Moral Orel (mostly) holds up so well.

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Casey
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Moral Orel (mostly) holds up so well.

Post by Casey »

I love Moral Orel*.

It's one of the first 'adult animation' shows I watched that went out of its way to blend biting social commentary and satire with absurd, dark humor. There's a lot of other shows that try and succeed to do that in the modern age too, but Moral Orel is something special. The stop-motion is exquisite. The humor is largely top notch and a lot of the jokes land really well, at least for me. That's not even taking into account the bleak, tragic aspects of the show and the scathing critiques of Christian fundamentalism and suburbia...I could go on about this show at length, but I'll leave it here, let others chime in. Anyone else see this show? Thoughts, opinions, criticisms, etc?

*there is one really shitty, outright racist episode that is a blight on the series. i always skip it. It tries to do commentary on the racist aspects of American Christianity and, imo, falls flat on its face...love the rest of the show though
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chiefterror
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Re: Moral Orel (mostly) holds up so well.

Post by chiefterror »

This is one that I strategically skipped watching when it aired, as I was a teenager trying to hide from my extremely sensitive-conservative guardians at the time. I've seen a number of other [adult swim] shows since then that I couldn't care to remember now. Moral Orel keeps getting a lot of video essays about it, so I'm adding it to the watchlist 20something years too late.
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Re: Moral Orel (mostly) holds up so well.

Post by the_skotts »

I need to rewatch some episodes of this show because I remember seeing when it was airing but I always thought it looked weird and never really got into it.
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Re: Moral Orel (mostly) holds up so well.

Post by Archmage »

the_skotts wrote: Feb 12th, '26, 20:24 I need to rewatch some episodes of this show because I remember seeing when it was airing but I always thought it looked weird and never really got into it.
It always gave me the hibbie jeebies when I watched it, I couldn't make it past a couple of episodes.
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Casey
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Re: Moral Orel (mostly) holds up so well.

Post by Casey »

@chiefterror let me know what you think when you get around to it...it gets heavier and darker as it progresses, with season 3 being pretty bleak.


@the_skotts and @Archmage yeah the art style can be pretty off putting, though i suspect that's kinda by design and part of why i like it
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Re: Moral Orel (mostly) holds up so well.

Post by Virtua Wug »

Moral Orel made me cry a bunch when I watched it. I come from a WASPy family and I was still carrying a lot of trauma from my upbringing at the time that I watched the show; I think despite everything, it helped me heal from it, y'know?
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Re: Moral Orel (mostly) holds up so well.

Post by Casey »

Virtua Wug wrote: Feb 15th, '26, 11:16 Moral Orel made me cry a bunch when I watched it. I come from a WASPy family and I was still carrying a lot of trauma from my upbringing at the time that I watched the show; I think despite everything, it helped me heal from it, y'know?
Yeah it's a heavy show. I'm glad it helped you...I grew up in a pretty secular household but I still got a lot out of watching it...my mom is an outlier among my family and the Amerikan Christian death cult has its claws in most who grow up here one way or another.
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