Strangers with Candy

This new show from Comedy Central is completely loopy! Give it a few minutes of your time and you too will succomb! Amy Sedaris is outrageously funny as Jerry Blank, a 47 year old reprehensible ex-convict trying to graduate Flashpoint High "right where she left off." Her catatonic senior citizen father and alcoholic and abusive step-mother are both superb!

Jerry always struggles to do the right thing. She rarely succeeds. Every episode Jerry has a new pet. A lobster (that is boiled accidentally). A turtle (who is shot out the living room sliding glass doors after a serious one-on-one with a golf club, and is later cremated and commingled with Jerry's mother's ashes). And a constrictor (nothing untoward it seems happens to this pet). Poor Jerry, as she struggles to gain weight to play Ma in Raisin in the Sun and spy on a nice classmate who the teachers feel is retarded!

At the end of each episode I feel gratified that Jerry never does the right thing, but that is ok. In fact the episodes end happily because Jerry gave someone an overdose of home brewed drugs or she snitched on her retarded friend who stood up for her. The list of Jerry's misdeeds is long, but as her teacher, Mr. Jellinek, advises her, "...stick with what you know!"

I remember this show with great fondness, and am happy to see it is arriving on DVD -- plus the feature length movie version will hit screens this summer! What more could one ask for, except maybe a fantasy sequence where Jeri turns into the incredibly cute Amy Sedaris while she's making love to a classmate, male or female or both at once. It seems like a century ago since this was on the air. Look at how far Mr. Colbert has come in what is actually a relatively short period of time. As for Amy, check out her IMDb page and see how lovely she looks in real life. And this is a middle-aged woman! Why couldn't all middle-aged women look like this?

I'm surprised to see only one negative review on IMDB. Having been a fan of the show since its debut, I knew from the start it would be a love or hate series for many people.

It's a great show not for its intellectual qualities (or on the surface, lack thereof), but its originality. Teen dramacom parodies have come before, though none as brave as this. SwC reminds me in part of the Nickelodeon series from the early-mid 90s such as "Salute your Shorts", which is perhaps why I and many others who grew up in that era have a soft spot for it.

It's sad to think we might not see many more divisive T.V series. The dumbing down of the masses by shows in which greedy people vote one another off fake islands ensures subtly and wit will soon be regarded as the real enemies of television.

Words cannot explain Strangers with Candy. You need to see it to believe it and even then you'll be scratching your head in disbelief (while laughing your ass off of course).

The premise is that of a sick and twisted after school special from hell where all of the wrong lessons are learned. (Great one from Jellineck – `if you're going to smoke marijuana you have to be prepared to spend a lot of time laughing with your friends').

It is one of the smartest, subversive and exhilaratingly un-pc shows ever. It a makes fun of authority figures, the handicapped, minorities and that's just for starters. Each episode is crammed with one-liners and sight gags so numerous they'll make your head spin.

It's all in the delivery, folks. Principal Blackman (Gregory Hollimon), Noblet (Steven Colbert) and Jellineck (Paul Dinello) are all pitch perfect. In the hands of lesser talents these jokes would fall flat. The show has huge laughs. The entire Hit & Run episode comes to mind, as does the scene in The Virgin Jerri when Drake removes Jerri's toe separator from her filthy feet and sniffs it lustily or when Jerri recites the poem Packing a Musket to the class.

I could go on and on but just trust me - you HAVE to watch this show.

When I saw the commercials for this show, I thought it looked stupid and annoying. But I gave it a chance, and loved it. I think this show, although a bit strange and sometimes extreme, is very very funny. I find myself still laughing at some of the jokes days after I watch it. It's very different from most sitcoms, and most of the timing and originality of the jokes are pulled off terrifically. Amy Sedaris is incredible as the strange (and really ugly) Jerri Blank. Steven Colbert is also really funny. Give this show a chance, you will not regret it.