“ | Orel, I'll see you…in my study. | „ |
~ Clay's catchphrase towards Orel whenever he does something wrong. |
Clay Puppington (born January 4, 1955) is the main antagonist in the Adult Swim stop-motion show Moral Orel.
He is the abusive, alcoholic, manipulative father of Orel Puppington, stepfather of his wife's second son Shapey Puppington and the unofficial adoptive father of Block Posabule. His wife is Bloberta Puppington. He frequently complains about his 'lousy, stinking dead-end job', which is revealed in the penultimate episode Nesting to be the Mayor of Moraltown.
He was voiced by Scott Adsit.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
- When he was a child, believing his mother truly didn’t love him, he faked his death which causes her heart to give out.
- Following his mother's death, he would deliberately cruelly taunt and mock his father in order to goad him into hitting him as he had come to associate physical abuse with affection.
- He is lazy and neglectful as the mayor of Moralton, with it being shown in "God's Image" that he willfully holds up a system of racial discrimination. Despite the aesthetics of the series, it doesn't actually take place in the 1950's, meaning that Clay is bending the law in order to keep this segregation instituted.
- When he had Orel and Shapey, he is neglectful towards them at best, allowing Shapey (who is heavily coded as autistic) to play with dangerous and sharp objects. He also seems to not notice when Shapey was replaced with Block.
- He continually cheats on his wife Bloberta multiple times with multiple women, and Coach Stopframe.
- He is neglectful and abusive towards Orel, his own son. He constantly told Orel extremely bad advice which makes him constantly do terrible things and gets him and other people hurt and he beats him after the fact and lectures him, not out of making him better, but to make himself look better, and he doesn’t actually care about the things Orel did. His advice causes Orel to do various harmful things, including:
- His advice about conception has Orel try to get all the woman in the town pregnant.
- He got Orel hooked on crack and makes him beat up the shop owner, Sal Figurelli. He was only mad because Orel wasn’t giving him the drugs.
- He admonishes Orel after he was shot with a BB gun by Shapey and tells him to be mature, causing Orel to become alcoholic though a misunderstanding. which Clay shows little care towards.
- He, along with the rest of the town, forcibly euthanizes Orel’s new dog Bartholomew when he gives Orel too much happiness.
- His advice to Orel about attacking people before they hurt him first caused Orel to start beating up random innocent people, including his mom and him. Clay doesn’t punish Orel since he didn’t want to look like a bad father if he was proven wrong.
- As a result of being the Town Mayor, it can be assumed that he's ensuring that Orel doesn't face legal punishment for his various illegal actions so that he can punish him instead.
- He accidentally runs over and kills an elderly man with his car in "God-Fearing" and then immediately tries to blame Orel for it.
- He instituted an ordinance that segregated the Italian-American Figurelli family in "God's Image" due to Orel realizing that they had a darker skin tone than the rest of the town.
- He brings Orel to hunting trip and, while drunk, starts to pressure an uncomfortable Orel to shoot random animals for fun.
- In a Season 3 episode, it’s revealed that he manipulated and befriended Orel’s friend Doughy, who struggled with not having a fatherly figure, into getting Orel to accept his camping trip.
- He shoots an old hunting dog belonging to an old man and later puts their head on a mantle and cooks them while refusing to give any to Orel.
- In his worst action, during a fit of rage for Orel talking back, he shoots him in the leg with a hunting rifle, and starts gaslighting him about it being his fault. He then deliberately drinks the rubbing alcohol instead of helping Orel’s wound to further taunt him and passes out, leaving Orel bleeding out for the night. This also forces Orel shoot a bear who was trying to kill Clay. This act marked a turning point in the series, leaving Orel psychologically scarred and broken, and making him lose his faith and become much more negative in Season 3. When Clay gets sober in the afternoon and wakes up, he shows no remorse or care, saying he simply doesn’t remember it and lies about it being a bear attack.
- In the bar, he starts insulting Reverend Putty, Officer Papermouth and Dr. Potterswheel over their insecurities and past in order to goad them into attacking him. It's demonstrated that he's deliberately kept track of information of their personal lives for all of them in order to do this.
- Additionally, he discovers that Dr. Potterswheel has a gore fetish and endangered the lives of his patients, including his own wife, but didn't do anything about this because he wanted to use this fact as emotional leverage against him.
