| Clay M. Puppington | |
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 "Love is a very beautiful, very intense feeling for a startlingly short period of time!" -"Love" | |
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Gender |
Male |
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Age |
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Hair |
Brown |
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Religion |
Protestant |
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Job |
Mayor |
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First Appearance |
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Last Appearance |
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Voiced by |
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Family & Relationships |
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Clayton Middleinitial 'Clay' Puppington is the main antagonist of the series. He is the son of Arthur Puppington and Angela Puppington, the husband of Bloberta Puppington, and the strict, abusive, and alcoholic father of Orel Puppington and Shapey Puppington. He tries to keep his home in line with a 1950's style of living. He hates his job as mayor of Moralton, as well as his children, marriage, and father.
The Shadowed Dawn[]
In both of these episodes, "Nature" Part 1 and Part 2, Clay drinks to escape from the harsh realities of life. He often feels overwhelmed by his responsibilities and the expectations of others. Drinking allows him to temporarily forget his problems and relax. However, Clay's drinking also has negative consequences. It can lead to him making poor decisions, becoming violent, and neglecting his responsibilities. He is aware of the dangers of drinking, but is unable to resist the temptation.
Personality[]
Clay is a man with a painful past and a lot of regrets. He is a deeply depressed, frustrated individual who never learns from his mistakes. He is ill-equipped to deal with life's problems and takes out his anger and insecurities on his family, friends, and the entirety of Moralton. He despises and fears the reality of his life and himself. He also hates being ignored, brushed off, and feeling worthless. He is irresponsible and immature, and often mocks or ignores anyone who tells him he is wrong, especially Orel and Bloberta. His adult life bears the fruits of his spoiled and unbalanced childhood. His marriage is a lie, and everyone but Orel knows it. When he makes a mistake, he blames it on other people to mask the fact that he is not perfect.
When he was in his twenties, he appeared to be calm, friendly, and mild-mannered until he started drinking, which he did in excess immediately. This shifted his personality, and according to Bloberta, was "his true nature coming out."
The scars of Clay's childhood are evident in the way he acts as an adult, where he bounced between the extremes of being his mother's overindulged darling, to a solitary, neglected boy who confused his emotionally withdrawn father's physical abuse as a sign of validation and that he was "worth it." Internalizing both of these styles of parenting, Clay grew up to be a self-hating and at the same time an utterly egocentric man who only cares about himself and the only concern he has for others is how they affect him or his reputation. He despised his father for withholding his affection and making him feel worthless, yet recreated his father's pattern of abuse in the way he teaches and disciplines Orel. However, this gesture is emotionally hollow, as Clay is too internally desolate to have real love or care for his son. Instead, he only cares about Orel as a reflection of himself as a father and places more emphasis on his son obeying or not embarrassing him than his emotional well-being.
As shown throughout the series and in the prequel, Clay avoids his family due to his repressed lack of confidence or hatred for them and himself, while spending most of the time in his study brooding over his misery and drinking. Clay's obsession with his study could be seen as symbolic, as it was the place his father handed Ol' Gunny to him and fully solidified his disowning of Clay, suggesting how he is still very rooted in the traumas of his childhood and the damage they have caused him.
History[]
As a child, Clay was the youngest and only surviving offspring of his parents, as his mother’s drinking, smoking, and fun-loving lifestyle caused her to miscarry ten times before he was born. This is largely because Clay's mother spent all of her pregnancy praying for Clay's safety. Clay's mother was a religious zealot who spoiled him rotten. During his childhood, he started his "Lost Commandments" idea. At age six, his father didn't mind it and even found the idea cute, but as he got older and Angela only continued to encourage the idea, it got on his father's nerves. This created tension between Clay and his father, who was outright neglected by his wife in favor of her own son.
