“Ricker Than Fiction,” the latest episode of Rick and Morty, felt in some ways like a throwback to season four episode “Never Ricking Morty,” which similarly interrogated the storytelling process. But instead of a “Story Train” and characters with distressingly overdeveloped abs, we got a “Movie-Lizer” (a Rick invention designed to right the wrongs of the show’s in-universe “Maximum Velocitree” blockbuster franchise) and the distressingly overdeveloped biceps of one Zack Snyder.

Joining a long list of celebrity voices to have appeared on Rick and Morty, Snyder popped up to play himself. But the main guest star in “Ricker Than Fiction” is James Gunn—whose Superman hits theaters later this week, in a bit of Warner Bros. corporate synergy. Both directors seem to be having a lot of fun poking fun at themselves and each other in a scene that saw them running into each other in the WB cafeteria.

“Just saw your new cut of Superman,” Snyder says. “And word of advice, he’s the ‘Man of Steel,’ not the ‘Man of Conversation.’ Do more shots of him punching! And here’s a secret move: start the punch at regular speed and then you’re gonna ramp it down.”

The banter continues (“Your biceps are the size of my head,” Gunn points out; “Yes, but so is my heart,” Snyder replies), and there’s a funny joke about Rick hating Interstellar so much he sealed Christopher Nolan into a giant bookcase. There’s also a gag about a Count Chocula movie—and beyond just that scene between the directors, the episode itself is packed full of jabs at Hollywood blockbuster excess, as well as the pressure of fan expectations, something Rick and Morty is well familiar with too.

Speaking to Variety, Rick and Morty showrunner and executive producer Scott Marder explained both Gunn and Snyder are huge fans of the show and were “thrilled” at the chance to guest star. “There was no pushback or bristling,” Marder said. “If anything, they laughed at anything we threw at them. There were probably, frankly, even more digs and more silly things we could have used. All they did was laugh it off.”

And the choice of Gunn as the show’s bad guy was no accident. “We were like, if we’re going to do a movie and we’re going [to] skewer Hollywood, we feel like we have to include our bosses. So we started thinking about Warner Bros. Who’d be a good face to be kind of the villain here? James Gunn just seemed like such a good choice,” Marder explained, and said Gunn responded “instantly” to say he’d do it. He even came in to record his lines the day after Superman wrapped principal production like a true superfan.

You can watch “Ricker Than Fiction,” which also features some classic Jerry blunders, on Adult Swim. Superman is out Friday, July 11.

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