Plot
The series' main character, Geraldine Antonia "Jerri" Blank (played by Amy Sedaris), was a "junkie whore"/runaway returning to high school as a freshman at age 46 at the fictional Flatpoint High School in the town of Flatpoint.
Created and written by Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, Stephen Colbert, and Mitch Rouse, the show was a spoof of the after school specials of the 1970s and 1980s and was also inspired, at least in part, by a 1970 public service film, The Trip Back, that featured a reformed drug addict named Florrie Fisher (see "Origin" below). Sedaris, Colbert, Dinello, and Rouse were cast members of the short-lived Comedy Central series Exit 57; they, along with Greg Hollimon and many other stars of the series, were also alumni of Chicago's Second City comedy troupe.
According to the show's animated introduction, Jerri ran away from home and became "a boozer, a user, and a loser" after dropping out of high school as a teenager, supporting her drug habits through prostitution, stripping, and larceny. She has been to prison several times, the last time because she, in her words, "stole a TV."
Every episode featured a theme or moral lesson, although the lessons were often amoral or warped; in an episode about eating disorders, Jerri learns that it is acceptable to become bulimic because it will get people to pay attention to you. When Jerri's father passes away in the episode "The Goodbye Guy," Jerri learns the valuable lesson, "You never really 'lose' your parents. Unless of course they die. Then they're gone forever. And nothing will bring them back." In another episode, Jerri learned that "violence really isn't the only way to resolve a conflict, but it's the only way to win it."
Each episode ends with the cast and other featured actors from the episode dancing.
Read more about this topic: Strangers With Candy
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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