Nightmare Fuel / Moral Orel

Moral Orel isn't called one of the darkest Western cartoons for nothing. Buckle up, because you're in for a ride.

Unmarked spoilers (and the usual stuff on these pages) below. You have been warned.

• The first example of Nightmare Fuel occurs in Charity. After Orel accepts crack from a homeless man and smokes it, his pupils maximize to a deeply Uncanny Valley effect.
• In the episode "Grounded", as a result of having his friends do a bloodletting, Orel is banned from going to church for a month. Afraid of damnation because he is not going to church, Orel slowly begins to go insane. By the end of the first week, Orel has turned his bedroom into a Room Full of Crazy, drawing a church on the wall, along with numerous Bible verses. In week two, he constructs a cardboard church whilst muttering "Church church churchy church", which is then taken away by Clay, causing Orel's sanity to degrade further. On the second Sunday, Orel finally has a mental breakdown, wearing the remains of the cardboard church, and believing that he IS a church. When Doughy points out that there's no cross on the cardboard steeple, Orel steals a cross from a store sign on the roof, and is immediately struck by a bolt of lightning (as it was very cloudy). After becoming convinced that God is trying to kill him because He misses him, Orel becomes suicidal, trying to electrocute himself and having near death experiences. What follows in his third NDE is one of the darkest and most disturbing scenes of any show ever aired on Adult Swim (even within the context of the show's third season.) Orel sees himself praying (which consists of the backmasked phrase "I am a church"), before seeing a Mind Screw montage relating to himself and church. It's also filled with some beautiful symbolism that ties in very neatly to Orel's gnostic revelation. And then Clay literally beats the revelation out of him just so he can keep up with the town's status quo on God and Heaven. The episode concludes by him promising to his dad that he'll never attempt suicide again, which then leads to the events of the horrific two-part Nature episode.
  • Add some Fridge Horror to that: Orel's "I am a church" vision was an epiphany that Faith is a personal relationship between the self and God rather than attending church out of fear of not collecting enough "Soul Insurance", and his father responded by beating him until he repressed that epiphany and fell in line with the "proper" way of thinking just so he wouldn't rock the boat for the rest of Moralton.
• Bloberta mutilating herself in "Numb" to seduce a doctor with a gore fetish. There's no visible gore, but you hear it. She puts power tools in her vagina and leaves them running. For entire days. It's implied that the doctor's wife died doing the same thing.
• "Alone", the first episode after the "darkening" of the show.
  • As a whole, The Reveal that there was an active Serial Rapist in Moralton for the entire show is absolutely horrifying. It makes rewatching the series pretty disturbing in hindsight, as during all of Moral's hijinks, there's canonically a child predator that the adults in Moralton aren't doing anything about, despite knowing about it. Not only that, but the town's refusal to deal with it and victim blaming of Creepler's victims is very much like how a lot of rape cases have been handled.
  • When Agnes Sculptham is taking some aspirin, we also see a bloody untied wire hanger. This is revealed to be the tool Agnes used to try to abort the baby she conceived after being raped by Cecil Creepler. It's downright horrifying to even think about how it happened.
  • Agnes seeing Creepler climb out of the mirror and approach her. Particularly in shadow.
    • Even worse is a Freeze-Frame Bonus with the newspaper headlines - Creepler is initially described as a "serial adulterer" by the papers, and the third one focuses primarily on how uncomfortable the town is about the prospect of addressing the issue, and the 6th headline is "Husbands Finally Fed Up With Rapes!"
  • Another upsetting detail: Miss Sculptham has a family tree in her apartment showing her parents and grandparents. Her maternal grandfather? He resembles Creepler. This just brings even more icky implications...
  • When Nurse Bendy enters her apartment, she's shown to mentally regress into a little girl essentially playing house in response to being used by so many men. Then, when she's cleaning a spill, her "hubby" bear is knocked onto her behind and spills milk on her face, causing her to panic and scream how "Hubby" is supposed to be different.
