Get Schwifty For Rick And Morty Season Two!

The Good: Hilarious references to science fiction works, Good voice performances, Animation quality
The Bad: Starts recycling some of its good ideas, Short!
The Basics: Rick And Morty Season 2 is quirky, fun, and progresses the story of Rick Sanchez and the Smith family on their science fiction adventures.


I am very rarely moments ahead of a trend, but with Rick And Morty, I actually was. I discovered Rick And Morty days ahead of the Season Two premiere from an advertisement at a movie theater that aired before the film I went to see. Based on the strength of the clips, I got into Rick And Morty and it was one of the few television shows I watched as it aired last year. Rick And Morty Season 2 progresses past where the show was in Season 1 (reviewed here!) and it was more of a collaborative work by the show's creators. Despite the reluctance articulated by the creators of the show to work with other people, the result is that Rick And Morty Season 2 is a strong body of work.

I suspect that Rick And Morty is like music; people tend to be most attached to the music they grew up on. While I watched Rick And Morty Season 1 later on, I experienced clips and episodes of Season 2 (repeatedly!) before that. As a result, I found myself much more attached to season two of Rick And Morty than season one. Rick And Morty Season Two is a collection of ten half-hour animated episodes of television that follow the exploits of the Smith family and Rick Sanchez, Beth Smith's father. Rick Sanchez is an irresponsible mad scientist who dragoons his grandson, Morty, and his granddaughter, Summer, into his frequent adventures through space and against aliens. Jerry, Morty's idiotic father, continues to loathe his father-in-law.

Adventures in the second season of Rick And Morty include Rick, Morty and Summer accidentally splintering into the multiverse after freezing time. Saved by an alien from the fourth dimension, Rick is threatened with jail for stealing time crystals. In righting broken time, the trio kills the alien and ends up purposely fracturing existence again! Morty tries to use compassion to save a life form that an intergalactic assassin wants dead with horrible results, while Jerry is stuck in a Jerry-themed daycare used by alternate Ricks. Making a fortune off selling guns to an alien assassin, Rick and Morty spend the day at an intergalactic arcade. While Rick gets laid by a planet of mind-controlled aliens, Jerry and Beth go to alien couple's counseling. The family is invaded by a parasite that effects their memories before Rick and Morty have to defend the Earth from an interstellar music competition that results in planetary destruction for those who fail to win. Rick has to fix his car by entering microscopic worlds within the car battery and Rick puts his consciousness in a younger body to bond with Summer and Morty. Rick and Morty visit a planet with qualities like The Purge and Rick's past as a Rebel comes back to haunt him as he and his friends are hunted.

What is surprising about the second season of Rick And Morty is how well-assembled it is. From the very first episode of the season, Rick is threatened with intergalactic prison and the implication that he is an interstellar criminal plays through the entire second season. For sure, the concept of Rick being a wanted intergalactic criminal pretty much flies in the face of the Intergalactic Council Of Ricks from the first season, but within the second season, the idea of Rick's turbulent backstory plays out well.

Rick And Morty Season Two recycles one of its best first season ideas for "Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate," which is admittedly a low point for the season. Beyond that, though, the second season of Rick And Morty manages to feel fresh and fun while being clever like the first season. There are some wonderful allusions in Rick And Morty Season 2, much like in the first. Those who love science fiction and pop culture works like The Purge, Star Trek The Next Generation, Aliens and stupid reality contest shows will find Rick And Morty Season Two clever and hilarious. Even the high-concept episode "Total Rickall," which is predictable in many ways, is hilarious and well-constructed.

The second season of Rick And Morty looks great. Episodes like "Mortynight Run" feature surprisingly ambitious animation to create musical numbers and pretty impressive location designs. Sure, there are a lot of asses animated in the video and the perversions of Rick ripping "Gearhead's" gears out of his crotch and sticking them on his face are hilarious.

For those not familiar with the show, it helps to know who the key characters are. In the second season of Rick And Morty the primary characters are:

Morty Smith - A fourteen year-old boy, who is pretty much an idiot, he accompanies his Grandpa Rick on adventures, including learning to fly the ship. Rick teaches him how to fly the space ship. His compassion leads him to take a stand against the hired assassin to whom Rick sells weapons, which puts the universe in danger from a gas-based entity. In playing Roy, he goes back to the carpet store! Against all odds, he figures out how to thwart the memory parasite! He abandons Rick during the Cromulon incident and discovers from Bird Person that Rick once saved his life. He rejects Rick's attempt to be a god within the car battery and tries to save a young woman from the Red Hour in his own attempt to get laid,

Summer Smith - Morty's older sister, she travels with Rick and Morty much more frequently now. Despite dropping the ball on putting a mattress under a falling neighbor when time was frozen, she spars with Morty over who is a more competent at traveling with Rick. She tries to free a planet of a parasitic entity, in the process making the situation there vastly worse and is horrified at how the car keeps her safe while visiting another universe. She becomes an ideal daughter when a religion is formed around the Cromulons in the sky. She sees how miserable Tiny Rick truly is and finds her relationship with her father very strained,

Jerry Smith - The dimwitted father of Morty and Summer, he is not fond of Rick, largely because Rick does not respect him. He and his counterparts from the multiverse are kept in a specialized daycare rather than being allowed to accompany Rick and Morty on their adventures. He is pissed to discover Rick has a whole bunker under the garage and uses it to prove to Beth just how horrible Rick is. He discovers that his relationship with Beth is entirely parasitic, but works. He faces his biggest moral dilemma when he has the chance to save an intergalactic hero by giving up his genitals,

Beth Smith - Rick's daughter, she spends most of the season simply reacting to her lack of feelings for Jerry. When Jerry hits a deer on the way home from getting ice cream, she becomes to determined to prove her competence as a surgeon. She is able to help defeat the family's parasite by recognizing how miserable Jerry makes her,

and Rick Sanchez - A mad scientist and grandfather to Morty and Summer. After Morty and Summer break time, he gets into a gunfight with different temporal versions of himself and nearly destroys existence over choosing between a flathead and philipshead screwdriver. He teaches Morty to drive the space ship and refuses to let Jerry travel with him while in space. He disregards interstellar and interdimensional laws in order to do what he wants, even taking Roy completely off the grid, which comes back to haunt him. After breaking up with the hive mind Unity, he becomes despondent. He puts his mind in a young body in order to hand out with his grandkids at high school and that nearly kills him. He plays god to people living inside the car battery and makes an awesome jam to save the world.

