Rating: 
Summary: ONE OF THE TOP 10 BEST SITCOMS EVER MADE!
Review: Is she for real? Is what you may want to ask as Jamie Blanks, middle age high school drop out who's 46 and...is going back to high school? Yup, and she has a younger (17 year-old) relative going there too (He's shamed but aint' no shame in her game) The former stripper decided to get an education and fix her wrongs before she gets old (which isn't too long for her). The show is sooo funny, no wonder it became a huge cult hit in 1999 when it premiered. I still remember all the commercials advertising it and all the gossip about it...it was great, but after 2 successful seasons and one floppier season, the show was tragically cancelled in 2001, only 3 seasons completed...but it's okay, those 34 or so episodes will all be released by comedy central. Now the DVD is cool and counting the pilot I think it has 11 episodes total. I remember watching the show when I was 11 in 99' every week with my oldest brother, we would sometimes yell and roll with laughter, other times I would be asking myself huh? Because I was only 11, the sex jokes didn't make sense much...but now they do, unfortunately...(LOL) Anyway, buy this DVD, you can't go wrong and each of season 1's episodes are funny, can't wait for season 2 (2000) and season 3 (2001).
For some reason in mid 2000 I kind of was busy with school and stopped watching it alot, I saw it once every few weeks, but I still remember it well, I never saw the complete season 2 and I only saw like 1 episode in season 3, and I saw 9 out of the 11 from season 1 (I saw the pilot which is included). Hope this review was entertaining and helpful!!!
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious even after repeat viewings
Review: I cannot believe how funny this show is. I only ever saw it as lousy quality tapes that someone else had made from Comedy Central airings, so I was thrilled to see it released on DVD.This is one of those shows that thrives on pushing the boundaries of bad taste all in the context of the afterschool special formula. In addition to Sedaris' expert job at playing a hapless re-entry high school student, the job of Colbert and Delillo as two of her teachers is amazing. Delillo especially is amazingly good at SOUNDING like a very concerned sensitive teacher while telling his students horrible demeaning comments. The short snippets of Colbert's 'history' lessons are an amazing satire of how history is taught and are very much in the vein of his work on the Daily Show. This is easily the funniest show I have seen in a long time. I pray that they eventually release the next two seasons. I will buy them without any hesitation at all.
Rating:
Summary: I like the Pole and the Hole
Review: I remember catching this strange little show on comedy central quite awhile ago. It starred this old looking lady who was 46 years old and starting her life right where she left off, high school. She was a user, a boozer, and a loser. She was my new hero. Stephen Colbert, before his Daily Show claim to fame, showed that he is a comedic genius. Jerri Blank and company have created some of the best comedic farse and satire that I have seen in a very long time. This DVD is quite a little miracle, never did I think I would be able to rewatch this show again. It's like meeting and old friend after a long time apart. Never has a main character been more repugnant and loveable at the same time. Come join us won't you. Don't be afraid, take candy from strangers. You just might just learn an important lesson in the end, such as: "Sometimes when life is too hard it's just better to be...a drunk." Good Times. Good Times.
Rating:
Summary: [Oh] YEAH!
Review: I just couldn't get over the fact that Comedy Central cancelled SWC and don't even play reruns... then I came across this DVD! I loved this show even when I didn't know english, watching Sedaris's amusing expressions and complete-loser style was enough. IT IS AMAZING! EVERYONE SHOULD OWN IT!
Rating:
Summary: OH MY GOD !!!
Review: This is one of the funniest , most irreverent things I have ever seen in my life. I wanna go back to school, as a boozer a user and a loser.
Jerri Blank
for president.
Rating:
Summary: Good times! Good times!
Review: Well Comedy Central, you have certainly redeemed yourselves for canceling the show. There is nothing cooler than releasing a SWC season on DVD, except maybe donating a copy of all episodes of MST3K directly to me.
Folks, if you have any appreciation for wicked-funny humor that defies socially acceptable bounds, GET THIS DVD! It will broaden your horizons as to just how original Sedaris, Dinello and Colbert can be. Sheer genius!
That is all....ONE more thing...that is all.
