian-themed parody short, which aired on a loop on the US cable channel Adult Swim on 1 April.

It has also been shared with the show’s social media following of almost 5 million people and streamed on the Adult Swim website.

Created by the Australian animator Michael Cusack, the short showed protagonists “Reek” and “Mordi” leaving on a 12-hour roadtrip to Bendigo to retrieve Reek’s green cube, riffing on the inter-dimensional adventures of the titular Rick and Morty from the animated series, which was created by Dan Harmon.

Bendigo is depicted as a barren wasteland, and the short itself is darker and more vulgar than its already disturbing source material.

Google searches from the United States for “Bendigo” spiked within minutes of its release.

Michael Brennan (@MilkPls69) 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

Natalie Croxon (@natcroxon) That Rick and Morty parody has ruined my TweetDeck feed for Bendigo pic.twitter.com/CUPV5NlDEe

The Bendigo mayor, Margaret O’Rourke, watched the short on Tuesday morning after hearing about it on ABC radio.

She was not familiar with the original program and said she was “quite staggered” by the vulgar parody.

“Obviously there are different tastes for everyone,” O’Rourke told Guardian Australia. “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.”

The city of 115,000 is the third-largest in Victoria, after Melbourne and Geelong, and just held its annual Easter festival, which is the most popular tourist event of the year.

“In some ways I guess any publicity is good publicity,” O’Rourke said. “Bendigo is a very vibrant and beautiful place and nothing like what has been displayed.”

Cusack, who is based in Wollongong in New South Wales, admitted he had never been to Bendigo but thought the name sounded funny.

Emma Jay (@the_emmazing) Me realizing @RickandMorty done April fooled us #bendigo #RickandMorty pic.twitter.com/29XwwqGs5P

“For some reason, Bendigo sounded funny to me, I don’t know what it is, but it’s something behind that name, that it seemed right to use, so I went with it,” he told the ABC.

The short met with a mixed response from the show’s often problematic fan base, with some calling for more episodes and others disappointed to have received a genuine April Fool’s Day joke instead of the release of the show’s fourth season.

Rick (((and Morty))) (@RickandMorty) The boys head to the Bush Dimension. Streaming now and on TV till midnight: https://t.co/ewRdtVTwPe pic.twitter.com/Opb0CVD5VY

The Rick and Morty season three premiere was released on 1 April 2017 and received 11.7m online views. The season finale was even more popular, making it the most popular comedy television show for 18- to 34-year-olds in the US.

A deal for the fourth season has yet to be signed due to protracted contract negotiations with the network, Harmon has said.