Rick And Morty relies upon the voice talents of Justin Roiland, who voices both Rick and Morty, Chris Parnell, Spencer Grammer, and Sarah Chalke. They are all wonderful and able to emote perfectly for their characters. Parnell is familiar to fans of works like Archer and the rest of the cast has voice talents that are on par with him. Justin Roiland continues to impress by voicing both Rick and Morty and his ability voice act is stunning in the second season of Rick And Morty. The second season features awesome guest vocals from Keith David, Patton Oswalt and Stephen Colbert. And Jemaine Clements performs "Good Bye Moonman" in a style so like David Bowie is it eerie!

Rick And Morty Season 2 has memorable supporting characters, a hypnotic jam and a lot of laughs that hold up a lot better than most animated comedies being produced these days!

For other works from the 2015 – 2016 television season, please check out my reviews of:
Orange Is The New Black - Season 4
The Flash - Season 2
Game Of Thrones - Season 6
Grace And Frankie - Season 2
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 3
The Walking Dead - Season 6
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season 2
Legends Of Tomorrow - Season 1
Jessica Jones - Season 1
Daredevil - Season 2
House Of Cards - Season 4
Doctor Who - Season 9

7/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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How I Know I Am More Professional Than Joel Siegel:The Love Guru As Bad As You've Heard!

The Good: None, seriously, utterly unredeemable.
The Bad: Not funny, Terrible acting, Lack of character, Predictable plot, Just plain stupid!
The Basics: Mike Myers writes and "acts" in another disappointing comedy so juvenile as to astonish anyone with taste that it was made.


Every now and then, it behooves reviewers to remember the principles of our trade. There are several rules for being a professional reviewer and being treated as one, one of which is that we subject ourselves to the full experience of a film. I remember this point being driven home quite strongly when Clerks II (reviewed here!) was released. In a much-publicized event, film reviewer Joel Siegel walked out of the viewing, loudly muttering about the movie. Kevin Smith shot back on his website and most reviewers - even those who did not like Clerks II sided with Smith: a professional does not walk out of a film. I've often loathed reviewers who play the safe reviews, avoiding the little films, the teen-oriented horror flicks and the dumbest of inane comedies just to always have something positive to write. Growing up where I did, I quickly became disenchanted with the local movie reviewers, who played the odds that way, leaving a significant number of movies unreviewed.

So, I've returned from seeing the latest Mike Myers "comedy" flick, The Love Guru, and I am proud of myself for not walking out of the theater. It is such a bad film that I was tempted and that takes a lot, even for me. Yes, it is such a bad flick that I am updating my "Worst 10 Movies Of All Time.” But I sat through it.

Pitka is a guru who has lived in the shadow of Deepak Chopra and the Indian gurus he trained under as a child. Desiring nothing more than to appear on Oprah, Pitka arrives in the United States (he left as a child) to try to establish himself. When a hockey player's wife runs off with an opposing team's goalie, Pitka is asked to intervene. Trying to reconcile Prudence Roanoke with her Maple Leaf's husband, Darren, proves to be a bit of a task. Pitka tries not to disappoint Jane, the owner of the Maple Leaf's, but finds that convincing Prudence to leave Jacques Grande is easier said than done.

It quickly degenerates into a lot of one-liners that illustrate that Pitka's help is anything but and he speaks alternatively in cliches and graphic and explicit sexual remarks that drone on and on.

For a comedy, this movie falls terribly flat, so flat, in fact that it is worthwhile to note that I laughed a grand total of zero times while watching this movie. 88 minutes, zero laughs, that's not a good ratio for a comedy. Moreover, much of the movie resulted in me actually wincing. My physical reaction to the jokes was to wince and wonder why Mike Myers and Graham Gordy would admit to having written this.

The average joke - as written - involves simply infusing a sentence with the word "penis," equating love to sex and the implications that Pitka is completely at ease with everyone and everything. He displays no real wisdom in his role as a guru and The Love Guru falls flat because rather than satirize self-help "gurus," some of whom appear in the film, it simply has Mike Myers playing his parody of one. The thing is, established real-life self-help personalities like Deepak Chopra who appears prominently and recognizably in The Love Guru lowers himself by appearing beside Myers as Pitka.

There is no real character in The Love Guru; Pitka is a schtick, a one-trick pony that is familiar and is quickly played out. The broken couple is a cliche and there is no genuine sense of personality to either character. Indeed, far more than character or even personality or humor, what The Love Guru has is names. The jokes in The Love Guru are in the names of the characters. And as we all know, jokes get weakened with repetition. The names, then, start as jokes that might be amusing, but quickly get beaten into the ground because they are repeated.

As a result, the fundamental jokes of The Love Guru are: Punch Cherkov (the coach, played by perennial Myers sidekick Verne Troyer), Dick Pants, Tugginmypudha, and Satchabigknoba. If you've read those names and seen the trailer, you've gotten the full, rich experience that is The Love Guru. It is not a funny, witty or even remotely interesting movie and it is hard to overstate that.

