An Inward Look Into Moral Orel

By Mariana Cardenas, Staff Writer

April 19, 2024

A collage by Mariana Cardenas

Moral Orel is both a dark comedy and a drama, an adult stop-motion animated TV show created by Dino Stamatopoulos. Airing originally on Adult Swim from December 13, 2005, to December 18, 2008, the series follows the main protagonist, Orel Puppington, a young, optimistic, and naive boy, growing up in a heavily devoted Protestant town called Moralton.

Orel attempts to show and improve his commitment to God; however, he is always messing up or misunderstanding the instruction or advice the adults give him. The show uses dark and nihilistic humor to go into the archetypes of suburban middle-American life and the modern-day white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture.

A Synopsis of Moral Orel

However, the show doesn’t always paint these beliefs in a cartoony light or only use low-brow humor. The show pushes the envelope by showing the negative effects of growing up in a religious environment by the town itself or domestic struggles, like living with Clay Puppington, a cynical abusive alcoholic father that reacts with rage and sadness to his life; Bloberta Puppington, a cleaning obsessive, apathetic and unloving mother; as well as a stunted, extremely babied, and neglected young brother, Shapey Puppington.

Moral Orel can be the most outlandishly silly and weird story. Like in season one episode one, Orel accidentally raises the dead and his father is only mad at him because the zombies are naked. For the rest of the episode, they give clothes to the man-eating monsters. But in the later season, the story becomes one of huge depth and emotional complexity. For me, the voice acting and character writing towards serious topics in these shows like generational abuse, substance abuse, homosexuality, and religious trauma are shown in a respectful and creative manner that other shows lacks.

Breakdown of The Best Christmas Ever

“The Best Christmas Ever” is Moral Orel’s season one finale. The episode starts with a light, heartfelt feeling with the Orel family singing silly religious songs in the car drive to church. However, once they arrive at the church, Reverend Putty has a sermon about the birth of Jesus and him being an unplanned baby. But later, the episode cuts to a scene of Orel’s mother and father having a conversation about it relating to their youngest son Shapey.

Something that surprised me was the change of the camera movement, as it made me feel like I was in the room with them, like a documentary video, adding a level of discomfort. Bloberta argues that the Reverend knows that he doesn’t want his son, but Clay finds this topic ludicrous because how can the Reverend even know about that. Bloberta angrily responds back, “Don’t be an idiot, everyone knows you didn’t want him.” Clay spits back that he has his reasons, due to him having no idea of conceiving Shapey, which is a shocking statement, but it doesn’t stop there. Bloberta attempts to downplay Clay by teasing him about his drinking problem with the line, “Please when do you ever remember,” with the added gesture of him drinking with her hand. The scene continues its eerie and sad aura by keeping the lighting dark, giving off a muted coloring to the animation. But then it cuts to Morel praying to God in this dreamy and bright innocent light contrasting what just was shown to us.

A look into “The Lords Prayers”

“The Lords Prayers” is season two episode eight of Moral Orel. The episode begins with new neighbors, the Pusabules, moving next door and a shocking turn of events. The other family is a mirror image of Orel’s family, enjoying and owning the same the things as each other, like the father listening to problematic music records and with the mothers both being obsessive cleaning freaks. A sweet change of pace is Orel and the other family’s daughter, Christina, having a cute, childlike romance. But these sweet moments don’t last long due to the parents blowing up at each other because the other family believes in God the “wrong” way since they’re Catholic and not Protestant.

Something that I find ironic and oddly ridiculous is that what made them declare the other horrible is just because they pray differently. The rest of the episode plays off as a Romeo and Juliet story but less dramatic with Orel and Christina meeting in secret at night to pray and Orel attempting the Catholic prayer and switching the words “trespasser” to “debtor.” It’s a soft moment with the music supporting the childhood innocent feeling in the air, but that warm feeling doesn’t stick for long with Orel feeling guilty for saying a different prayer from the one that his community thinks is right, fearing that he would go to the wrong heaven. He sadly decides to stop seeing Christina, who is heartbroken and confused by this belief that Orel and she could have worked out.

As a result of the Puppington’s praying differently, the Posabule’s repack all their things to go away from the sinful family, which is just an absurd reaction. Then a funny and ironic moment happens to Shapey, being switched with the other family’s son, but the family doesn’t notice,

proving how similar, neglectful, and hypocritical they both are, with the line, “These poor heathens, God gave them eyes, but they can’t see.” The beauty of this is that neither family genuinely cares for the good, but for the idea of being seen and viewed as the right or good ones.

Breakdown of “Grounded”

The episode “Grounded” is one of the most depressing and disturbing, but also one of the most creative episodes of Moral Orel. The episode begins with Clay seeing Orel, once again misunderstanding his advice. But this time around, Orel goes to the extremes, having his friends fill a bathtub with blood, while he sits in it. Terrified and frustrated with another one of Orel’s shenanigans, Clay gives a harsher punishment by grounding him from church for a full month. This punishment frightens Orel, but his father doesn’t care. A mini montage shows the days passing by and Orel slowly decaying to madness, and worry is shown in the animation with his walls filled to the brim with religious drawings and tally marks. This scene brings a level of sympathy and terror from me for Orel due to this punishment bringing more harm than good for the young boy.

Then Orel takes multiple days to make a paper church to bring some form of comfort to himself but his father comes to his room, mocking and teasing the fact that the rest of the family can join the righteous feeling of church, but Orel must be stuck here. Clay takes away the paper church since, in his words, “that’s cheating.” Orel reacts like a crazed wild animal attempting to grab it back but fails. A sinister line is spoken by Clay, “I guess you’re really learning something this time.” It then cuts to a shot of a destroyed and soulless face of Orel. The decay to insanity only increases days later with Orel jumping into the trash becoming one with the paper church, using it as a costume.

He skittishly walks around town, then one of his friends sees him, confuse by Orel appearance until Orel explains that he a church, his friend, carelessly point out that he is missing the cross at the top. Due to Orel already in a horribly state of mind he desperately tries to find a cross, he goes on top of an old building to steal a mini cross. However, the sky is getting stormy then, bang, Orel gets electrocuted. The episode just keeps getting more demented and the animation becomes darkly shaded, with the music adding a level of eeriness.

Watching the last couple of minutes of this episode defined my love for the show and its creativity. I fully encourage you all to react to it on your own due to it being an otherworldly experience.

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