Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Moral Orel meets its Maker....

It is getting late in the day on a Wednesday night as I type this entry from my desk in the Animation Department office at Shadow Animation. Several animators are still out on the stages finishing up the final handful of shots on an amazing third season of Moral Orel. We're wrapping up several weeks earlier than originally planned- Moral Orel has officially been cancelled.



It's not all bad news though! Cartoon Network let us down easy, allowing us to shoot thirteen of the planned twenty episodes. And they look amazing. We are rushed here at the end, as always, but somehow this amazing crew of people has managed to create something beautiful on a really tough schedule. All the departments work at an insane pace to ensure everything is built, rigged and lit so we can shoot around 11 minutes of animation a week. The scripts that show creator Dino Stamatopoulos wrote this season provided us with a lot of inspiration. I feel like this season will give viewers a truly unique stop-motion experience that can't be compared to anything that's ever been done with the technique. I was really honored to serve as Animation Director and doubly honored to take the helm as Director on one of the episodes titled "Alone".

Please support stop-motion on Cartoon Network by tuning into the final season of Moral Orel when it begins airing in August! I'll announce the exact date and time as soon as I know it, and also I'll post some behind-the-scenes photos.

24 Comments:

Blogger jriggity said...

sad news man!!

right when the show was hitting its stride too.

ohh well....I hope all the people working dont get hurt horribly by this .

jriggity

1:41 AM  
Blogger GoGo said...

At least we still have The Oblongs!
Do you know if Frisky Dingo is ever going to come back?
Moral Orel will be missed :(

8:52 PM  
Blogger Michael Granberry said...

This really makes me sad; MO was a truly funny & sweet show. Coming from the super-conservative south, I laughed constantly at how right-on it's satire of small-mindedness disguised as faith was. The performances by the animators and voice actors were truly skilled and inspiring to study. Great job, people!!

11:41 AM  
Blogger K said...

This is terrible news! Moral Orel has fast become my favourite Adult Swim show. It'll be sad to see it come to an end.

6:33 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Depressing as hell. I love Moral Orel. Only partially because it reminds me of Davey and Goliath, too. Stop motion is beautiful the way you guys do it.

It seems like the fan base is pretty pissed off, though. The show does not deserve to be canceled.

1:15 AM  
Blogger Rachel O said...

Thank you all for making such a fantastic show. It was hilarious and often extremely moving. You all did a great job and should be proud.

10:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's ridiculous, M.O. is one of the cleverest shows on Adult Swim, very funny, very smart, and very "Adult" (ie; doesn't need to rely on fart-jokes if you catch my drift).

That's B.S. man, they'll give Tim and Eric a veritable carte blanche of mediocrity, but Moral Orel gets canned after 3 seasons? Just makes no sense.

Probably just end up replacing your slot with more recycled Family Guy episodes.

1:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am going to miss this show so very much. It's especially difficult for me to understand the cancellation because the show has so clearly and reliably gotten better in just the span of two seasons. And it was amazing at the start.

Sigh... something is unjust.

9:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fuck that!! M.O. is one of the best shows ever!!! Damn it!!!

10:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow. This is the only show I watch on Adult Swim. Guess I wont be going there anymore.

8:22 PM  
Blogger the smurf said...

M.O. was a good show, but don't call it funny; not anymore. The creators have gone wayyyy dark lately. The reason the show got canceled is that people like me watch cartoons to relax, not to get depressed.

7:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fools like you are why they have crappy live-action shows like the terminally unfunny Tim & Eric, and stupid abominations like "Assy McGee" and "Home Movie" re-runs.

Lowest common denominator. . . .

Morel was a fantastic commentary. Television does not need to always provide mindless entertainment.

4:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with that last comment. Moral Orel was one of the greatest shows that made Adult Swim what it is. . . .or was. Dime to a doughnut, it HAD to be the FCC behind this all. They're steady shooting liberal shows with with satirical meaning behind it, as they tried with "Boondocks" and Family Guy, but then I can see a WHOLE lot worse from Telitubbies and Nip/Tuck.

The only shows I like now are Superjail, Robot Chicken and Family Guy (new episodes). Now I'm stuck to watch reruns of every cartoon like Metalocolypse, piece of shit shows like Tim and Eric, and Anime that doesn't even come close to Samurai Champloo's authenticity. Adult Swim sunk at an all time low cancelling Moral Orel, and they'll continue if they don't stop giving us this mediocre B.S!

2:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This isn't even cool, MO is one of the shows i looked forward to coming home from work late and watching :(

1:53 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

loved the show--adult swim sucks--first the boondocks now orel--i hardly watch anymore--who ever is over programming should be fired- bring orel back or better yet how about full length movie???

9:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Morel Oral was incredible.

I agree with everyone... how the hell can [as]s-holes cancel a show like this and keep Tim and Eric shit?

Seriously. First the god-awful Tom Goes to the Mayor, and then "Awesome Show".... WTF!

I'm seriously thinking of boycotting [as].

4:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm really gonna miss that show

I just got into it, and I really liked it. Now they cancel it?

Well, I'm waiting for the DVD's to come out so I can buy them.

10:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Geez, this is such a bummer. Dark or funny, it was one of the best things about [as] and the best stop motion show ever made.

I don't understand why they always aired the episodes out of order; it really made things confusing until I was able to sort through the 44 Nights of Orel and get it all at once.

Also, the FCC does not control programming, they are merely trying to enforce these silly rules they have about dirty words and nudity. Those only apply to terrestrial (OTA) broadcasters, not cable channels. Any censoring of Moral Orel or any other show is done by the network or parent company itself.

Now that I've got a DVR, [as] has become almost completely irrelevant since I now have a plethora of things to watch late at night when nothing else is on. Moral Orel and Robot Chicken were the two things I tuned in to watch live as much as possible.

Tighten up, guys, or you'll just become another dumb channel playing to the lowest common denominator!

4:36 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I loved this show.. i just started watching it recently. I hope they start such a beautiful show again..

6:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can't believe they are taking Orel down. It's such an amazing show that ACTUALLY has some meaning behind it, unlike that bullshit Tim & Eric. I'm honestly gonna miss Orel. =[ Farewell, dear friend.

6:56 PM  
Blogger Tanz said...

Ugh, this makes me so mad. Adult Swim barely gave Moral Orel a chance. The way they advertised it did it no justice whatsoever... my friend recently told me about what it's really about and I ate up every single episode in one day, it was mind blowing! The show really was getting so good at such a fast rate, it's ridiculous that they would cancel it after THEY'RE the ones who did a crap job advertising it. Rrrgh. Now what are we supposed to do? I want more so badly...

9:48 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

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thanks again for your time
Tyler

6:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Its a shame. Good show.

1:34 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

PLEASE DONT CANCLE THE SHOW

If you do read this cant you see that veiwers preffer moral orel over that other crap and not only preferr ADORE! morel orel. I stay up everynight untill eleven sitting through the horrible crap shows like tim and eric just to see this and all i think is what pointless shows when i watch tim and eric and others including fater of the pride and lifes a zoo and all my freinds and fammily thats old enough to watch agree to by cancling morel orel it will be a BAD company fault and your views will go down the tubes!!

Morel Orel is a creative and original show and is 100000000000x better than robot chicken,tim and eric and the crap!

PLEEASSE BRING BACK MOREL OREL OR at least finish all 20 episodes!

2:20 PM  

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