Clay's life collapsed, however, when he learned of his ten miscarried siblings. Upset, he faked his own death as a prank on Angela, causing her to have a fatal heart attack. Clay's father never forgave him for his part in Angela's death and emotionally shunned his own son, ultimately telling Clay that he's "not even worth it" upon an initial refrain from slapping him. This deeply affected Clay, causing him to seek out Arthur’s abuse as a means to gain any sort of emotional response and validation. Eventually, his father saw through Clay's abuse seeking and stopped hitting him after he gave the gun away. The two formed a casual hatred towards one another and blamed each other for the death of Clay's mother, Angela. (The love for his mother would develop into Oedipus Complex many years later, as shown in the episode "Nesting.")
Arthur gave Ol' Gunny to Clay, stating that he's ending the male Puppington tradition of passing along the gun to one's firstborn son, because it's "tainted with blood." Clay decided to continue the tradition with Orel. The camping trips were centered more upon father-son bonding rather than hunting. Because his father never did the trip with him and Clay had no real experience himself, this event was doomed from the start.
When Clay was a young adult, he appeared much similar to Orel, shown to be a rather mild figure who wanted to spend his days studying the Bible and drinking apple juice. While he accidentally attended a wedding thinking it was Sunday hearing, Clay met Bloberta Puppington. The two went to the wedding reception together, where Bloberta asked about his family and Clay responded with "My parents are dead," not telling her the truth about his father being alive. Bloberta then introduced Clay to liquor, believing that alcohol relaxed people for the better, and even used a religious justification in order to get him to drink.
Alcohol caused a massive change in Clay's personality (or his "true nature coming out"), turning him into a womanizer and drunken party-goer before ultimately causing Bloberta to punch him unconscious in order to keep him from flirting with the other women. Afterwards, Bloberta lied to Clay, telling him that he passed out and that she looked after him while he was unconscious. She then pressed him to marry her, citing that he needs someone like her to "help" him. Clay agreed, but by this point the damage was done as Clay was now a full-blown alcoholic who spent most of their wedding flirting with other women, getting drunk, and ultimately got arrested after the wedding for driving under the influence. Some time after they got married, Clay and Bloberta had their first child, Orel.
Clay is seen in the special "Beforel Orel", which takes place when Orel is four years old. He is shown to be in shock that Bloberta is pregnant and begins to sob. He too is shown to be in great denial that he neglects Orel. Bloberta begins to berate him for not teaching Orel anything and accuses him of going to his study to hide from him. Clay is shown to still be haunted by his father's emotional rejection. To avoid answering Orel's questions about the baby, Clay decides to "send" him to his grandfather in Sinville.
He basically abandons Orel at his grandfather's farm, though eventually, Clay brings him back early due to warnings from Miss Censordoll that he needed to teach him about God. He picks an unfortunate time, as Bloberta goes into labor. He basically ignores Bloberta when Orel begins asking questions about the baby. He tries getting Dr. Potterswheel to talk to Orel for him, but he leaves. While Bloberta is delivering Shapey, Clay is still unable to teach Orel anything and decides to make God the answer to Orel's questions.
However, Orel begins asking about proof. Clay gets angered and annoyed when he realizes that Orel learned that from Arthur. He then decides to make Reverend Putty drag the congregation to a late-night sermon for Orel to learn about God. When that doesn't work, Clay lets him go to Miss Censordoll. It does work, to a point, but Clay still refuses to teach him anything.
He quickly tries to get Orel to not pray out of thankfulness for his grandfather and demands he wipes out everything he learned from Arthur. Unbeknownst to him, Orel has taken their advice too much to heart and believed he had to show his faith like Abraham with Isaac. While Arthur went to stop his grandson, Clay was at the bar getting drunk.
While Officer Papermouth lectures Orel and Bloberta is left with Shapey, Clay and his father are alone. For the first time in years, the two speak. Arthur is willing to take the blame for how Clay has raised Orel. Clay, not wanting to accept responsibility, states that Orel is fine. Arthur admits that he's surprised that Orel knew nothing about God, given how Moralton was a deeply religious town and how Clay had been raised by Angela. He then asks Clay why Orel hadn't been taught about God.
