Why is everyone talking about Szechuan sauce? Rick & Morty is why, and McDonalds might bring it back

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If you’re not a fan of Adult Swim’s hit show Rick & Morty (opens in new tab) or April Fool’s Day jokes, you might’ve missed the season 3 premiere which looped for 24 hours on the prank-filled holiday. And if you missed the premiere, you’ve probably been wondering why the internet has been flooded with talk about bringing back a McDonald’s dipping sauce from 19 years ago. So if you’ve been wondering just what the squanch is going on, allow me to explain:

Rick & Morty main character Rick Sanchez is a crotchety, alcoholic, dimension-hopping scientist and (so he claims) the smartest man in the multiverse. Until the season 3 premiere, nobody really knew why he tore around through alternate realities. But Rick himself reveals in the final moments of the episode that it’s all so he can get another taste of the Szechuan dipping sauce McDonald’s carried as part of a tie-in promotion with the Disney movie Mulan.

Whether or not that’s true – Rick is notoriously two, three, or even infinity-faced about himself and his motivations – it’s caused a stir among fans. Multiple change.org petitions have been created to convince McDonald’s to bring back the sauce, several of them gaining more than 30k signatures. Even the official Twitter account of the show poked at the official McDonald’s account:

@RickandMorty .@RickandMorty McNugga Lubba Dub Dub. 👀April 2, 2017

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Again, for those of you just joining this hype train, “Wubba lubba dub dub” is one of Rick’s catchphrases. So that’s a positive response. But lest you think this was just token acknowledgment, an honest-to-goodness corporate chef by the name Mike Haracz said he was working on reviving the discontinued flavor paste (even if he was wary not to commit too much to the cause).

@McD_Truth @AshleyLutz I’ll see what I can doApril 3, 2017

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Fans have even pointed out that 2018 would be the perfect chance for the sauce to make a comeback, what with a live-action Mulan film scheduled to arrive in theaters. I’d say the odds of that happening are a little lower than many would like, if only because Disney and McDonald’s ended their longtime professional relationship in 2006. But hey, there’s no reason they can’t kiss and make up.

Will we ever see McDonald’s Szechuan McNugget dipping sauce again? I’d say that’s likely up to fan demand. And at this point I’ll point out that Rick’s last name is almost an anagram for “Szechuan” – all it’s missing is “u.”

Images: Adult Swim