Moreover, this film should well be the death of the few respectable actors who appear in it. Now, the thing is, viewers pretty much know what to expect from Mike Myers. Myers has some very specific affects and recurring jokes that he does in pretty much every feature he is in. The Love Guru is no exception. Myers bugs his eyes out frequently to emote. In fact, the effect which puts Myers's adult head on a very small body in the flashback sequences is pretty much defined by Myers opening his eyes super wide. He raises his eyebrow. He does that frequently for emphasis in The Love Guru; it does not make him appear any more wise. He repeats lines back to characters he is speaking to. He looks like he is about to laugh, especially when he repeats characters names that are clearly jokes. It's that kind of dumb movie and Myers plays all of the jokes and styles of jokes that made him popular was Wayne in Wayne's World and Austin Powers in those movies. We know Mike Myers and in The Love Guru, he is no less the Myers that we already know.

But Jim Gaffigan is a respectable comedian. Stephen Colbert is a great satirist (his deadpan is the definition of satirical!). They both appear in The Love Guru and one has to wonder why they participated in this drecht. But the coup for Myers and director Marco Schnabel is that Ben Kingsley appears in this movie. Yes, Ben Kingsley, who was amazing in Gandhi (reviewed here!), who helped make The House Of Sand And Fog (reviewed here!) so heartwrenching, is the butt of jokes as one of Pitka's fellow Gurus. And we just have to ask "WHY?!"

Kingsley's mere presence does not add anything to The Love Guru, neither does the presence of Jessica Alba or Justin Timberlake whose characters utilize and suffer Pitka's services, respectively. It's hard to figure out whose career might be hurt most by participating in this movie, but my money is on Kingsley; there are people who don't care what Deepak Chopra has to say, Alba's appeared in lemons before, no one has been banking on Timberlake ever getting a Best Actor nomination for anything (outside, possibly, an MTV Movie Award), and Mike Myers gives the same one-trick pony that he's been milking since his Saturday Night Live days. Kingsley is a respected actor and in this he is droll and poorly utilized.

On DVD, The Love Guru has a ton of deleted and extended scenes, none of which are funnier than the original feature. As well, there are three behind-the-scenes featurettes and a blooper reel. Still, it's not worth owning or even renting.

It is films like The Love Guru which force the viewer to acknowledge that some movies are just that bad. Again, zero laughs. None. Not one. But I didn't walk out. And tonight, it is worth noting that reviewers like me sit through movies like this so you don't have to. Eight bucks for a movie is too much to spend to walk out of a movie and those not bound by the ethical considerations of a reviewer would surely want nothing more than to do just that.

For other films featuring Mike Meyers, please check out my reviews of:
Shrek Forever After
Shrek

0/10

Check out all the films that rated higher than this, by visiting my Movie Review Index Page where the reviews are organized from Best Film to Worst!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Reworked, But Still Pretty Much The Same, Strangers With Candy (The Movie) Disappoints!

The Good: Moments of humor, Guest stars
The Bad: Recast roles, Blase plot, No real character development, Repeats many jokes from the television show.
The Basics: At long last, I take in Strangers With Candy and find it to be an unenthusiastic retread of the television series.


It has been a weekend filled with me considering Strangers With Candy. The television show Strangers With Candy (reviewed here!) was a favorite of my ex-wife and when I was on the road with my wife last year, we caught a few minutes of the movie Strangers With Candy. Trying to cheer her up, I decided to get her out the film Strangers With Candy and we sat down to both watch it. She had forgotten about the film and I tried very hard to get enthusiastic about the movie when I was not wild about the show.

Ironically, she laughed less than I did and I actually enjoyed parts of it. Objectively, though, Strangers With Candy is in no way great. In fact, while I laughed quite a bit more at the movie than I expected to, I did not laugh all that much and if the movie was truly doing much different and/or better than the television series did, I would have laughed quite a bit more. While supposedly a prequel to the television series, Strangers With Candy is actually a reworking of the show that combines many of the best elements of the television series in order to make a movie that is barely above the ninety minute minimum threshold for feature films.

Jerri Blank spent thirty-two years on the streets and in prison before abruptly getting out. She returns to her father's house to discover a new stepmother she did not know about and her father in a coma. Jerri's half-brother, Derrick, like her stepmother, treats her terribly and when her father's doctor recommends she become something good to reinvigorate her dad, Jerri goes back to high school. Unfortunately for Jerri, Principal Blackman is under investigation by members of the school board. If he cannot illustrate anything extraordinary in his students, he will go to prison for misappropriating school funds.

The opportunity for Jerri and Blackman to become successful and exhibit a single extraordinary student comes with the regional science fair. Jerri, not scientifically inclined, is teamed up with both the smart Asian and outcast students, while Blackman hires a ringer teacher to get the good-looking students a project that will simply dazzle the judges. As the science fair approaches, Jerri struggles to fit in as an ex-con going to high school.

Strangers With Candy is an exceptionally simple premise and while the movie utilizes many of the most successful jokes from the television series, it frequently lacks the wit or successful ridiculous quality of the television series. In fact, it is rather early on in the movie - when Dr. Putney slides down the banister at the Blank home - that the truly original zany humor is exhausted. After that, most of the humor is simply characters - most notably Jerri's peers, her half-brother, stepmother and stepmother's meat man - insulting Jerri. This is a movie where "fag" and "fatty" and variations thereof are thrown around with alarming frequency.

Unfortunately, the result is not often humor. Instead, it's a series of cruel interpersonal interactions with no genuine character development and thus a rising action leading up to the science fair with no emotional investment for the viewer. As the science fair approaches, much of the best humor comes from Stephen Colbert's character, who loathes Jerri, is competing with the much more successful Roger Beekman and is breaking off his illicit homosexual affair with the art teacher, Geoffrey Jellineck. But even Colbert, in the role tailored to him, is unfortunately forced to reuse his jokes multiple times in the same movie, making them lose their punch and making it difficult to believe the film replays with any reasonable success.