For the rarest moment, Clay shows real emotion, telling him that he had no confidence to answer Orel's questions; let alone talk about God because he felt worthless. An even rarer moment is when he cries genuinely, as he remembers how his father stated: "You're not even worth it," something that Arthur still remembered. For a brief moment, there's silence between the father and son. Arthur shows a small sign of concern and regrets how he treated Clay. But Clay pulls back, not wanting to reconcile. He then states that he sees now that God was the answer to all of Orel's problems.
He then states that he never wants Arthur to see Orel again. When Orel is let go by Officer Papermouth, he's overjoyed to see Arthur. Clay, most likely wanting to hurt his father, reminds Orel what he taught him. Orel, seemingly obedient, recites what Clay told him, that "grandpa is a bad man and shouldn't be trusted." Clay takes pride in seeing Arthur hurt by this. Clay is left totally oblivious that Orel was only acting as Orel winks at his grandfather, showing he still trusts him.
To show up Arthur, Clay states he's going to take Orel to his office (mostly to discipline him). But Orel is just overjoyed to see his study. Arthur leaves happily, knowing that Orel still loves him. As he leaves, Clay watches his father's truck leave, regretfully sad. But he quickly shakes it off, still refusing to reconcile with his father.
The episode ends with Orel and Clay in his study, with his belt in his hand, hoping that Orel has learned his lesson and that they can avoid more problems in the future. This eventually fails because his form of discipline became abuse and it was just a way to get back at his father to show he is the better parent. As in the future, Orel will unknowingly cause damage by accident because of his father's poor parenting and the townspeople's bad advice.
Clay largely hates his family, not remembering his children's names or even caring when Shapey is unintentionally switched witch another child. This is taken to an extreme in the episode "Numb" when he assumes Shapey and Block are just a liquor-induced hallucination. He is rather misogynistic, believing that women differ from men in the ability to fulfill themselves solely through tending to their husbands. It is later revealed that it sexually arouses him to watch Bloberta do such chores, ultimately leading Clay to partake in voyeuristic swinging housekeeping. He is close friends (later secret lovers) with Coach Danielle Stopframe, who secretly lusts after Clay. It has been shown that Stopframe is Clay's chief enabler as far as feeding his dependency on liquor, while going as far as to seduce and impregnate Bloberta in order to be near him. Ironically, Clay seems very unaware that Danielle is Shapey's father.
Clay will often bring Orel into his study to discuss the various misdeeds Orel often does, after dealing out "a good belting" to the boy. The lessons usually have little to do with the actual damage he caused, usually focusing on "the lesser of two evils." For example, when confronting Orel for raising the dead, Clay is more concerned with the fact that Orel created naked zombies (by removing their clothes prior to resurrecting them) than him actually creating zombies. Also, when Orel develops an unintentional addiction to crack-cocaine, he is punished by Clay for speaking slang rather than smoking it. He also often punishes Orel for something that was his own fault in the first place, such as giving the boy bad advice or not explaining thoroughly what is actually right, which later creates serious consequences. One major example is when Orel started masturbating and putting his semen inside the women of Moralton because Clay told him not to waste his seed, but didn't tell Orel not to put it into women at all. It is unclear what happened to Orel's unborn children. But given how Moralton wants to protect its reputation as a religious community and the fact the women were bearing a twelve-year-old boy's child, the women might have aborted the fetuses in secret.
Clay also has a collection of firearms in his study, including a Heckler & Koch PSG1 sniper rifle and what is revealed to be an extensive arsenal in "Nature Part 1." In the same episode, the event becomes a disaster even before they depart. Clay immediately gets drunk and decides to throw away everything he can out of Orel's kit, even though the items could have been useful. Clay further shows his bad side by belittling Orel for not wanting to kill animals. He then cruelly shoots a deer, as well as someone's dog, just to be hurtful and feel superior.
