Rick and Morty, the popular television animation series, produced under the banner of Bardel Entertainment won the Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Animated Program — 2018. The founders of Bardel, Delna Bhesania and her husband Barry Ward were among the six executive producers named on the Emmy website in the winners category.
Above left: Delna Bhesania and Barry Ward with Emmy Award
for Outstanding Animated Program won by Bardel Entertainment’ s
Rick and Morty series’ (top) Pickle Rick episode (above right)
Having premiered in 2013, Rick and Morty is a comedy that follows the misadventures of the titular mad scientist Rick Sanchez and his good-hearted but fretful grandson Morty Smith who split their time between domestic life and inter-dimensional adventures. Created by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland for Adult Swim (the adult-oriented nighttime programing block of the Cartoon Network, operating daily 8 p.m.-6 a.m.) the third episode of Season 3, Pickle Rick, was submitted for Emmy consideration. Pickle Rick is the beloved vegetable who battles an army of sewer rodents and takes down a dark agency, and he manages to do it all before a family therapy session.
Last year Rick and Morty had won the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Animated TV series and two of its episodes were selected for the Annie Awards with the Pickle Rick episode winning the Best General Audience Animated Television/Broadcast Production (see "Critics’ choice,” Zoroastrians Abroad, Parsiana, March 7, 2018).
After spanning three seasons and 31 episodes, in 2018, Adult Swim ordered 70 more episodes of the popular animated series Rick and Morty as part of a new long-term deal with Harmon and Roiland. With studios in Vancouver and Kelowna, over the last 32 years Bardel has done animation for many organizations such as Fox Broadcasting Company, DreamWorks Animation, Warner Bros, Nickelodeon, Disney and Cartoon Network.
"Behram and I are so proud of our dear daughter,” wrote Sheraz Bhesania in an email to Parsiana when informing us of the recent Emmy award. She stated, "They deserved it. They had really worked very hard to achieve it. As we Parsis would say, ‘pasina na paisa (hard earned money).’” On October 5, 2015, Italian animation studio Rainbow S.r.l. acquired Bardel Entertainment.