zetes Review of Moral Orel

Moral Orel (2005–2009)

This starts off as fairly mediocre, but gets more and more complex and original as it goes on, building to a third season that is as good as anything I've ever seen

[12 August 2012]

Created by Mr. Show alumnus Dino Stamatopoulos (best known now for playing the character Alex "Starburns" Osbourne on Community; his Mr. Show alums Jay Johnston and Scott Adsit (best known for his role on 30 Rock) are also major artistic contributors) created this stop-motion puppet show for Adult Swim. It's a parody of Davey and Goliath, a religious cartoon from the '60s. Oral is a young boy living in the very Christian town of Moralton, Statesota (located in the exact center of the United States, between Missouri and Kansas). He eagerly wants to do right by God, and tries to take the advice of his reverend, his parents and his elders, but that advice always leads to horrible situations (in the first three episodes he raises the dead, who of course attempt to eat everyone's brains, he gets a bunch of women pregnant and he gets addicted to crack). This is the basic structure of the first season and most of the second season. At the beginning, it reminded me a lot of South Park. Like South Park, it's funny, but ultimately cheap. In the second season, the writing grew a lot sharper, but, as it goes on, something happens. Even in the first season, it's revealed that there is a lot of darkness and misery underneath the adult characters' positive, Christian exteriors. But Stamatopoulos and his writers add a lot of depth in that second season, and they do a lot of world and character building. It starts to get pretty interesting, and then comes the final two episodes of the second season, where Orel, always an innocent before, learns the truth about his father: that in reality, he is an abusive, alcoholic *beep* While these episodes are very funny, there is an unprecedented emotional depth for any animated series I've ever seen. It's absolutely devastating, and it just kind of left me shaking. And then comes the third season. Unable to move past the season finale of Season 2, the first 10 episodes of 13 (each billed as Episode 1 of 13 and so forth), it weaves the complex story of Orel's family and the other citizens of Moralton in the days leading up to the hunting trip, often focusing on just one sentence a character speaks during those two episodes and expanding on why they would say that, the backstory of that sentence's existence. Only in Episode 10 of 13 do we move to the events after the hunting trip, dealing with its fallout until we reach the season's and series' enormously powerful final moment. It's one of the most complexly structured seasons of television I've ever seen. It's an unbelievably enormous achievement, especially considering how slight the first few episodes of the series are (honestly, if I were watching this live, I probably wouldn't have bothered seeking it out after that first season; each episode only being 11.5 minutes long - yes, it does all this in 11.5 minute installments - it wasn't much of a commitment). I am not at all kidding when I say this turned out to be the best thing I've watched all year. I have not stopped thinking about it for a minute since I finished it a few days ago, and I have a hard time not weeping whenever it comes to mind. The night I finished it, I almost couldn't go in to work. I felt too emotionally exposed. The biggest tragedy of it all is that only that first, fairly mediocre season made it onto DVD. They never did release the second and third seasons. There are bits and pieces of the series on Youtube, and you can watch the hunting episodes, entitled Nature, as well as the three episodes which follow it, on Adult Swim's website, but you can't purchase it (though, of course, you can find it elsewhere, not legally). Supposedly they are working on a follow-up special for Christmas this year, so maybe that will spur them to release the entire series. Any way you can see this, though, it's worth your time.