What is astonishing about Strangers With Candy is the volume of truly amazing talent that comes out to participate in this troublingly weak parody of itself. The acting talents of Ian Holm, Allison Janney, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Matthew Broderick grace the screen for moments that are either incongruently funny given their celebrity or a waste of their exceptional abilities. Sarah Jessica Parker also appears in the film.

Oddly, in a film that claims to be a prequel, many of the roles are recast - most notably Jerri's father, Guy, and half-brother, Derrick. Moreover, given that Stew was introduced later in the series, his presence in the film robs this of being a true prequel.

As for the acting in Strangers With Candy, the big four - Amy Sedaris (Jerri), Gregory Holliman (Blackman), Paul Dinello (Jellineck) and Colbert (Noblet) - effortlessly fall into the roles they played for the thirty episodes of the series. None of them bring anything new to the characters or performances, so this is more of an homage to their own, earlier work than a truly new or different comedic experience. Their portrayals are simply a continuation of their troubling, melodramatic, effeminate and erratic (respectively) characters they became known for.

The result is a film that is actually less satisfying for those who liked the television series Strangers With Candy as it mashes some of the best jokes from the series into a movie that lacks the satire of the parody of after-school specials the series possessed. As for those approaching the movie before the series . . . the best I can say is that my wife, who loves outrageous comedies, has expressed no desire to see the series since we watched this.

For other works featuring Dan Hedaya, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Mulholland Drive
Alien Resurrection

2/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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Conclusion To A Repetitive Series, Strangers With Candy Season 3 Is Nothing We Haven't Seen Before!

The Good: Funny bits, Acting, Even more Maria Thayer!
The Bad: Exceptionally repetitive humor, More stale bits, Ridiculously simple plots, No character development
The Basics: In this final season of Strangers With Candy, the show reveals its conceptual flaws, repeats itself and finally ends with a bang.


During the Museum of Television and Radio interview that appear in the second season DVD set for Strangers With Candy (reviewed here!), the show's executive producer, Kent Alterman, declares his belief that the show got better and better each season. He asserts that the show was getting more and more honed and then it was canceled. I respectfully disagree; I believe the second season of Strangers With Candy found the show hitting its stride. It was, quite simply, the one I was most tempted to recommend when writing my reviews.

Moreover, in the third season of Strangers With Candy, there comes something that neither of the previous two seasons had; a dud. The episode "There Once Was a Blank From Nantucket" falls drastically short of the level of humor of most of the episodes of Strangers With Candy. Unfortunate, yes. Inevitable? Possibly. Surprising? Not at all.

The thing that plagued Strangers With Candy from its very first season (reviewed here!) was its repetitive humor. Each episode is a parody of an after school morality-themed movie, like those that were popular in the 1970s and 1980s. The problem has been that while the episodes generally work as individual pieces, when watched sequentially, they quickly reveal a lack of originality between episodes. That is, each one takes the type of after school special it is parodying and mocks it in almost the exact same way as the other ones. So, for example, in "Jerri's Burning Issue," her resolution to her sexually transmitted disease and the way the issue is dealt with is almost identical to how her advice column in "Ask Jerri" is dealt with.

The third season finds Jerri wrestling with issues that are sometimes more nebulous than those in the past two seasons, making it a little harder to see where the show was going and what it was trying to accomplish. For example, in prior seasons, drug use and racism were tackled. In this season, there is an episode focusing on steroid use and one on racial sensitivity when Jerri discovers she is part Native American. Other issues tackled in the third season include: sexually transmitted diseases, censorship and freedom, self-respect (another of the weaker episodes), mental illness, consequences, bullies and popularity.

The only real difference between this season and the other two seasons of Strangers With Candy besides the appearance of cracks in the show's humor and ideas is that the series finale is in this set. And the series finale does bring some resolution to the show, which is nice.

The show gives Greg Hollimon a little more to do in the final season than he had in the prior seasons, which is nice. Hollimon has a great sense of humor and he deserves a lot of credit for being able to deliver some of the most offensive lines and deadpanned responses to other's incredibly insulting remarks. He is a real trooper and he deserves a lot of credit.

Stephen Colbert is wonderful as always, but the third season finds him simply continuing his performances from the prior two seasons as opposed to expanding the role or revealing more of his repertoire. It is unfortunate to see his talent going to waste on something so repetitive. The same can be said for Paul Dinello. The treat of the third season is that my favorite, Maria Thayer - who plays recurring character Tammi Littlenut - is back and she gets more airtime than in previous seasons. She is a treat to watch and she has a genuine quality to her that is quite exciting.

The show, however, hinges on the performances of Amy Sedaris. Sedaris plays Jerri Blank and she is as good in this season as in the prior two. Indeed, in the final episode, she is given the chance to spread her acting wings for the audience farther than we've previously seen. She does an excellent job playing Jerri.

But, at the end of the day, this is a season that merely compounds the problems of the prior two seasons in terms of the show's repetitive nature and tired reuse of the same plot reversals. Even fans of Strangers With Candy would do better with either of the prior two seasons as opposed to this one. Ideal for those with a real demented sense of humor.

For other third seasons of comedy shows, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia - Season 3
The Big Bang Theory - The Complete Third Season
Chef! - Series Three

3.5/10

For other television reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Continuing Saga Of Anti-After School Specials: Strangers With Candy Season 2!

The Good: Funny, Decent acting, Impressive guest stars, Maria Thayer
The Bad: Very repetitive plots, No character development, One trick pony, DVD bonus
The Basics: In its second season, Strangers With Candy continues doing more of the same thing it has been doing from the beginning; being an irreverent parody of morality tales.


