The good folks at Madman have been responsible for bringing a swag of excellent Adult Swim titles to these shores of late, including perennial favourites such as Robot Chicken and Metalocalypse, the relentlessly absurdist 12 Oz. Mouse and the criminally overlooked Frisky Dingo.  Unfortunately for fans of these shows and their stylistic ilk, however, Morel Orel is simply not up to scratch. 

The series, which originally aired in three seasons between 2005 and 2008, takes place in the fictional, religiously conservative town of Moralton, USA.  Middle America in every possible sense, the town is home to simple, God-fearing folk who upon closer inspection often turn out to be madder than a sackful of vipers.  The naive and perennially well-intentioned Orel Puppington is one exception, and his efforts to reconcile the rigid scriptural teachings of his elders with actual life experience leads him into a series of increasingly bizarre misadventures, often with a distinct, if inadvertent, R-rated bent. 

Which is all well and good, except for the glaring fact that poking fun at the hypocrisy and contradictions inherent in religious dogma is essentially the comedy equivalent of doing the Macarena.  This yawn-inducing theme permeates fully and is milked to the (surprisingly) bitter end, but it’s nothing the Monty Python crew didn’t do infinitely more deftly 30 years ago. 

The series is also, for a comedy, glaringly unfunny, and creator Dino Stamatopoulos seems unable to discern between South Park-esque boundary pushing and outright poor taste.  Case in point: A scene in the final episode in which Orel’s father gets drunk on a hunting trip, forces his crying son to kill an animal, starts ranting that all women are ‘worthless whores’ then accidently shoots Orel in the leg.  The entire sequence is about as whimsical as a vasectomy, and almost as painful.  Not this reviewer’s idea of a good time. 

Audio, Video & Extras

On a more positive note the Madman edition of Season 2 is a world exclusive, with no R1 release date yet in sight.  As usual the packaging and presentation are faultless, and the stop-motion animation teems with vibrancy.  The picture is clear as a bell, and the 2-channel DD audio track likewise can’t be faulted.  All 15 episodes of Season 2 have been crammed onto a single disc running nearly three hours, and the set also includes, as the sole bonus feature, Character Profiles for each of its main characters.  The edition both looks and sounds superb.  Shame about the content though.