An oral history of 'Strangers With Candy,' the comedy that changed TV's rulebook

When Amy Sedaris makes appearances around the country, she finds it easy to identify the "Strangers With Candy" fans in the audience.

"They're ugly," she says with a cackle. "They're misfits and outcasts."

Stephen Colbert tells a similar story.

"If you're walking on the street and you see somebody wearing a trash bag and talking to themselves with shaved eyebrows, you know that's probably a 'Strangers With Candy' viewer," says "The Late Show" host. "And you're often right about it."

Twenty-five years ago, the show — a warped spoof of the heavy-handed "ABC Afterschool Specials" of the '70s and '80s — premiered on Comedy Central, and hardly anyone noticed. It starred the rubber-faced Sedaris as Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old high school freshman and semi-reformed drug addict who returns to her hometown after decades on the lam and tries to pick up where she left off as an adolescent. For guidance, she turns to her factually challenged history teacher, Chuck Noblet (Colbert), who is having an illicit affair with insecure art teacher Geoffrey — pronounced "Joffrey" — Jellineck (Paul Dinello). Each episode dealt with an issue of the week — from racism to eating disorders — with Jerri learning almost nothing along the way.

Though it debuted in the time slot after the white-hot hit "South Park," "Strangers With Candy" never found much of an audience in its original three-season run., it did not permanently alter the cultural landscape or ignite a TV revolution. It won no awards, and the critics who bothered to write about the show were generally either baffled by its absurdist tone or offended by its outrageous humor.