Strangers With Candy is one of those phenomenon that, it seems, you either "get" or you don't. That is not to say that one either likes it or not (it's easy to fall in on the middle ground on this series), it's either one understands the twisted concept and worldview or it is completely alien to the viewer. I, fortunately for you, "get" Strangers With Candy. And even understanding the twisted world-view this show is coming from, there were still moments in the second season that I was surprised they got away with some of what they say and do on the show.

One of the DVD bonuses on the season two set is an interview between four of the principle actors and a member of the Museum of Television and Radio. It becomes clear, quite quickly, in the interview that the interviewer does not "get" Strangers With Candy. His inability to regroup and adapt when those he is interviewing don't understand his question or position makes the interview slow and graceless. I'm almost surprised they let the piece be put on the DVD set.

The second season of Strangers With Candy picks up virtually where the first left off. Jerri Blank is a 46 year old freshman at Flatpoint High. As in the first season, she does not grow, she does not learn and the show speeds through complex issues by making sure Jerri learns the opposite of what one would expect. As with the first season, she is overseen by Principal Blackman, History and English teacher Mr. Noblet, and the supremely egotistical art teacher Mr. Jellineck.

Just as in the first season of Strangers With Candy, the show is not truly about the misadventures of Jerri Blank and/or the other denizens of Flatpoint High. Rather, this is simply ten episodes of crazy television designed to parody the after school specials of the 70s and 80s. Does it accomplish that? Absolutely. Does it create hilarious television? Undoubtedly. Is it worth your time and money? Probably not.

Why wouldn't I recommend this show if it is Undoubtedly funny and an effective parody of after school specials? The fundamental problem with Strangers With Candy is not found in any single episode. Indeed, each of the ten episodes in this boxed set is quite funny on its own. The problem is the season (and the series) viewed all together. Strangers With Candy suffers immensely for its repetitiveness. The reversals are all the same; they always lead to Jerri learning the exact opposite of what we, the audience, would usually expect. Thus, as the season goes on, we anticipate each and every reversal.

So, for example, in the episode "The Goodbye Guy," wherein Jerri must deal with the death of her father, the setup is funny. Mr. Blank is eaten by a pack of rabid dogs after promising Jerri to run in the father-daughter sackrace. After wonderful scenes that are parodies of every show that would dramatically deal with death, Jerri appears at the sackrace with her father's ashes. In a melodramatic scene, she wins the sackrace. However, because we - the audience who is attuned to the show by this point - know that nothing good ever happens to Jerri and that she never grows and changes, we see the reversal (Jerri being disqualified because less than half her father's ashes make it across the finish line) a mile away.

In season two of Strangers With Candy, the show has parodies of specials with issues like following your dreams, handicapped awareness, pressure to have sex, death, the importance of telling the truth, illiteracy, marriage and commitment, cults and money. Taken separately, all of the episodes are quite funny and I am glad I saw them once. However, as the discs continued, the episodes became somewhat tired and repetitive.

Amy Sedaris is wonderful as Jerri Blank. One of the few nice things about the interview at the Museum of Television and Radio is that we are treated to seeing Ms. Sedaris outside her role as Jerri Blank. She is quite striking, articulate and funny in a witty way in the interview and it makes us appreciate just how creative and inspired her performance during the show truly is.

Stephen Colbert, Greg Hollimon and Paul Dinello each give distinctive performances, but there is no change between their portrayals of their characters between the seasons or the episodes. Thus, the best their performances may be described as is "constant."

The real treat in season two is being able to see more of Maria Thayer. Thayer plays the redhead friend of Jerri, Tammi Littlenut. She is adorable, genuine and breathes some additional humor into the show.

Strangers With Candy is ideal for those with a real sick sense of humor and for those who are not easily offended. It is ideal for those who have a high tolerance to seeing essentially the same thing over and over again. But most of all, it is idea for those who have never seen "Strangers With Candy;" because there is much to enjoy. Plus, the advantage of the show being so repetitive is that it does not matter if you've ever seen an episode of the show. Buying and watching season two before seeing season one is perfectly fine. The characters do not develop and the plots are all parodies of themed issue-based specials.

This was a close call for me, but ultimately the repetitive nature of the humor and plots made me not recommend it.

For other sophmore seasons of comedies, please visit my reviews of:
30 Rock - Season 2
Friends - The Complete Second Season
Arrested Development - Season Two

4/10

For other television reviews, be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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An After-School Special Goes Horrible Wrong: Strangers With Candy Season 1

The Good: Inexpensive Enough, Funny, Well-acted
The Bad: Repetitive, Does not hold up well over multiple viewings, Character
The Basics: Funny and twisted, Strangers With Candy delivers over and over and over again, the same material.


The first time I watched Strangers With Candy was when I sat down with the season 1 set on DVD and watched all ten episodes back to back. This was particularly easy as the episodes are approximately twenty-two minutes in length. I had an afternoon free and this was how I spent it. In retrospect, I'm on the fence as to whether or not that was a constructive use of my time.

Strangers With Candy follows the trials and tribulations of Jerri Blank. Blank is a woman in her mid-40s who has just gotten out of prison for the life of sex and drugs that she led as a youth. Determined to set her life straight, Jerri goes back to school at Flatpoint High. There, she discovers all of the issues of the day and learns nothing from Principal Blackman, Mr. Noblet and Mr. Jellineck, the art teacher.

What this show is is an irreverent parody of after-school specials, you know, the type of movie that plays after school with an obvious lesson or moral message to it. Like those public service movies, Strangers With Candy tackles such important issues as drug use, responsibility of parenting, alcoholism, consequences, ambition, racism, and eating disorders. The twist is that Strangers With Candy satirizes all of those issues through Jerri. Jerri never learns and the conclusions she draws are always contrary to what reason and growth would imply. For example, in "Who Wants Cake?" Jerri is extorted by Principal Blackman to turn in a student who may or may not be mentally retarded. After spending the episode debating and learning the importance of trust and confidence, Jerri snitches on her new friend in order to be able to go on a class trip to Good Time Island.

