Strip Mall

Infobox television
show_name = Strip Mall


caption = Julie Brown as Tammi Tyler
format = Sitcom
runtime = 22 minutes
creator(s) = Julie Brown
Charlie Coffey
starring = Julie Brown
Victoria Jackson
Jim O'Heir
Bob Koherr
Amy Hill
Loretta Fox
Tim Bagley
Allison Dunbar
country = USA
network = Comedy Central
first_aired = June 18, 2000
last_aired = March 11, 2001
num_seasons = 2
num_episodes = 20

"Strip Mall" is a short-lived situation comedy that aired on Comedy Central from June 2000 until March 2001.

The series, a spoof of prime time soap operas, was set in Van Nuys, California which is series star/creator/executive producer Julie Brown's hometown. The titular "Strip Mall" was the fictional Plaza del Toro. Brown starred as Tammi Tyler, an ex-child actress who at 12 had stabbed her adult costar to death after eating a cupcake laced with PCP. Now, as an adult,Tammi worked as a waitress at the Funky Fox, a bar located in the Plaza del Toro. One of her fellow employees was Patti the barmaid (Victoria Jackson). In the series premiere Tammi married the owner of Starbrite Cleaners, Harvey Krudup (Jim O'Heir), who she thought was worth millions, but realized that Starbrite's lone location was at the Plaza. For the rest of the show's run Tammi would try (unsuccessfully) to end her marriage.

Other businesses and main characters

Other businesses at the Plaza del Toro included a Chinese restaurant, Wok Don't Run, owned by Fanny Sue Chang (Amy Hill) and Althea (Loretta Fox), both of whom were lesbians; the Good Things gift shop, owned by Rafe (Maxwell Caulfield) and Bettina Barrett (Eliza Coyle); and We Shoot You Video, which employed two college film graduates Barry (Chris Wylde) and Josh (Jonathan Mangum), as well as a pornography actress named Hedda Hummer (Allison Dunbar). There was also an insurance agency near the plaza, run by an agent named Dwight (Tim Bagley).

Bob Koherr, who had directed Brown in the 1997 movie "Plump Fiction", played a biker named Blank and his identical brothers Blair and Blunt.

On the set

All twenty episodes of this series were written by the same writers. In addition to Brown and Koherr, episodes of the series were directed by Alan Cohn and Bobcat Goldthwait (the latter previously worked with Brown in "" and "Shakes the Clown"). Frequent guest stars on the series included Stella Stevens, one of the few actresses to play Harvey's mom, and Cindy Williams, who played herself in several episodes and, like Brown, was a Van Nuys native. Many of the behind-the-scenes crew came from Brown's previous series, "Clueless," which was also set in the Los Angeles, California area.

Every episode of this series ended with a cliffhanger. The final episode ended with Tammi being thrown from an airplane by Dwight, who yelled, "Goodbye Tammi Tyler!" Brown, who along with Charlie Coffey produced "Strip Mall", was about to plan the series' third season when Comedy Central decided to cancel the series because, given the recession at the time, it was too expensive to continue. "Strip Mall" was one of two Comedy Central sitcoms cancelled in June 2001 due to cost reasons; for another see "That's My Bush!"

In a fate similar to other projects starring and/or produced by Julie Brown, Amy Hill's voice eventually became better known from the children's cartoon series "Jackie Chan Adventures."

External links

*