“The 13th Commandment: Thou shalt not bastardize the American language.”
With a little something to offend everyone, this series from Adult Swim focuses on the adventures of the hyper-religious Orel Puppington as the tries to do the Lord’s work – usually with dire consequences.
Orel Puppington (Carolyn Lawrence) is a young boy in the town of Moralton in the state of Statesota (it’s between Kansas and Missouri). He lives with his dad Clay (Scott Adsit), mother Bloberta (Britta Phillips), and his younger brother Shapey (Tigger Stamatopoulos). He and his family are deep into religion and try and do just what Jesus would do. Unfortunately, Orel is always misinterpreting the meanings of the scriptures not to mention that his family has more than Ten Commandments and not all of them are exactly kosher.
Disc 1:The Lord’s Greatest Gift : Orel takes righteous action when he concludes that everyone buried in the town’s cemetery is rejecting God’s greatest gift, life.
God’s Chef : In order to masturbate and still go to heaven, Orel hatches a hair-brained scheme that turns Moralton topsy-turvy.
Charity : When Reverend Putty teaches the righteousness of helping the poor, Orel befriends a down-and-out crack dealer.
Waste : When Orel learns that God hates waste he decides to recycle his own urine.
The Blessed Union : A series of improbable assumptions leads Orel from a sermon about marriage straight into the town’s only sex shop.
Omnipresence : Orel gets a big head when he learns that God is everywhere, even in him.
God-Fearing : A boy with God on his side need fear nothing, which makes for a boring Halloween. But Orel has a solution.
Loyalty : The virtue of loyalty inspires Orel to be faithful to an evil new friend.
Maturity : In his quest for maturity, Orel models himself after models himself after the emotionally repressed adults of Moralton.
The Best Christmas Ever! : Moralton on Jesus’ birthday…on a very special Morel Orel.
Disc 2:God’s Image : Orel gets Moralton to segregate God’s people from the only Italian-American family in town.
Love : Orel gets to keep a stray dog, but does he love it more than God?
Satan : Coach Stopframe contacts a group of Satanists so that he can cast a love spell – on Orel’s dad!
Elemental Orel : Orel investigates the theft of the church’s collection box and discovers his parents have secrets.
Offensiveness : Orel helps Ms. Censordoll protest the evils of eggs, which come from the naughty place between chicken’s legs.
Moral Orel is presented in the claymation style of Davey and Goliath, which was produced by the Lutheran Church. However, each of Moral Orel’s 11 minute episodes pretty much turns Davey and Goliath on their respective heads. These are definitely not for the kiddies. The show has more of the irreverence of South Park and will definitely piss of the faithful. Those with an offbeat or dark sense of humor will find lots to like in the show.
For example, in the first episode Orel interprets the sermon of Rev. Putty about life to mean that the dead have rejected the precious gift of God. So he takes the Necronomicon from the pile of “books to be burned” and commences to raise the dead – the naked dead that is since he thinks they’ll want to change of clothes.
The moral of the story is that it wasn’t wrong to raise the brain-eating dead, but that it was wrong for them to be naked. That’s the sort of twisted humor that you get on the show, so if you don’t get it then you might not want to check out Moral Orel.
Moral Orel is presented in fullscreen as it was originally aired on television. Special features are located on disc 2. They include the aptly named 27 minute “The Awkward Comic-Con Panel” where actor Jay Johnston and Moral Orel creator Dino Stamatopoulos appear to be drunk and eventually have a spat with Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick (creators of the Venture Brothers).
This also has an alternate separate commentaries with Dino and the Venture Brothers. There are also 6 minutes of promos and 2 minutes of bumps from Adult Swim. The 9 minute “Behind-the-Scenes” has interview with creator Dino, actor/writer/producer Johnston, and actor/writer/producer Scott Adsit, Dino’s daughter/voice actor Tigger, actress Britta Phillips, production designer Jed Hathaway, animator Mike Wolfe, visual effects guy Shannon Gold, model maker Laurie Olsen, lead fabricator Rob Ronning, head of character fabrication Cynthia Star, director of photography Jeff Gardner, and animation director Mark Caballero. There’s a 54 second bit with Dino as Reverend Putty from the Christmas episode, a 2 minute collection of the end animations, and 6 deleted scenes.
Moral Orel is a quite twisted show that can be quite funny as well, unless you’re a member of the religious right. The show has a devious and dark sense of humor and if you do too then you’ll enjoy the show. The nice selection of special features is just the icing on the cake for fans.
Moral Orel, Vol. 1, The Unholy Edition is now available at Amazon . As of yet, it is not available at AmazonUK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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