Rating:
Summary: The bacon strip is sizzling
Review: I had almost forgotten how much I loved this show until Comedy Central released this Season One DVD. Strangers With Candy was an absolutely brilliant comedy that took the concept of After-School Specials and turned it on its head - then gave it a wedgie - and then gave it a swirlie. A decidedly weird parody of this respected but stereotypical genre, one which never feared to go farther than most people could even conceive of in its inanity and bold disregard of political correctness necessarily plays to one of two extremes: either you hate the show and refuse to watch anything so ridiculous again in your life or you, like me, develop an obsessive fascination and love for it. I'm frankly rather surprised to see this Season One DVD released, but my reaction to the news, alongside a mad rush to get it in my hands as soon as possible, was, to quote a favorite line from lead character Jerri Blank, "Good times. Good times." Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris) is rather amazingly representative, in her own special way, of your typical high school student. What makes this so amazing is the fact that she is a forty-six-year-old freshman. After thirty-two years of drug abuse, prison time, and who knows what else, she has returned home to pick up where she left off when she ran away from home. Flat Point High School is not your typical educational oasis, as becomes obvious immediately. Mr. Noblet (Stephen Colbert) and Mr. Jellineck (Paul Dinello) are two unique teachers who play a big role in Jerri's life, dispensing such tidbits of advice as "No one makes friends with a failure" and "You're only as attractive as we think you are," while enjoying an openly "secret" relationship of their own. The towering force at the school, however, is Principal Blackman (Greg Hollimon), whose educational theories are, in a word, unusual and whose narcissism knows no bounds. If you thought your old teachers were weird, you ought to take a look at these guys. Jerri deals with many issues routinely covered in after-school specials: trying to be popular, dating, racism, dealing with peer pressure (as well as pressure from the principal and teachers), accepting a new student, coping with an extremely dysfunctional family (the most normal member of which, her father, appears only in immovable poses), and, of course drugs. In the very first episode, she turns to what she knows - brewing up drugs - in her effort to become popular, only to watch a stoned girl try to fly through a keyhole. Jerri can be a sympathetic character dealing with her step-mother's alcoholism one minute, and then the next she is assuming the role of an abusive husband to her baby care partner. This really is one of those shows you can't describe; you have to see it to understand it. There aren't a lot of extras on the DVDs, but what is there is fantastic. The unaired pilot of the show was strange indeed, as it featured a much different look for Jerri, a step-mother played by the woman who would end up being Jerri's gym teacher, an after-school volunteer job for Jerri at a home for senior citizens, terrible music, and a completely different feel to the whole viewing experience. The commentary provided by the creators and stars of the show, Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, and Paul Dinello, is great fun. While only four of the ten episodes from Season One include a commentary, the information, reference to gags and side jokes that I had missed up until now, stories about the sometimes seat-of-your-pants manner in which everything came together for each episode, and general humor they expressed at the sight of old scenes takes a Strangers With Candy fanatic such as myself to even deeper and more appreciative heights of humor and fun. What is perhaps most strange about Strangers With Candy is its success at making good and relevant points about some of the serious matters it subjects to a humiliating treatment in the name of comedy. I'm not entirely sure it does this intentionally, though, because the main point of concentration oftentimes seems to revolve around seeing just what they could actually get away with doing on television. If you are content with the same old predictable humor that the networks recycle year in and year out, you probably should avoid diving into the deep end of the humor pool, but if you yearn for something else, something different, something so stupid that its brilliance shines forth like a shooting star zooming across a horizon populated by distant glimmers of comedic light, then you may just find something strange and beautiful and hilarious in this unforgettable show.
Rating:
Summary: It's about time!
Review: Comedy Central made a big mistake cancelling this show. They've almost made up for it by releasing the shows on DVD. Let's just hope they're not too slow to release the other seasons!
Rating:
Summary: The best Strangers With Candy DVD on the market today.
Review: This is the best strangers with candy dvd on the market today. The fact that it is the only strangers with candy dvd on the market today should not deter you from purchasing it. This show, is arguably the best Comedy Central series since Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's a sick and twisted cross between The Wonder Years and Saved by the Bell. Jerri Blank is so awesome it makes me want to soil myself.
Rating:
Summary: Strangers With Candy - Season One
Review: I was an ardent fan of this show when it was on and was sad to see its run end. What's worse is that when it ended, the reruns were banished to late-night/early-morning viewing, i.e. the crackhead-infomercial timeslot. Finally - the DVD. Oh to relive Jerri's dazzling repugnance and delicious impropriety. I always wondered how this show even made it on TV and lasted two years, because you really need a sophisticated palette to see its ironies without simply dismissing it at first glance for its utterly, utterly strange situations which oblige the early John Waters films. It is humour which is at once appalling and riotous. I can sit through Seinfeld without laughing, but this stuff makes me howl like a psychiatric inmate. ...I cannot wait for Season 2 ... ...I read somewhere that they might make it a movie. Oh, yea.
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