The major concern of most television comedies is making their audience laugh. Easy chuckles, inside-joke giggles, deep belly laughs; generations raised by television have been laughing at the flashy box for so long that it sometimes feels like we’ve seen it all. But I’ve recently isolated an entirely new kind of laugh: a quick chortle met with a groan, rising from deep within, when you painfully understand that this funny story will not have a happy ending. And this unique phenomenon comes from only one place: Moral Orel.

If you like your humor as dark as it gets, if you can relate to growing up in a Christian household, and if you can accept that the experience will leave you with plenty to think about, but maybe less to feel good about, then this is your show. Running for three seasons on Adult Swim from 2006-2008, Moral Orel follows the stop-motion animated childhood misadventures of its titular protagonist, Orel Puppington. Creator Dino Stamatopoulos, aka Community’s Starburns, wrote most of the episodes and would seem to have a bit of an ax to grind when it comes to fundamentalist Christianity. And he chops away gleefully with that ax, swinging sharp satire to topple the inherent contradictions and hypocrisies of not just the church, but the nuclear family too.

The first season of the show is more or less formulaic. Eternal do-gooder Orel misunderstands some lesson from his parents or one of Reverend Putty’s sermons, hilarity ensues (which turns to horror, and is mutated by absurdity back into hilarity), then Orel’s father Clay (writer/director Scott Adsit, of 30 Rock fame) calls Orel into the study, *gulp*, to clarify the lesson with the help of his belt.

The second season largely ditches the formula of the first, instead widening the focus of the show and delving into the lives of the rest of Moralton’s pious (and less than pious) citizens. The show also makes a subtle shift over the season that becomes not-so-subtle in the fantastic two part finale “Nature”. Usually, Orel’s misunderstandings result in him failing his family, society, or church. Without giving too much away, “Nature” flips this formula on its head, paving the way for Orel’s incredible third season.

In seasons one and two, Morel Orel was already a very good show. But the final season elevates it from “very good” to high art. As soon as you hear the first melancholy tones of The Mountain Goats’ “No Children”, and the opening sequence flies into the Puppington home instead of the church, this series becomes very special. The third season uses the pivotal hunting trip from “Nature” as a center around which other stories orbit, some nearer and some farther away. The interconnectedness of these episodes brings more serialized plotlines, a welcome addition which was totally absent from the show at its inception.

The most striking part of the final season, and the show in general, is just how much humanity Stamatopoulos and Co. are able to infuse into these stories, which is what gives the show such emotional weight. Stop-motion characters with names like Clay Puppington or Reverend Putty or Ms. Censordoll shouldn’t be able to make us feel so deeply, yet through these (usually very heartbreaking) stories they do, because the problems they face are so painfully human.

The complete series is available to stream for free on Adult Swim’s website

Must See Episodes:

Season 1

2 – “God’s Chef”

3 – “Charity”

4- “Waste”

9 – “Maturity”

10 – “The Best Christmas Ever”

Season 2

2 – “Love”

4 – “Elemental Orel”

5 – “Offensiveness”

6 – “God’s Blunders”

8 – “The Lord’s Prayer”

9 – “Holy Visage”

11 – “Praying”

15 – “Courtship”

19, 20 – “Nature” parts 1 & 2

Season 3

All of it

Not even kidding

Personal favorite: 11 – “Sacrifice”