- He bullshits an apology to Orel about being a terrible father and shooting him purely for the sake of collecting information on his mayoral election rival Ms. Censordoll only to take it all back when Orel refuses to help him and declares that he's glad he shot him.
- He ruins his relationship with his boyfriend Coach Stopframe by cheating on him for a shallow and entirely sex and power-based relationship with Ms. Censordoll.
- He accuses his own ex-boyfriend, Stopframe, of being a pedophile, implicitly threatening him with legal punishment, because he tries to emotionally council Orel. It's worth noting that Clay himself is bisexual but is knowingly invoking the "All gays are pedophiles" stereotype in doing this.
- In the end, Clay feels remorse for almost none of his actions and in the finale, still lives miserably married to Bloberta, presumably for the rest of his life.
- Despite having many comedic moments, Clay loses many of them in the "Nature" episode after shooting Orel, and in Season 3, he is taken much more seriously, with his moments of comedy not taking away from his seriously his actions are taken.
- While Cecil Creepler did worse, Clay still stands out due to his personal villainy towards Orel, as he is the reason that the latter starts losing his faith in humanity and gains numerous corrupting qualities in Season 3.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He is too sympathetic to be PE or NPE, due to having a genuinely tragic past that is frequently played for sympathy, especially in Season 3. While it doesn’t justify any of his actions, it’s clear it is too sympathetic to be ignored:
- When Clay was young, he was completely coddled by his helicopter mother while his father disliked him due to his mother’s nature rubbing off on him. He accidentally causes his mother’s death, which causes his father to completely neglect him, causing Clay to insult him to get his dad to abuse him, thinking pain and abuse equals love, and so this sentiment is instilled with him for years. This was coupled with meeting Bloberta, being introduced to alcoholism by her, being pushed into marrying her with questionable consent, which lead to their unhappy marriage and his inability to feel love towards his children. He is also either gay or bisexual, and forced to repress these feelings as a result of the heteronormative and homophobic society that he lives in.
- This is portrayed with sympathy throughout the story, including the Nature episode during his “WHY DO YOU QUIT WORKING ON ME!” speech and the Season 3 episode "Passing" in which he seems to remember his childhood while drinking. There is also the Numb ending with Bloberta and the Help flashback episodes, and even the episode "Sacrifice," where Clay starts drunkenly crying when no one tries hurting him to show love to him.
- Even his ending and fate is sympathetic, him pathetically trying to say that he loves Stopframe before he is rejected and depressingly walks back into his house to his dead marriage and (as the finale scene shows) still isn’t happy and is presumably depressed.
- He shows genuine love towards his lover, Coach Stopframe, as while his love towards Bloberta is debased, his care towards Orel is more debatable given his nature, his love for his mother is obsessive and his love towards Shapey is non-existent, he genuinely shows happiness and opens up about his actual feelings and concerns around Coach and while he cheats on him and ruins their relationship, he still tries hard to have Stopframe forgive him in the finale and tries to say he loves him, and is heartbroken at his rejection.
- He demonstrates occasional hints of remorse towards his actions. In "Numb", he glances down at his drink with a depressed look on his face when he see Bloberta crying as a result of how thoroughly his actions have eviscerated their family, and he begins crying in "Sacrifice" when he realizes that the "poison" he had built up as a result of his self-loathing was ruining their lives even more so. Ultimately though, Clay is too much of a pathetic and self-loathing man to ever change his ways or atone for his actions, meaning this is a minor prevention.
- He has a questionable moral agency as he thinks pain and abuse are the same as love due to his upbringing. Additionally a lot of his crimes (like shooting Orel) were done when drunk. While Bloberta claims that alcohol only brings out Clay's true nature instead of changing him, she's not a reliable source of info as she was the one who introduced him to alcohol.
- He allows Block to stay at his house, despite the fact that Block is mentally disabled and very rambunctious. He doesn't have any pragmatic reason for this, suggesting he's doing it out of the goodness of his heart. And while he does complain about him being annoying most of the time, he could still kick him out if he wanted to.
Trivia[]
- Clay Puppington is the only Moral Orel character to be Inconsistently Heinous.
External Links[]
- Clay Puppington on the Villains Wiki
- Clay Puppington on the Moral Orel Wiki
- Clay Puppington on the Entertainigly Detestable Wiki
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