That is the sort of humor we are talking about in Strangers With Candy, dark, morbidly funny stuff that it takes someone with a sick sense of humor to appreciate it. I enjoyed the sense of humor on the show, though I found myself saying "This is just horrible!" a lot.

The problem with the humor is that each episode is the same. Strangers With Candy utilizes the same reversal, the same negation of the expected moral result, each and every time. The episodes are not surprising and I discovered as I watched the episodes, I was laughing less and less with each episode. The lines would change, but the jokes would essentially be the same. And each episode resulted in Jerri not learning a real lesson. As a result, it is impossible to get emotionally invested in the characters, which is something even comedic characters ought to be able to pull off.

The last real strength of the show is in the actors. Stephen Colbert (now on The Colbert Report) delivers a strong, if repetitive, performance as Mr. Noblet. His use of physical expressions and his ability to convey a consuming air of indifference make him a wonderful actor for the strange and uncaring teacher.

Greg Hollimon is wonderful as Principal Blackman. Hollimon has an air of dignity to him that radiates and he lends a great deal of presence to his character. Hollimon is also forced to deliver some of the most tasteless and volatile lines and he does so without ever breaking character. He is a true professional.

Much of the show hinges on the performance of Amy Sedaris as Jerri Blank. Sedaris is completely convincing as Blank with her crumpled posture and drastic overbite. Sedaris has an ability to make her face utterly clueless or her voice so passionately melodramatic that it is easy to see why she would do well in a parody of After school specials. Her earnest emoting makes some of the most campy moments quite funny.

Unfortunately, in the end, I found I could not recommend this show. Should you watch it? If you can get it out of the library or your local rental store, yeah, it's worth a gander. But to own Strangers With Candy is to invite dust. The episodes are amusing, but they fade faster than most material because the jokes between episodes are so very similar. A decent show to watch, but difficult to justify buying for a permanent collection, even though the price is rather inexpensive.

For other comedy debut seasons, please visit my reviews of:
Weeds - Season 1
Frasier - The Complete First Season
Psych - Season One

5/10

For other television reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Raunchy Humor's Comeuppance Is In Repetition: Strangers With Candy The Complete Series!

The Good: Price, Humor, Some of the DVD bonuses, Bundle pack does not punish fans.
The Bad: REPETITIVE!, Lack of character development, repetitive quality, Comics perform more than act, Sense of repetition
The Basics: When Jerri Blank returns to high school at age 46, she finds herself getting into all sorts of new problems over and over again in Strangers With Candy The Complete Series.


For those who read - and presumably enjoy - my DVD reviews, they will likely know that I have a real problem with television complete series boxed sets. Yes, my reviews are somewhat serialized or have the recurring theme that production companies that release boxed set DVDs of an entire series after first releasing each season are punishing loyal fans who have bought all along when they include addition DVD material. Paramount this week released Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Complete Series (reviewed here!) to attempt to milk Trekkers for all they are worth by including a disc with less than ninety minutes of new material. Happy 20th Anniversary! Conversely, boxed sets like The West Wing - The Complete Series (reviewed here!) where bonus materials are simply collectible things like scripts and do not offer any additional DVD content, I applaud. These offer "last-minute" buyers the opportunity to get everything all in one place - usually saving space in the process - without punishing those who bought all along with incentives that true fans are likely to want. Strangers With Candy - The Complete Series on DVD falls into the latter category.

And that's quite possibly the last comparison you'll ever see between The West Wing and Strangers With Candy.

Strangers With Candy - The Complete Series is a bundle pack comprising the previously released six discs of Strangers With Candy Seasons 1- 3. The six discs are the same pressings as before with packaging that is a little slimmer than the three season sets when previously sold separately. There is no additional content on the DVDs; these are the pressings as they were originally made repackaged as one complete series. This boxed set does not include the feature film. For those unfamiliar with Strangers With Candy, this short-lived television show appeared on Comedy Central for three ten-episode seasons, making the collection thirty-one episodes including the pilot. The unaired pilot was essentially reworked as the fourth episode, but both appear on the DVD. The show is largely episodic; episodes do not build consequences, so every episode essentially restarts the series. Here's a thumbnail of the concept:

Jerri Blank is a forty-six year-old ex-prostitute, ex-drug addict, and ex-jailbird. She has returned home to her parent's house to reform her life after getting out of jail for the last time. Thus, she enrolls at Flatpoint High as a freshman to restart her life and try to fly right. However, she runs into obstacles in the form of the other students, her own vices and the often crazy teachers and administrators whose indifference or destructive advise often steer her back toward the life she left behind. Her family life is not much better; her father does not speak, her stepmother loathes her and her half-brother is an abusive jock.

What follows, then, is Jerri's attempts to fit in. In order to try to make friends or plea bargain away from other crimes she's committing, she spies on students to see if they are mentally retarded, befriends a new student, develops an eating disorder, rediscovers her love of drugs, buys back her virginity, and learns to read. As well, Jerri joins a cult, becomes obsessed with getting the popular sneakers, contracts syphilis, learns about her Native American heritage, takes steroids, starts an advice column, and deals with bullies.

Strangers With Candy is essentially a spoof of after school specials from the 1970's and 1980's. I wish I could call it a satire, but the truth is, it seldom rises to anything quite as smart. Instead, Strangers With Candy is mired in the crudest forms of humor one might imagine, with fairly constant humor about Jerri's excessive and indiscriminate libido, past, and drug additions. There are an inordinate number of gay jokes, which - in part - stems from the fact that Jerri is sexually indiscriminate. It's the type of humor that references donkey shows . . . repeatedly. My point here is not that the show is not funny, but rather that it is emblematic of a certain juvenile humor that is either an acquired taste or just something most adults grow out of.

