Moral Orel

A juvenile religious fanatic. His alcoholic, closeted homosexual father. A sexually and emotionally repressed mother. The father's gay, satanist lover. Scenes of gay bashing, molestation, and underage drinking. All the things that make a comedy great.

Moral Orel is an Adult Swim comedy with an extremely dark heart, even crossing over into dramatic territory in its last season. It focuses on the family of Orel, a young evangelical Christian living in the Midwestern town of Moralton. Due to his often literalistic interpretations of his parents' and other adults' advice, Orel's actions frequently culminate in distinctly immoral results.

This is a show that gets better as it goes along. The first season and a half were characterized by an extremely formulaic approach as each episode followed Orel's screw ups. (The episode "Loyalty," for instance, is a masterpiece of dark humor.) Although many of the individual episodes were funny, watching more than one or two at a time could grow very tiresome, very quickly.

However, the third season is arguably a masterpiece of adult animation. It marked a dramatic shift in tone for the series, with much more emphasis on the development of individual characters aside from Orel. For example, the episode "NUMB" focuses on Orel's repressed mother Bloberta, and often crosses between the darkly comic and the genuinely disturbing.

Moral Orel will clearly not appeal to all people, and is best enjoyed by those whose sense of humor leans toward the warped. Nevertheless, with those who are up to it, it is a great, under-appreciated series.

Having grown up in a town very similar to Orel's, I can safely say that this show is only slightly a hyperbole. Which is a scary thought.

The animation is good, but when you have content like this, that doesn't matter. If shows like Southpark and Aqua Teen Hunger Force have taught us anything, they have taught us that you can easily get away with terrible animation if your content is quality.

And, this show is pure genius. It is witty and entertaining, and pulls no punches.

I could do with a daily dose of this show. I'm shocked (and pleased) it managed to get on the air. I'm also very glad to hear there will be a season two.

Most Christians will hate it, bash it, and complain about the contents, but that doesn't make it any less funny (or any less true!).

This is an amazing show. The Williams Street (southern corporate bods zieg heil ted turner) bods canceled it after 3 seasons, but it was amazing. Not only did it walk a fine line between criticizing a putative deity and criticizing the morons who choose to speak in the deity's name, but it also showed us how actual adults (inevitably marginalized in Moralton) do adult things like move on and call a halt to unproductive relationships. (Stephanie and Danielle respectively). The ending is unexpected and unbelievably sweet - it makes me cry every time. I can't wait to see what DS does next!

If you get the chance to see this on DVD, be sure to check the extras. I'm an auditory learner but DS's commentary made me go back and look at the visuals and they were amazing!

Most Christians will probably be severely offended by this show, but that's part of its charm. Its offensiveness is riding on the shoulders of an innocent little boy who simply doesn't know any better. He misinterprets others' advice and chaos ensues. The same could be said about religion itself. What I find so continually compelling about this show however, is that it dares to be different. The line-up on Adult Swim has swiftly shifted to gore porn as of recent (Metalocalypse and Robot Chicken being perfect examples), but Orel focuses its sights on the way religion controls people, changes them. Lying beneath the bitter sentiments however, is something even better: character development. Throughout the series, we see the various demented characters of Oralton for who they really are. This really kicks off in season three (which is currently nearing its end) and it's truly gripping. What you thought were one-off humor characters in the first season are revealed to be deeply troubled human clay-things in the second. Speaking of, the series gets quite dark at times, and with only the personalities of the characters... Yes, things can be dark without buckets of blood. But in the little town of Oralton, Statesota, we see much more than a bewildered mass. We see a portrait of the American psyche. (other psycho-analytical jargon here)

Moral Orel, created by Dino Stamatopoulos, is my favorite television show of all time. The show depicts (at least in the first season) young Orel Puppington growing up in Moralton trying to be a good protestant by sticking to the moral code and lost commandments, unfortunately screwing it up in the process, only to be corrected (in his study with belt in hand) by his supposedly good father figure and father, Clay. In the later seasons, though, it turned much, much darker, focusing on the dramatically repressed citizens of Moralton. In the final season, however, they abandoned the brighter episodes to much more depressing story lines (did I mention this is all done, very well I might add, in stop-motion animation?).

The show has ended, much to Moral Orel fan's dismay, but it was a pretty bad decision. Moral Orel was VERY well written and funny throughout, less we forget dramatic, offensive and blasphemous. Let me warn those of you whom are offended by parody of religion, TURN BACK NOW. This show parodies religion every episode somehow, whether subtle or blatant. For those of us who can take a joke, Moral Orel is over, but Orel shall forevermore live within our hearts knowing the ending. He was canceled before his time, yes, but we have 43 episodes of amazingly done animation. This show is nothing like anything else on Adult Swim, since it contains very few vulgar words (nothing needed to be censored), it's overall style is comparable to Davey and Goliath. Watch it and enjoy one of the best achievements in American television in only eleven minutes.