  • Miss Censordoll is obsessed with eggs because her mother had her reproductive organs removed when she was just a baby. Not only is it implied that this is why Miss Censordoll looks like an old lady despite only being in her forties, but she's deluded herself into believing that she's been "immaculate from conception," and therefore a deity.
    Miss Censordoll: I am not "holier-than-thou," Mother. But I am holier than YOU.
• One of the unsettling parts is at the end of "Sundays." Rev. Putty is trying to preach a sermon on hope, but no one he sees is happy OR hopeful. He looks to Orel for support, since Orel is obviously the most hopeful person in Moralton. Unfortunately, the episode takes place after "Nature," so Putty sees him with the same exact expression on his face as the rest of the churchgoers: hopelessness. Rev. Putty simply sighs "Oh," and the episode ends with unsettling music as the camera simply just focuses on the churchgoers.
• Clay Puppington. Especially from "Nature" onwards. He doesn't just have nightmare fuel moments. He becomes LITERAL nightmare fuel.
  • Way before we ever met Clay, he was a good kid. Okay, maybe "good" is kind of a stretch since his mother spoiled him rotten. But when he finds out that he might not have been an only child (his mother had ten miscarriages due to doing things no pregnant woman should like drinking, smoking, riding roller coasters, jumping on a trampoline and horseback riding), he's deeply disturbed and pouty. It's clear he doesn't care about his mother's feelings, just that he wasn't the only child in her heart and that's why she's so attached to him. He just stares... and stares... and stares... This is the moment we see Clay shatter into an awful person, and every moment of it is as uncomfortable as you would expect. Later on, he pretends to commit suicide as a prank, but it goes horribly wrong when it causes his mother to have a fatal heart attack. From then on, Clay's father hated him and told him he was not even worth hitting, resulting in the boy coming to associate violence with worth and attention.
    • A more subtle type of nightmare fuel: near the end of the episode, Arthur tells Clay that he's ending the tradition of giving "Ol' Gunny" to his first-born son and going on a hunting trip, and that he no longer wants Ol' Gunny because it's "stained with blood"; when Clay responds to this with "Are you sure it's not just ketchup?", Arthur clarifies that it's because Clay effectively used the gun to kill his mother. How does Clay react to this? He once again tries to goad his father into hitting him by saying "You know it's a sin to bear false witness." And when that doesn't work, he tries it again by saying it was Arthur's fault for leaving the gun where Clay can find it. While the death of Angela clearly did impact Clay, even as a child he would accept no responsibility for what he did.
  • His rant in "Nature". As he goes through his rant, the camera is slowly zooming in on his face, and his voice is getting raspier and louder until his face takes up the entire screen and he's doing nothing but drunkenly moaning and screaming about how women and children ruined his life as flies buzz around his head. Orel is shown to be pretty scared and worried by the sight.
    Clay: Oh, God...
    Orel: What's the matter?
    Clay: I hate myself.
    Orel: (Orel is shown to be concerned, with tears welling up in his eyes)
    Clay: (looks at his bottle of alcohol) WHY DO YOU QUIT WORKING ON ME?! She always fools me, Orel. "I'll make things better dear. Drink me. Put me inside you, I'm great!" And she CHOKES me just like every other WHORE out there! They're all worthless, kid. Every woman. Don't let 'em get ya! All of 'em wanna get ya! They just grab you and pull you into 'em! And then you're forced to stay in and pull out and stay in and pull out! And then they GUT ya. And then they grip ya by the part right where it counts. And then they start squeezing things out! Things that are like WEIGHTS around your head! You sit there for the rest of your life, with NOWHERE to go and NO ONE to be! (gasps) AAAAHHHH!!! AAAAHHHH!!! AAAAHHHH!!!