Strangers With Candy - The Complete Series suffers then because it is the same type humor over and over again. Is it funny to watch Jerri Blank take on a topical issue like steroid abuse? Sure. After school specials were so schmaltzy and predictable and obvious - despite their noble message - that they are ripe for parody. The problem with this series is that it attacks virtually every problem, every topical issue, the same way, leading to a remarkable sense of repetition between the episodes and making the series seem very repetitive, a weakness that becomes quite obvious when one sits and watches all thirty half-hour episodes in a short timeframe.

Because each episode the topic being mocked changes, the constants that define the series are the characters. The essential characters for Strangers With Candy include:

Jerri Blank - At forty-six, she's looking to get away from her life of crime, drugs and prostitution and start over as a high school student. This brings her back to her hometown high school, Flatpoint High. There, she tries to fit in by befriending Tammi Littlenut and ethnic minority Orlando, but she finds this is not enough to make her popular or fit in. Tormented by her younger half-brother, she usually finds herself confiding in Mr. Noblet or Jellineck or rushing home to her home to her indifferent stepmother,

Principal Onyx Blackman - Flatpoint High's dignified, yet lecherous, principal, he rules the school like his own private fiefdom. He is oblivious to most of what his students do until it reflects upon him and he spends his time trying to maintain the image of Flatpoint High with as little interaction with its staff and students as he can afford,

Mr. Noblet - Married, but having a homosexual affair with Jellineck, Noblet is Jerri's history teacher. Bored with students, he is self-centered and conniving, often lecturing about values but displaying nothing so solid as a moral core from himself. He frequently uses Jerri to meet his own needs,

Mr. Jellineck - The art teacher and a fairly effeminate stereotype of a homosexual, he is possibly the most self-centered teacher at Flatpoint High, often dispensing the least useful advice to Jerri. He is flaky and pretentious, often steering Jerri toward following her instincts (which, considering Jerri's instincts, usually leads to disaster),

Derrick - Jerri's half-brother. He's basically a dumb jock who is far more popular than Jerri and delights in abusing his older sister,

and Sara Blank - Jerri's stepmother who would rather drink than deal with Jerri or her problem.

On the commentaries and at the Museum of Television and Radio presentation on the DVDs, writers, creators and actors Paul Dinello, Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert and Mitch Rouse all talk about how the characters were intended to be entirely selfish and that much of the show dealt with how every character's self-absorption led them to be unhelpful to Jerri. None of the characters truly listen and as a result, Jerri is often left to flounder on her own and she falls into her old habits more often than not, which is unsurprising given her lack of mental fortitude.

As for the acting, most of it is truly hard to judge. The old adage that great casting makes for great performances certainly applies with Strangers With Candy. Stephen Colbert essentially plays the same deadpan satirical character that he portrayed on The Daily Show and now The Colbert Report. That is not to say Colbert is not talented; he is. But on virtually all of his Comedy Central enterprises, he's filling the same comedic niche and while he does it well, it's nothing new.

Greg Hollimon plays Principal Blackman and his performance is noteworthy in that it often involves delivering the most offensive or nasty lines with a dignified tone. Hollimon is an expert with his poker face and rigid posture. He has an exaggerated leadership quality that makes his role work perfectly and he executes the part quite well.

But it is Amy Sedaris as Jerri Blank who is charged with carrying the show. The indication of her ability is evidenced mostly through the behind-the-scenes footage. Sedaris is nothing like the horrible little troll that she portrays Jerri as. Much of this is the function of wardrobe, make-up and hairstyling, but the truth is Sedaris keeps her posture and voice consistent for the entire series. Her transformation into Jerri is pretty nasty, but she is convincing as the whiny, malformed Freshman. But her biggest acting challenge is in establishing the character. Once Sedaris created Jerri, the role did not call for her to evolve Blank and as a result, Sedaris' biggest leap as an actress occurs in the first episode and never truly progresses beyond that. She just keeps recreating her initial performance over and over again without altering it.

On DVD, the series has some decent bonuses. There are nine commentaries and they are amusing for one listen, but are not particularly insightful or entertaining. Most of them degenerate into the cast and crew simply watching the show and patting themselves on the back. There is the unaired pilot, a number of deleted scenes spread over the three seasons, and a featurette. The best bonus is the interview with the cast and creators at the Museum of Television and Radio. But even that repeats some of the material from the commentaries.

And that truly is the death of Strangers With Candy. Any one disc would be a fine, entertaining and worthwhile form of entertainment. The problem is, it simply repeats itself. Every episode follows the same formula presenting an issue from an after-school special and then tearing it apart with the indifference and mockery viewers come to expect from the series. But they tear every issue apart the same way, making similar jokes along the way, until the viewer is numbed to the humor because . . . well, we've seen it before.

It is no surprise the show only lasted thirty half-hour episodes; the only surprise is that there was enough of a market to sell that repetitive experience to its fanbase to watch over and over and over again on DVD.

For a more complete idea of exactly what this bundle pack contains, check out my reviews on the three individual seasons on DVD, reviewed at:
Strangers With Candy Season 1
Strangers With Candy Season 2
Strangers With Candy Season 3

3/10

For other television reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The Timely Satire Of Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!)

The Good: Funny, Moments that reach into clever
The Bad: To truly "get" requires knowledge of television show, Not all moments land, Very timely
The Basics: Stephen Colbert (and his co-writers) present a book that extends the humorous persona of the Colbert character from the mock-conservative The Colbert Report.