During the trip, he rants violently about how awful his life is and accidentally shoots Orel, but denies any responsibility. He sinks even lower when, in "Honor," it is revealed that he continues to blame Orel for the injury. That experience made Orel realize his father's true nature and lose all of his respect for him, seeing Clay as the cruel, miserable, hypocritical, and hateful human being he really was.
In "Sacrifice," he was rude to everyone at Forghetty's Pub while trying to prove that life is horrible by getting everyone to hit him by making harsh remarks to them. However, everyone would later walk away, causing Clay to collapse in defeat and see that he is not worth it. He also blamed the townspeople for making Orel sensitive.
In "Honor," Clay finally (though indirectly) admitted his feelings for Coach Stopframe in front of his wife and children. By then, however, Stopframe had become aware of Clay's true personality and ultimately rebukes him.
Years later into Orel's adulthood, a picture of him and Bloberta together can be seen on a wall in the final scene, both appearing openly unhappy. Orel and Christina live happily and have better lives than them. Clay failed to make Orel be like him as an unhappy adult by using religion as an excuse for irresponsible actions.
Relationships[]
Angela is Clay's mother. The two spent a lot of time together, with Clay being a spoiled "mama's boy" because of her love and devotion to him, referring to Clay as her "precious only ever." When Clay was 12, he found out about his mother's miscarriages and became upset that he wasn't her only child. He then pretends to be dead, which gave Angela a heart attack that killed her. Angela's passing still affects him to this day, as he blames his own father for her death.
Orel is Clay's only biological son. Because of his selfishness, Clay shows no real love for Orel and instead treats him like work. The closest he was really shown to love Orel was when he defended him from a zombie. When it comes to love, he never really says it to him. He once said, "I love you enough." Clay's relationship to Orel is build on attempting to shape him into what Clay himself is - a miserable, selfish pessimist. When the two become conflicted after the hunting trip incident and it becomes apparent that Orel will not follow in his father's footsteps, Clay admits that he's glad to have shot Orel. He chose not to reconcile with his son even when he had plenty of chances to do so. In "Honor," it shows how incredibly selfish he is when he becomes jealous over the time Coach Stopframe spent with Orel instead of devoting it to him. He felt no guilt when his son basically stated he didn't feel relaxed at his own home.
In Beforel Orel, Clay is shown to be in very deep denial that he's a neglectful parent. He wanted Orel to turn on Arthur to hurt him. It is revealed that he didn't want to teach young Orel about anything (including God) because he had no confidence he could. He attempts to get Orel to hate Arthur, but Orel is only pretending to hate him and thus Clay's attempt failed. A few years later, Clay caused Orel to hate him instead and made Orel lose his respect for his father. In turn, his son grew up to be a much happier adult after he stopped listening to Clay's poor advice. It is uncertain if Orel still talks to his father as an adult even though he has a portrait of him and Bloberta in his home.
Bloberta is Clay's wife. Their marriage is loveless and unhappy; Clay frequently drinks to cope, while Bloberta turns to obsessive behaviours, and both engage in extramaritial affairs. Most of the time, they're hostile against one another, frequently arguing; in public, they will often pretend to be kind to each other to keep up the appearances. The moments where they are genuiely friendly to one another are rare. One moment in "Numb," when Clay overhears Orel asking her why she married him, Bloberta simply answers "Why not?". When Orel mentions his father drinking, Bloberta states that his drinking only shows his true nature. Later, she breaks down after leaving her son with an empty answer. She then goes cold seeing Clay because he caused Orel to begin realizing the harsh truth about his family. The two lay in their beds, looking as if they're awaiting death or accepting that they are indeed doomed to be stuck with one another, miserably.
In Beforel Orel, it's shown that the two are very much aware that they don't care for another, as their wedding photo of them frowning is seen on the wall. When Orel asks if he should pray for his mother (out of thankfulness), Clay replies with an "eh," implying that he has semi feelings for her.
