Adult Swim A McDonald's chef says he's looking into bringing back a cult classic McNuggets sauce after a cartoon demanded its return. 
 
 On Saturday, Adult Swim aired the first new episode of "Rick and Morty" since 2015 as an April Fools' Day treat for loyal fans. 
 
 The episode ended with a plea from mad scientist Rick for McDonald's to bring back its Szechuan McNugget sauce, a plum sauce that was available for a limited time in 1998 to promote the Disney movie "Mulan." 
 
 "I'm not driven by avenging my dead family," Rick says in the episode's closing minutes. "I'm driven by finding that McNugget sauce. I want that 'Mulan' McNugget Sauce. ... That's my series arc, Morty. If it takes nine seasons, I want that McNugget Szechuan sauce." 
 
 After the episode, it became clear that "Rick and Morty" fans and writers were just as determined as Rick to bring back the sauce — and that McDonald's might be open to their demands. A Change.org petition calling for the return of the sauce received more than 13,500 signatures by Monday morning. 
 
 A corporate chef at McDonald's tweeted at Business Insider's Ashley Lutz saying he'd "see what I can do." 
 
 McDonald's will be presented with a convenient opportunity to bring back the sauce when a live-action remake of "Mulan" is released in November 2018. ||||| This post contains spoilers for the new season-three episode of Rick and Morty. On October 4, 2015, the Adult Swim animated sci-fi series Rick and Morty aired its season-two finale. The episode, “The Wedding Squanchers,” built to a Red Wedding-esque massacre on a planet 6,000 light-years away from Earth, and an interstellar manhunt that drove the dysfunctional central family, the Smiths, and their mad-scientist patriarch Rick Sanchez into hiding. But the episode ended with Rick, an alleged terrorist, secretly turning himself over to the Galactic Federation police to protect his daughter, Beth, and his grandkids Morty and Summer. For a comedy that could be so silly and surreal (characters often have names like “Mr. Poopybutthole” and “King Flippy Nips”), locking up a repentant Rick to the soundtrack of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” was a decidedly dispirited, yet moving, way to end the season. Since then, fans had been clamoring for official news of when season three would start; in response, they’d been getting little more than teaser clips and coy tweets from the show’s creators, Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon. But on Saturday, amid this growing impatience, Adult Swim dropped a terrific and outrageous new episode titled “The Rickshank Redemption,” effectively kicking off season three on April Fool’s Day. Since there was no real advance notice, most fans didn’t see it coming, but maybe they should have: In the epilogue to the season-two finale, viewers were told to expect season three “in, like, a year and a half.” Sure enough, as some keen observers noted, the new episode arrived a year and a half later, almost to the day. It was hard to tell, though, whether the episode’s release was a supreme act of trolling or a genuine gift—and whether, in fact, it had been precisely planned this way all along. Related Story Rick and Morty’s Biggest Twist: It Has a Heart The long awaited third-season premiere—in both the style of its release and the substance of its story—is a deeply fitting return for a show that takes delight in constantly unsettling its viewers’ notions of a fixed reality. Most Rick and Morty episodes see Rick, an alcoholic genius, and his increasingly jaded teenage grandson Morty going on violent, funny, and philosophically-minded adventures that can involve virtual simulations, multiverse-exploring, and space-time manipulation. “The Rickshank Redemption,” too, features plenty of twists and high-concept sci-fi, but what’s especially eyebrow-raising is how neatly it seems to resolve its season-two dilemma. Rick handily breaks out of intergalactic prison and, for the most part, wins back his family by the closing credits. It’s all accomplished via some exciting set pieces and moments of real emotional tension, but something seems amiss. It’s hard not to wonder: Is the new episode some kind of fever dream that takes place in Rick’s mind as he wastes away in prison? Is it just a high-octane way to kick off the new season and put old story threads quickly to bed? Is it both—or is it something else entirely? 
 
 Despite these questions, the premiere episode is perfectly enjoyable even when taken at face value. It opens in a diner with Rick miraculously freed from prison and eating breakfast with Beth, her husband Jerry, Morty, and Summer. Of course, it’s quickly revealed that Rick is still incarcerated. He and an insect-like Galactic Federation agent (Nathan Fillion) are hooked up to a brain analyzer, and their consciousnesses are chatting inside a manifestation of Rick’s cerebellum. The rest of the episode follows Rick’s inventive attempts to not only escape, but also topple the entire Galactic Federation empire, which has taken over Earth. At the same time, Morty (who’s seemingly fed up with his grandfather’s neglect) and Summer (who’s deeply loyal to him) try to track him down. It’s an exhilarating ride filled with some of the most vivid animation and smartest writing the show has deployed so far. Still—and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing—the episode at times feels like a compressed remix of old Rick and Morty moments. There’s the Inception-like storyline (first used in season one, episode two, “Lawnmower Dog”); the simulation plot (used most similarly in season one’s “M. Night Shaym-Aliens!”); Rick’s manic final soliloquy (directly mirroring the monologue at the end of the pilot); Jerry enjoying career success in a reality Rick helped engineer (also “M. Night Shaym-Aliens!”); Morty’s sudden, vicious rage (“Look Who’s Purging Now”); the return of the Council of Ricks (“Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind”); a fatal standoff that accidentally goes well (“Total Rickall”); and a trip to Cronenberg World, the reality that Rick and Morty destroyed with an experiment gone wrong (“Rick Potion #9”). The series regularly revisits characters or moments from previous episodes, but the mash-up feel here was hard ignore. ||||| Tweet with a location 
 
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– More than 20,000 supporters have signed a petition calling for McDonald's to bring back a special sauce for its Chicken McNuggets, and it's thanks to a cult-favorite cartoon. Rick and Morty, a popular animated series co-created by Dan Harmon for the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim roster, hasn't put up a new episode since October 2015, when it aired its second-season finale, the Atlantic notes. So fans were giddy with excitement Saturday when the network unexpectedly aired the first show of Season Three—and the episode's final moments had an additional surprise. Per Business Insider, Rick, who plays the mad-scientist title character, revealed his innermost motivations, and they involved a plum sauce the fast-food chain hasn't offered in nearly 20 years. "I want that 'Mulan' McNugget Sauce. ... That's my series arc, Morty," he tells his grandson. "If it takes nine seasons, I want that McNugget Szechuan sauce." What the deranged patriarch referred to is a condiment McDonald's offered as part of a co-branding effort with Disney in 1998 to push its movie Mulan. The special sauce is now making an appearance on eBay—though the listings mostly appear to be Rick and Morty-inspired jokes—and the show's writers even put out a plea on Twitter, asking McDonald's: "You wanna get in on this? Call me." The restaurant account's reply: "McNugga Lubba Dub Dub" (a twist on one of Rick's catchphrase); a top Mickey D's chef also said, "I'll see what I can do." Business Insider notes a live-action version of Mulan is due out in late 2018, so ... the McNugget's in your court now, McDonald's. (The chain is trying its hand at "cleaner" nuggets.)