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Moral Orel sucks

Discussion in 'Shows' started by TheVoid, Oct 23, 2017.

  1. TheVoid

    TheVoid Well-Known Member

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    In case you don't know, Moral Orel is a short-lived incredibly pretentious cartoon that aired on Adult Swim for three seasons before it was cancelled. I remember enjoying the show at first, but before the end of the first season I lost most of the good feelings I had towards the show, and I only watched until the end because I thought that since it was good early on maybe it would get good again. Lots of people online defend the show, but a number of people also dislike it, and professional critics generally consider it to be average at best.

    It's technically well put together, but it overreaches too much and Dino (the creator) seems to think that having a decent idea makes up for a lack of proper narrative execution. Also, it's one of those Adult Swim shows that relies heavily on continuity to tell an ongoing story, except during episodes where it just decides to abandon continuity altogether. It's inconsistent and undisciplined, and it's one of the cartoons I dislike the most.

    Anyways, here's one of the main moments that made me truly hate the show.

    The Twist With The Nurse - This twist was so try-hard and edgy it's actually a lot more funny than 'dark'. In an earlier episode (Alone) there's a nicely played out twist where it is revealed that the school nurse was raped when she was younger and as an adult isn't well adjusted because of it. The twist in this episode was kind of ruined by the fact that it had to share space with an absolutely retarded subplot involving an elderly woman planning to "Take over the town," (What is she going to do? Sit on a throne and declare herself queen?), and the message that 'Rape is bad' is undermined by the fact that the episode features a woman who was raped and apparently enjoyed it so much that hearing that her rapist has been executed sends her into a fit of depression, and causes her to smile as she remembers the rape and wishes it would happen again.

    The whole rape thing and loneliness thing might have worked if the episode wasn't so cluttered and if the show's writers could decide on what exactly they wanted to say with the episode, rather than go for the "Nothing is black and white, everything is grey," thing. The problem with the 'Alone' episode is that the writers probably assumed that they were showing "Shades of grey," with the episode, when what they were actually doing was showing two sides of a complex issue, the 'black' side of rape being bad in every circumstance, and the 'white' side which is that under some very specific circumstances rape can be good. There's no attempt to blend the two together, and the confused message doesn't really work.

    The thing is, the big ideas auteur like to express work best when they focus hard on the message they want to bring across and express their message in a way that some people will disagree with and some people will agree with, but all sides will respect the auteur for showcasing their point of view in a creative and uncompromising way. With Moral Orel what Dino would often attempt to do is take a serious issue (Rape, adultery, incest, drugs, fetishes) and present it in a way that doesn't come across as an auteur expressing his own point of view, but a guy who desperately wants to be viewed as an auteur expressing ideas in the shallowest way possible and expecting people to see what he's doing as being profound in some way.

    I once compared this show to a fanfiction story, or MrEnter's description of what he would like to see in a cartoon, because that's honestly what it feels like most of the time. It feels like the work of a young adult who believes that maturity is measured in how much sex, drugs, violence and controversial subject matter is included in a piece of fiction. It feels like it was made by someone who believes that writing numerous episodes about the hypocrisy that people display is a concept that is so unique that it can carry an entire show on it's own (I blame 'Death To Smoochy' for popularizing the 'cartoon characters can be the opposite of their television personas in real life, and the same goes for all children's entertainers' idea).

    If it had never gained a following it would simply be a show that I dislike, but the fact that it not only has a following, but a following devoted enough to defend it as one of the BEST CAARTOOONS EVAAR!! IT'S SO EDGY AND DEEP MAN!! makes me hate it more than I already after finishing the series. The characters aren't likable despite trying really hard to be, the plot twists are all incredibly obvious and often telegraphed heavily but the show still acts as though every plot twist and character revelation is incredibly unexpected and clever.

    One final note. Say what you want about children's cartoons, but one advantage they have is that they can't depend on 'shock' twists to the extent that adult cartoons can. In MLP:FIM one of the twists in an episode is that a tomboy character likes to spend a day getting pampered at the spa, which is fair enough, not shocking but a nice bit of character development. In Moral Orel the 'twist' is always, always, ALWAYS related to something edgy, and it gets incredibly predictable after a while. For instance, one of the twists involves a young boy killing his mother, one twist involves a boy being molested in an ice cream truck, and one twist involves the Necronomicon.

    Thoughts?
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2017
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  2. Erika

    Erika RL incel hunter

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    Is this a copy pasta I'm missing the meme on?

