I never saw Strangers With Candy, when it was on Comedy Central. Trolling the Video store one afternoon, I decided that I wanted to rent a comedy DVD. So I thought I'd check this one out.Amy Sedaris (David Sedaris' sister), stars as Gerri Blank, a 46-year-old high school student. Seems that Gerri never got the chance to finish school when she was still a teen, due to her being a drug addict/prisoner. So, after being released from her lengthy prison-stint, Gerri decides to return to high school. Gerri is also living at home with her catatonic father, surly younger brother, and antagonistic step-mother. Ridiculed by her classmates and teachers at school, Gerri's family doesn't treat her much better. Daily, Gerri struggles to win approval, while those around her consider her to be a pathetic specimen of humanity. She tries so hard to succeed both socially and academically, that the viewer can't help but root for Gerri.The other characters in this show are a menagerie of off-beat, bizarre, people. Be forewarned, this is not a P.C. show. It regularly pokes fun at minorities, women, drug addiction, etc. It's all clearly done in a tongue-and-cheek way, though. This show is also laced with liberal amounts of vulgar language, and flagrant sexual innuendo. It's definitely not a G-rated sitcom. Gerri conveys a child-like vulnerability, with her sorrowful, hang-dog face. Though she has quite a checkered past, Gerri is a kindly person at heart, who only wants to be accepted for who she is. That makes her only human after all. She reminds me of Louise Lasser's character in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Like Gerri, Mary Hartman was another child-woman, that's thoroughly bewildered by the world around her.Strangers With Candy certainly doesn't take itself too seriously. Like Married, With Children, it deliberately pushes the proverbial envelope, as an absurd sitcom. And it works brilliantly.

If you are caught up in leveling the playing field and thinking only kind thoughts about people, this is not the show for you. If you are completely open to a show that is comically insulting to every conceivable special interest group (and I belong to one!) get your hands on this.The bad taste in this show is a beautiful thing to see. The writing was so sharp and bitter that you laugh (shamefacedly). The only recent show that has made me laugh this much was the first 2 episodes of "Action," a Fox show about a scummy Hollywood exec with Ileanna Douglas and Jay Mohr, but that show tanked early, then got canned.SWC was so funny that Comedy Central cancelled it after just 2 seasons. If that's not an endorsement I don't know what is.Note: Many have compared this to John Waters. I don't dislike John Waters, but nothing he has ever done has made me laugh as hard as Strangers with Candy.

the previous commenter, Mike, wondered if this show was written by white supremacists (no, "supremists" is not the correct spelling), simply because they named the principal "onyx blackman", and he happened to be a black man.Mike seems to have missed the point. this show wasn't written to delicately handle interpersonal, racial, or societal issues. it was written to be funny and shocking, and in that the writers were very successful.they broke every rule they could find, offended as many people as possible, and made it as obvious as they could so they couldn't be accused of being "supremists".if nothing else, laugh at how many ways they can come up with to offend people in one episode. i'm personally just amazed by the number of great jokes in every episode.

When I first saw Strangers with Candy back in 1999, I was appalled. First of all I could hardly look at the character of Jerri Blank without wanting to vomit. But after finally giving it a chance I fell in love with the show. It's genius! Drugs, eating disorders, death of a parent, peer pressure, premarital sex...SWC is like Beverly Hills 90210 on acid (fashioning itself off of cheesy afterschool specials). The cast was great, the writing flawless. It sucks that this show was so underrated while it was on the air.