Review Time: Moral Orel

I have a  love hate relationship with religion myself. I don't believe that there is a bad religion, just bad people. That it's not the fault of any religion, it's the fault of the people who use that religion to condone their own actions.  There aren't really many shows that understand that and really dive into why people turn to religion in the first place or why people use religion for their needs.  One of the only few shows that I have seen tackle this and do it in a good way is Adult swim's Morel Orel.

© 2005 Cartoon Network

I wIll give it to you straight, when I first saw this show I didn't like it. It was every joke from family guy and Southpark about why religion sucks. "It doesn't make sense" and " It contradicts itself" and  "only idiots believe in it" and every other argument people come up for why they have an issue with religion, but by the end of the show I had completely changed my mind about it. In fact it may be one of the best shows that has ever come out of the network. It all comes down to characterisation and writing.

Morel orel is about the Morel Paragon that is Orel Puppington. A good, but naive kid who just wants to do what is right and be a good christian. Unfortunately for Orel, there are almost no moral characters in his hometown of  Moralton, Statesilvanya. The show is a dark comedy for the first couple of seasons before turning into a unpleasant and harsh drama in the third. The first two seasons usually begin with Orel learning some lesson and then taking that lesson to some absurd degree like believing that his brother maybe the second coming of Jesus or that wasting his fluids will anger God and ending with him getting a spanking in his father's study learning an equally absurd wrong lesson. This all changes with the season two finale where Orel's world view comes crashing down around him after a bitter fight with his father.

The season two finale and the third seasons are what drew me into the show. The comedy is gone and all that is left is people of the town and their problems, Things like rape, abuse, racism, issues with sexuality, and loss of innocence are all explored in the show. I'm not sugar coating it when I say this show goes into some really dark and uncomfortable territory and gets a little too real. Needless to say I believe that the show is worth watching exactly for that reason, it challenges you as the audience.

It manages to give almost all of the characters in town backstory that makes sense and fits with their characterization. It takes very two dimensional characters and gives them  an extreme amount of depth in a short of amount of time. They become so much more human and  real (at least for me) by the end of the show. The first two season build these character up only to have them torn down in the third. Some of them have happy endings, some of them don't like in real life.

I don't want to spoil the show for anyone who hasn't seen it ( at least not in a major way). I suggest watching this one from the beginning because everything the first two seasons sets up pays off (for the most part) in the last season. There are a few plot threads left unexplored, but the show doesn't lose anything because of that. Like many great shows it was canceled before its time, but it feels complete unlike firefly(for example). It is an uncomfortable ride from start to finish, but a good one that I would visit again and again.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.  

What Makes a Nerd

I think we have all asked ourselves that at on point or another. I would define it as someone who has a deep love of something from pop culture.  You like sports a lot? you are a sports nerd/jock. You like Star Trek a lot? You are a Trekkie/trekker( I don't know if that's the right spelling, also they may denote how much of a trek fan you are, but that just splitting hairs.)

It isn't new phenomena either. It's been around for as long as people have had culture. In the Roman empire you had riots that would break out if certain teams would lose at the coliseum. Fast forward a bit to the 1800s and you have Sherlock Holmes and his sherlockians. Moving forward a bit more you have the birth of the word "nerd" by Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo.

©Penguin Random House Company

Not the best representation ever, but this is about the time you get the stereotypical look people associate with the modern of a nerd. The white shirt, pocket protector kid with glasses and pants pulled up way to high. It's also around this time you see science fiction really explode with the twilight zone, moves based on the space race(like the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still"), and the UFO craze that went on about that time thanks to said space race and Roswell. The 60s see the explosions of modern comic books with heroes with modern problems. Then things start to pick up again in the 70s and 80s with many of the nostalgic nerdy properties you see people still into today (Blade Runner, Star Wars, Terminator, etc) and the Birth and fall of video games. The 90s saw the fall of comic books, the rebirth of the video game industry, and the explosion of anime in the west. Then the 2000s saw the explosions of video games, superhero movies, and all the media dedicated to what nerds knew all along.

 That the feeling of being nerdy over stuff is awesome! I  give that quick nerdy history lesson to say all that to say that being nerdy and geeking over things is normal and is nothing new. It's a way of showing you are passionate in anything that interests yourself. A way to escape your humdrum life for a bit and escape into a fantasy. It's never been an exclusive club, though most nerd I know that treat it as such are basically terrified of being made into a victim of bullying or being made a fool of.  I feel that an understandable, except if the try to lash out at someone who is on their side or trying to have a healthy discussion on the topic of within their interests.( that happens way too much). In the end though being nerdy is about coming together and sharing your passion and identifying yourself with that passion. So...

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

Why I Stopped Caring and Love Art In Cartoons

I am a huge fan of animation There are so many different styles of animation from all over the world and I don't just mean anime( you crazy straw man person!). So many, in fact, that it would be really hard to  really go into every style of animation out there(they're like endless!!), Needless to say, It really saddens me when I hear things like "this animation sucks" or "this animation is too simple." The cartoons I usually hear this with is cartoons like Adventure Time or China, IL. Both of these are cartoons with super simple animation styles associated with them.

Owned by Cartoon Network

Owned by Adult Swim

As you can see above both these shows have a really simple style to them. I believe that that is a deliberate choice by the creators of the show. Both of these shows have a very surreal nature to them. The simple art style lends itself to the sort of crazy... stuff the characters do or get into. like in adventure time where you have demons, giant robots, ancient twin headed war elephants and in China, IL where you have building sized babies that later grow into men, dinosaur steroids, sudden transformations into animals because a character gained tenure at the college they work at, my point is both shows lend themselves crazy surreal atmosphere the shows have created for themselves. The simpleness of the design allows them to go crazy with the amount content and action they have on screen.

It also allows us as the audience to more easily sympathize with the characters. To paraphrase Scott Mccloud in is book Understanding Comics artists can give more meaning to characters by stripping away their details. In other words, you as the audience project more of yourself more in that role than the characters on the page or in this case screen. I also see the simpleness of the designs as a way to make it easier for the creation of fan art for the characters. Given a certain amount of time I believe I could draw the characters you see above and I'm not that great of an artist. What that does though is to make it easier for fans to create their own creations and keep interest going in the show especially with lulls between seasons.

This isn't to say the art can't get complicated because in both shows there are times when the show goes into a lot of detail with their detail. This can be to emphasize something is gross, evil, to create a sense of wonder or make something unsettling. Both shows have really fluid movement as well, and while it might not always be realistic movement it rarely ever comes off as unrealistic, weird, or just plain bad. Both these shows tend to focus on story and character dynamics as well. You are likely to see to see characters talk about how awesome the last movie they saw was or what's up with their friend who's acting weird. In both cases, it never seems out of place or out of character for the characters in the show.

My penultimate point of what I'm trying to say is that making a deliberate choice to make your simple animation style doesn't really make it bad or less of a show. It's just the surface level, the superficial level, that you are looking at if you think that is true. I personally believe that no bad art exists and at the end of the day it just comes down to taste. There are lazy animators out there, though.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.