  • As Clay continues to rant, Orel becomes visibly more frightened, and he begins fidgeting with the gun he was supposed to use to shoot an animal, to the point of pulling the trigger at him. Let that sink in: Orel (an 11/12-year-old boy) was so scared by his dad's drunken rambling, he was considering having to shoot him in self-defense.
  • But instead of shooting Clay, Orel shoots his last two bottles of liquor. Which makes Clay even angrier and he shouts at Orel that he's done nothing but complain about his drinking, and when Orel tries to call him out, Clay tries to hit Orel with his belt, but this time, it isn't Played for Laughs. However, he's too drunk to even take off the belt and he falls onto the tent. After that, he ends up a crying, broken, screaming wreck.
    Orel: Dad! Are you ok?
    Clay: (laughing and coughing) Okay? Am I okay? You shoot ONE THING this WHOLE TRIP... Count 'em, ONE THING! And it's TWO of my LAST BOTTLES OF LIQUOR?!
    Orel: Sorry, dad, it was an accident-
    Clay: THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS! (laughing maniacally) You've done NOTHING, but WHINE like a lady in a flowery, sissy skirt and attractive high heels about MY drinking since we GOT HERE!
    Orel: (on the verge of tears) IT'S BECAUSE YOU BECOME A BAD PERSON WHEN YOU DRINK!
    Clay: Oh. Oh! I do, do I? (Beat) (Then, Clay suddenly throws the bottles Orel shot onto the ground, and tries to undo his belt.) Well, we'll see about THAT! (When Clay attempts to undo his belt, he ends up falling and wrecking the tent.)
    Orel: Dad! (Orel tries to assist Clay.)
    Clay: GET AWAY FROM ME! (Slaps Orel's hand away)
    Orel: Ow!
    Clay: I'll do it myself! (Clay's pants fall down just as he notices, and tries to pull them up, but he falls down instead. He ends up crying and tries to remove them using his legs)
    • It's even worse when you remember that his mother heavily spoiled him, giving his temper tantrum a lot more context. Remember that line "There are no accidents!"? Clay's mother said the exact same thing when he pretended to commit suicide. She left more of an impact on him than even he realizes.
  • And if that wasn't enough, the two-parter just gets worse, with Clay cementing himself as an alcoholic, child abusing Psychopathic Manchild by shooting Orel in the leg.
    Clay: (drunk) Okay. It's time you became a man. (sniff) Where's my rifle?
    Orel: I-I-I don't think-
    Clay: Theeeeeeeere it is. (Clay grabs his rifle and looks through the scope)
    Orel: Dad, w-w-watch out-
    Clay: Please, Orel, I know exactly what I'm doing.
    Orel: Yeah, but you might shoot it off by mistake-
    Clay: There aren't any mistakes, either. No mistakes, no accidents, no flub-ups, no boners...
    Orel: But-
    Clay: DON'T "BUT" ME! (Shoots Orel in the leg)
    • And Clay doesn't even treat Orel's wound. Instead, he blames Orel for getting shot, drinks the entire bottle of rubbing alcohol just to spite him and passes out for two days. And the way he says the line below makes it clear that he hates himself no matter how much Orel hates him.
    Orel: I hate you.
    Clay: Hate away, sister. Hate away.
    • After Clay passes out, a bear comes into the camping site, attracted by the smell of the cooking dog, and Orel is forced to shoot it, destroying what little innocence he has left.
  • Pretty much the entirety of "Sacrifice" after a minute and a half in. Jesus CHRIST.
    • To put in perspective, Clay tries to start a bar fight by spewing out misandric slurs and calling the patrons weak, but all this does is make the patrons and the bartender leave, realizing that he's not worth it. Now, keep in mind, Clay considers abuse a form of attention and worth ever since he was a child and given how much he hates his marriage and even his own family, it might have been his twisted way of feeling some kind of affection.
