There's Always A Hook

Comedy outlier Amy Sedaris applies her demented charms to a cooking and crafts show

- Emily Gaudette

AS A CHILD GROWING UP IN NORTH CAROLINA, Amy Sedaris was a fan of the ’70s show Hodgepodge Lodge, in which a female host explained nature to kids. “It was so boring, yet riveting,” she says. “I’d watch what she was doing with a cocoon or something, and I’d start to wonder, Who are these children? Why are they in this woman’s house?”

Locating the bizarre subtext within a normal scenario is a sweet spot for Sedaris. Consider that she co-created and starred in Comedy Central’s fascinatingly grotesque Strangers With Candy, a spoof of 1980s afterschool specials, and you’ll get a hint at what the writer and actress has planned for her TruTV variety show, At Home With Amy Sedaris. In one Hodgepodgeian segment, she forces kids to watch a frightening video about scissor safety, in preparation for making toys out of bags of human hair