    If not, I really wasn't a fan, the joke was the same gag over and over. First few times you see it it's shocking and funny, then as a non Christian I found it boring and dare say punching down. Ha ha, taking the bible word for word can be bad get it? Yea.. so lets tell this joke over and over.

    I mean aside the fact it's easy targets, shock humor can't last. If that's your only bit it wears quickly. Your only fans are those with a hate boner and frankly, in any case, it's just boring bigotry. I might not agree with it, but it's about as funny as saying haha black people do crime, get it? that's the joke blacks are more criminal. Yea .... doesn't sit well with me. I can laugh if you make a joke about anything but when you are pretty much using the same act to attack the same group, it gets old fast. I can laugh at 10 funny gay jokes if they are funny, and you move on after.

    Moral Orel could work if it was never it's own show, put it on say something like SNL, or a late night talk show, where they do 95% different shit and randomly hit it, I'd think great fun. Now to be fair it's not just the religious aspect they hit, I will say while the shorts of pinky and the brain are some of my favs the show was trash.

    It's just a short quick joke drug out, aside beating a dead horse to political thought be it you like or not, gets super old super fast.
     
  3. Princess Celestia

    Princess Celestia Your local techni-color horse.

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    Water is also wet.

    Honestly not sure of copy pasta but if it's not..

    Adult swim cartoons, especially of this era, were all blindly trying to ride on South Park's heals with out really understanding what made it entertaining other than "lol offensive." Its rather telling that that Adult Swim put no original properties first like Family guy and Fururama first before it aired its own creations. I honestly wouldn't expect anything that airs at 1:00 AM to be any good in the days before legal steaming services. If you are up that late you are either drunk (like me writing this post).

    Anyway back to Moral Orel, it just wasn't meant to hold up over time or really even be that good. It, like all of Adult Swim, was meant to fill airtime that Cartoon Network would be criticized for dedicating for children's cartoons. It might have been "average" for its era, but that was a time when adult cartoons were still a novelty. Today a cartoon showing adult themes just isn't that scandalizing if it has the appropriate rating. Let me put it this way, whenever they make a subtle sex joke in a kids cartoon its hilarious because its for kids. Whenever they reference rape murder in an adult cartoon its like "So what?".

    Wow I still haven't talked about the show that much but I think that's all you need to know basically. Its so unremarkable that its not worth talking about.
     
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  4. king koi

    king koi Nobody cares, yo!

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    To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Moral Oral. The humor is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of how god isn't real most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also oral's brifht outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation - his personal philosophy draws heavily from biblical literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realize that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Moral oral truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Moral's existencial catchphrase "dear gid ots me orel" which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Dan Hippopotamus genius unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools... how I pity them. And yes by the way, I DO have a gods not real tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- And even they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand
     
  5. [WTX]Coolguy_Tran

    [WTX]Coolguy_Tran Extreme Ween!

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    bitch I loved this series. Was one of the last good adult swim series I recall before they went completely into meme-machine territory
     
  6. king kong... with wings?

    king kong... with wings? Snek doesn't like being manhandled

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    I only watched an episode or two, but I do have to agree with what @king koi said about needing a high IQ or at the very least an understanding of what the series satirizes. The premise of the series is about a boy who tries his best to do good to the point of inadvertently causing mayhem with his interpretations of the sermons. This all contrasts with the sinful and hypocritical behavior of the adults especially Orel's father. While I only watched an episode or two, I read the wiki made about the series to get a better understanding of the show.
     
  7. king koi

    king koi Nobody cares, yo!

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  8. Princess Celestia

    Princess Celestia Your local techni-color horse.

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    I see now it was the Rick and Morty of its day.
     
  9. king koi

    king koi Nobody cares, yo!

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    This was. Not orel
     
  10. [WTX]Coolguy_Tran

    [WTX]Coolguy_Tran Extreme Ween!

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    Honestly, Orel and Venture Bros were the best things on Adult Swim, aside from syndicated episodes of King of the Hill of course. Xavier was one of the better examples of this because it was at least entertaining but I remember a lot of programs on the programming block were simply meme-shit like Tim and Eric, which I coulden't goddamn stand.
     
  11. The Ref

    The Ref Maintaining the order of the game

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    Too bad. I was interested in watching it sometime.

    [​IMG]
     
  12. ToroidalBoat

    ToroidalBoat ¿qué?

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    Some of the anime (like Cowboy Bebop) and Futurama was pretty much the only reason I watched [as] in the '00s.
     
  13. Fialovy

    Fialovy Skeleman Warrior

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    I never watched it, but I heard it compared to Evangelion a lot.
     
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