      Clay: Where are you all going?! GET BACK HERE!!! SHOW ME YOU HAVE ONE OUNCE OF TESTOSTERONE BETWEEN THE THREE OF YOU!!!! With all you people as role models, no wonder my son is...SENSITIVE.
  • Clay's visions in "Nesting" are unsettling, to say the least. And a bit too Freudian.
  • Last, but certainly not least, his final Villainous Breakdown in "Honor", which shows Stopframe how much of a monster he truly is. He even pulls the old, horrible, hurtful All Gays Are Pedophiles stereotype.
    Clay: What are you doing here with my son?!
    Orel: Stop!
    Clay: The thought of the two of you together makes my skin crawl!
    Orel: Please! All we were doing was...having a nice time. For the first Christmas in...I don't know how long. I felt relaxed and full of joy.
    Clay: (inhales deeply) This...is...RAPE! You RAPED my son!
    Bloberta: What?
    Clay: With niceness, in order to get to me! Well, it worked, you got to me! Now you stay away from him! He's not yours, I AM! (Beat) I mean— he's mine, my son! Oh, I miss you...Orel? I need you in my life...Orel? And (Looks at Stopframe)) I...I...I...love you.
    Stopframe: (looks unamused)
    Bloberta: We should go.
    Clay: (on the verge of crying) I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you ...Orel?
    Orel: Come on, Dad. It's late.
    Clay: NO!
    (Clay steps on a picture of him and Stopframe, which shatters in half)
    Stopframe: He's right. It's too late.
• Dr. Chosenburg's situation in "Holy Visage" is intensely unpleasant to imagine. After sustaining a grievous Jesus-shaped injury on the bus, he's suddenly finds himself trapped in the obsessively fundamental Moralton. The doctors refuse to heal him and he's tied down and sedated when he tries to treat himself. He's unable to contact his home or let anyone know where he is. As he's constantly visited by the sick and needy, his condition only continues to worsen until he's practically decaying. If Orel didn't finally help him, he would have died while trapped in Moralton with none of his loved ones ever to know where he went.
• The sheer amount of Truth in Television in terms of what religious fundamentalism can do to a person. Especially with "Nature", for those of us that have been in similar situations and know the sheer torture Orel is going through even before it goes From Bad to Worse. And Mrs. Censordoll? She lives in the form of any church lady who isn't played for laughs like Dana Carvey's from SNL.
• If a line from Joe is to be believed, there's only a twelve year age difference between him and his mother Nurse Bendy. Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
• Coach Stopframe did some pretty messed up stuff in "Satan." He was willing to use Orel as a sacrificial virgin without a second thought, and the only reason he didn't go through with it was because he found the satanists to be physically unattractive. The episode also ends with him stalking Clay by taking pictures of him through his window.
• In "Pleasure", Reverend Putty gives a sermon saying that worldly pleasures are bad. Orel interprets it as meaning that any sort of happiness at all is bad. Doing good deeds makes him happy, so he stops doing those. Then he goes to Reverend Putty and is told that every time he feels pleasure, he should give himself a little pain because the Devil hates pain. So Orel starts to Self-Harm every time he feels even a little bit happy (including stuffing glass shards from a broken bottle into his shoe), and becomes a huge masochist, to the point where he's covered in bruises, cuts, and bandages. He even smiles when his father is about to beat him, which creeps Clay out enough that he doesn't do it!
• Ms. Censordoll's behavior in "Nesting" is just as creepy as Clay's visions. Not only is there a scene with her stroking Orel's face (which almost seems to make him go into a trance), but it's revealed that before the hunting trip, Clay had a strange dream where Ms. Censordoll seemed to be the one encouraging him to shoot Orel (a leftover from a potential plotline where Censordoll was revealed to be a voodoo practitioner, according to Word of God). While the final product leaves it ambiguous to whether or not Censordoll has powers, she does successfully use Clay's Oedipus Complex to manipulate him into having an affair with her, resulting in them noisily making out in the bar while Censordoll calls herself Clay's "mommy."

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