Ironically, although he and Bloberta hate one another, they are deeply possessive of each other, as he was angered by the thought of her sleeping with Dr. Potterswheel and Bloberta was frantic to hide the handkerchief she took from Clay.
They are close friends and drinking buddies, although Coach Stopframe would like something more from their relationship. Clay is unaware of Stopframe's affair with Bloberta, despite the fact the affair occurred simply as a means of Stopframe getting close to Clay. He encourages Clay's alcoholism in the hopes that it will lower his inhibitions, unaware of the destructive effects it causes within Clay. Clay is seemingly aware of the infatuation and sometimes flirts with him publicly and often seeks attention from Stopframe. In "Honor," Clay finally admits his feelings for Stopframe, but is subsequently rejected as Stopframe has realized Clay is a terrible person.
In "Nesting," Censordoll embarked upon a scheme to seduce Clay Puppington, offering to be his mistress. She used the fact that she was unable to produce children and began manipulating his Oedipal feelings towards his dead mother to convince Clay of her potential as his mistress. They begin to passionately make out as they fondle a chicken egg.
It is implied that Clay can tell them apart and appears to be the only one (aside from Orel and Christina) who noticed they were switched, but he simply doesn't care since neither of them are his real son. However, they are so similar that when he saw them both at the same time in "Numb," he assumed that it was double vision, looking down at his drink. He dislikes Shapey because he's not his biological son, although he does wonder who is Shapey's biological father. He usually just pushes Shapey and Block away from him or gives them something to play with (which are usually dangerous objects), so they would leave him alone.
Clay hates his father due to the way he treated him as a kid. Arthur ended the male Puppington tradition of going to the hunting trip, but Clay says he'll keep the tradition, which he eventually did in "Nature." In Beforel Orel, it explores more with their relationship, showing the hatred between them was still ever strong as Arthur threatened to shoot Clay's car if he came onto his property. The two interact near the end of the episode when Arthur admits he's surprised Orel didn't know about God and asks his son why. Clay, emotionally, admits that he didn't have enough confidence to answer Orel's questions or talk to him about God. He then states it's because he felt worthless, and cries in front of his father. The two realize it's because of how Arthur stated, "You're not even worth it." For a brief moment, there's silence between the father and son. Arthur shows to express concern and regrets how he treated Clay. But Clay goes back to himself and angrily states that he sees that God is the answer to all of Orel's questions, and that he never wants to see Arthur around Orel again. To hurt his father, he gets Orel to say that "Grandpa is bad and shouldn't be trusted." Unbeknownst to him, Orel was only pretending and winks at Arthur, who knows the truth. As Arthur leaves, Clay watches him drive off sadly and regretfully. This could hint that he does miss his father and probably wished to reconcile, even if for a moment. But he quickly shakes it off and goes back to the way he usually was, as he refuses to ever forgive Arthur.
Appearances[]
Season One[]
- All episodes
Season Two[]
- All episodes except "Courtship"
Season Three[]
- All episodes except "Alone"
Other[]
- "Beforel Orel: Trust"
- He appears in two "Beforel Orel" promos.
- He's called out for masturbating by his voice actor.
- The "lost episode" promo reuses a few shots of him.
Trivia[]
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This section contains speculation. Please keep this in mind as you read it. |
- If the series continued:
- Arthur would live with the Puppingtons to ride out a terminal illness. He would try to make amends with Clay, but Clay would reject his father's efforts. In his will, Arthur would leave his farm to Orel instead of Clay.
- It would be revealed that Ms. Censordoll used voodoo to influence Clay's actions during the events of the "Nature" duology. To what extent is unknown. This plot twist was hinted at in "Nesting," possibly to have it published in some form before the show was cancelled.
- Clay's name obviously refers to him being a clay puppet. His middle name, Middleinitial, is likely a meta joke.
Gallery[]
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