Dan Harmon Apologizes For Almost Decade-Old Dexter Parody With Offensive Jokes

TVLine reports that Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon is under fire for a pilot he created in 2009 which includes jokes about sexually assaulting children. Adult Swim, which recently renewed his show for seventy more episodes, has decided not to fire him but they called his sketch “offensive.”

The sketch was from something called Daryl, a spoof of the Showtime series Dexter. In it, Harmon’s character goes back in time to stop serial killers by raping them when they were kids. He is shown breaking into a house and simulating rape on a baby doll. After the sketch began to show up online, he deleted his Twitter account.

He said: “In 2009, I made a ‘pilot’ which strove to parody the series Dexter and only succeeded in offending. I quickly realized the content was way too distasteful and took the video down immediately. Nobody should ever have to see what you saw and for that, I sincerely apologize.

Adult Swim added in a statement: “At Adult Swim, we seek out and encourage creative freedom and look to push the envelope in many ways, particularly around comedy. The offensive content of Dan’s 2009 video that recently surfaced demonstrates poor judgement and does not reflect the type of content we seek out. Dan recognized his mistake at the time and has apologized. He understands there is no place for this type of content here at Adult Swim.“