Moral Orel: The Best Christmas Ever
Last night I serendipitously
stumbled upon Adult Swim's Moral Orel: The Best Christmas Ever. I knew I was going to like it the moment the
clay-animated family began to sing along to a commercial jingle which asked, "If the Lord were alive today, what
would you get Him this Christmas?" Then I noticed the special was created by Dino Stamatopoulos, a former writer
for Mr. Show (a personal favorite of
mine). The show was supposedly picked up by Cartoon Network for a ten episode run, but there doesn't seem to be
much information about it beyond this particular holiday special. Hopefully it will get picked up, because it's
hilarious. Aesthetically, the show resembles Davey and Goliath, but it pits the childish wonder of its titular
character against the harsh reality of the world in much the same way South Park did in its early seasons. When
Moral finds out his father (whose name is "Clay," get it?) is not actually the father of his younger
brother, it leads Moral to believe his sibling is actually the second coming of Christ. The two of them celebrate by
destroying a Nativity scene on the front lawn of a church in celebration of the apocalypse. There's plenty of blasphemy
for the whole family, but also a kind of weird innocence. According to the opening credits, the animated special is
filmed in "Righteouscope" using "God's Planimation." If that's not Christmas, I don't know what
is.

6 Comments