It's a rare thing that I pick up a book of humor, especially satire. Books like that tend to be very polarizing and while I have little problem with that, it is hard to read a book and evaluate it when one knows that it is pretty much a "love it" or "hate it" type work. And while I do enjoy watching The Daily Show With Jon Stewart when I am on the road, I have seldom found myself as amused by Stephen Colbert's The Colbert Report, which follows it.

This is not to say that I have not enjoyed the humor of Stephen Colbert. My problem with The Colbert Report is pretty much that it's a one-trick pony. Colbert deadpans his way through being an arch-conservative pundit who spouts off the most cliche concepts of patriotism, values and other conservative-appearing buzzwords to make a show of defending all things American as good and the rest of the world as losers. The problems with the show - at least the episodes that I have seen - are that Colbert is very good at what he does and he is essentially telling the same joke over and over again. Colbert's deadpan is right on; he is consistently in character and if one did not know he was being satirical, it is easy to see how some would think he was this right-wing bastion of ideology. This is largely because does not do clever asides or stop to smirk at the camera the way Jon Stewart does. In other words, Colbert does not label his jokes.

With his book, I Am America (And So Can You!), Colbert labels his jokes. In fact, the book is filled with humorous asides, in red ink, in the outside margins. I Am America (And So Can You!) is a 228 page one-trick pony but what keeps it from being mysterious to future generations will be the sidenotes. Indeed, the book is funny, but the only thing that keeps it from hinging entirely on the knowledge of Stephen Colbert's schtick is the prevalence of sidenotes and diagrams throughout the book that offer little asides, like pop-up video notes to deliver counter punchlines to what is in the main text.

In I Am America (And So Can You!) Colbert writes with mock-conservatism about the importance of the American family and keeping it idealized, vilifying education, science, and homosexuality, and doing what he can about race relations and immigration. And while someone, somewhere, might come to believe that Colbert is serious in his section on racism when he writes, "After about a hundred years of this, a very smart man named Dr. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech and said, 'I have a dream that this should end!' And it did. Racism no longer exists in America" (172) it is quite hard to believe those people would actually get that deep into the book before recognizing the humor. Moreover, the lines I just cited are actually packed with footnotes and sidebars. After the "And it did," there is a footnote that plays off a chapter-long joke about the song "Ebony And Ivory" that notes "With the help of Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney" (172). As well, next to the last line I cited, there is the Colbert aside that "May vary on a block-by-block basis" (172).

In other words, I Am America (And So Can You!) is a book packed with jokes that even those not tuned in to The Colbert Report ought to understand as humor and satire and it is hard to believe that there are those who would not.

In addition to the lengthy diatribes on the class war between the upper, middle, and lower classes, the evils of the liberal media and the deprivations of Hollywood films, I Am America (And So Can You!) is packed with pictures and illustrations. Colbert satirically solicits advertisers throughout the Sports chapter, filling up space with corporate logos and slogans and continually renaming the chapter based on the sponsors willing to pay him for advertising space. There are places this works quite well, like the magazine covers imagined by Colbert in the section on the media (152) and the image of the book stuck inside a Bible (on page 52) to deliver humor that is actually funny and fits with the satirical intent of the book.

But then there are pictures like the coupon on page 27 for age-defying pudding that just fall flat. In combination with the over-large American-flag shaped text at the beginning of each chapter, there are maybe a hundred pages of actual text throughout the book and the rest is filled with font-size changes, open spaces (there is a place for animals to mark their territory on one page) and photographs and illustrations.

As well, I Am America (And So Can You!) comes with stickers so that one may mark their first edition in places where they agree with Colbert and award other books the "Stephen T. Colbert Award For The Literary Excellence." And Colbert acknowledges at points that he is killing space in order to reach a page count and the book self-referential like that in many places.

Colbert presents I Am America (And So Can You!) as an opportunity for readers (he does not recommend reading books) to become more patriotic and more like Colbert (at least the Colbert of The Colbert Report). As a result, the book is a clear work of humor and fiction that is intended to amuse, rather than enlighten, readers. While it is perfectly possible to get the humor that is unique to the book out of what is on the page, the specific voice of the Stephen Colbert character is rather dependent upon seeing at least one episode of The Colbert Report.

Will those who do not watch the show get something out of it? Absolutely. There are many lines that are independent of the Colbert voice, like in the section on how to read the book, where Colbert writes "This book should never have the midsection carved away in order to conceal a weapon or jewelry. Those items should be stored either inside the taxidermy heads hanging in the trophy room or in the safe behind the painting in the study" (x). Jokes like that are, again, clearly labeled jokes that make this a very quick read of a humor book.

But the political commentary on the conservative movement and its dogmatic approach to debunking science, protecting the traditional family and lambasting media and entertainment outlets are best appreciated by an understanding of the Colbert character voice. Crafted from some of the same team that established his similar indifferent character on Strangers With Candy, it is hearing that character's voice - because that is the style the book was written in - with its mock-authoritarian attitude, that makes the book more entertaining and enjoyable.

But, ultimately, it is what will date I Am America (And So Can You!). The book is funny now, but it lacks the enduring satire of something like Twain's Letters From The Earth (reviewed here!). Colbert appears - and this is not a complaint - to be capitalizing on his current popularity and his character's timely message. And it works. I Am America (And So Can You!) is funny, easy to read and is bound to make one laugh.

At least the first time through.

This is not a book that many people will need to come back to and the humor in it is pretty repetitive. After all, the joke that predominates the book is the character and the character is funny. But it's pretty much a one-trick pony.

It's hard not to like the trick, though.

For other humor books, please check out my reviews of:
Go The Fuck To Sleep - Adam Mansbach
The Sinner's Guide To The Evangelical Right - Robert Latham
The Onion Presents Our Front Pages

6/10

For other book reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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