Make Me A Nerd with Mandy Kaplan

Hey folks. Mandy Kaplan here. I’d like to share a bit about my intentions and mission for MMAN if you’ll indulge me. You will? Huzzah! Look, I am a lot of things. I’m a writer, actress, mother, and lover of musicals and cats, but NOT Cats, The Musical. Give me a little bit of credit, would ya? So...throughout my life, I’ve been surrounded (and intrigued) by all things nerd. A sister who plays D&D, a Star Wars-obsessed husband, friends who love anime, comic books, video games, and...well, you get the picture. Somehow, I have always held it all at arm's length. Not to get too deep, but maybe I never thought I was smart enough to follow it. Or maybe I have control issues and have never been able to embrace fantastical things like dragons and time travel. Until now! So, with an open mind and heart, I am ready to join this massive (and beautifully inclusive) club and GEEK THE #%$ OUT! It’s time for all my wonderfully strange friends to baptize me into NERD-DOM. Please

Make Me A Nerd with Mandy Kaplan is a society podcast hosted by TruStory FM, with 116 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

TruStory FM hosts Make Me A Nerd with Mandy Kaplan, a society show with 116 episodes published.

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  Episode #116

  Super Sentai: The Spandex Empire Behind Power Rangers with Omari Miller

  Sep 28, 202646 min

  Mandy spent her son's Mighty Morphin years with one nagging question: why are the Power Rangers wearing their helmets in every single fight? She never asked anyone. This week Omari Miller, actor, singer, and possibly the most caffeinated man in Los Angeles, answers it before she finishes asking. The Power Rangers are a Japanese show with American teenagers taped over the top. Super Sentai has been dressing five people in matching spandex since 1975. Haim Saban saw it on TV during a business trip to Japan, licensed the fight footage, filmed the unmasked scenes back home, and cut his budget to a fraction of anything Marvel had proposed. Stan Lee, by the way, had proposed it first. He had a robot.So, that's the business story. The stranger story is everything Omari has absorbed in the years since he stumbled into this world. Yellow was a boy's color in Japan for decades. A season can run eighty episodes and then spin off a movie because that is simply how Toei keeps you. One show tanked in the ratings and broke toy sales records anyway. A villain grabs two arguing men because he assumes they're a couple, and the joke just… never… lands on them. Mandy learns that the Blue Ranger telling dad jokes on a ladder has a real acting career, that the dinosaur robots are a guy in a suit stomping through miniatures, and that somewhere in this franchise there is a rock-singing villain named Candelilla. Then she and Omari decide to write the musical. Press play. Guest SpotlightOmari Miller is a Los Angeles–based actor, singer, and performer, and a regular in Mandy's long-running cabaret Miscast: Right Singer, Wrong Song, most recently on the bill for Miscast 46 at The Pico. Reference Links The Franchises Super Sentai Tokusatsu Power Rangers Kamen Rider Toei Company The Episode Mandy Watched Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger (2013) Power Rangers Dino Charge (the American adaptation) Yamato Kinjo (Kyoryu Blue, later in Kamen Rider Geats) Kamen Rider Geats Series Mentioned Himitsu Sentai Gorenger (1975) J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai (1977) Battle Fever J Denshi Sentai Denziman Taiyo Sentai Sun Vulcan Choudenshi Bioman Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger (source of Mighty Morphin) Ninja Sentai Kakuranger Chouriki Sentai Ohranger Power Rangers Zeo Kyukyu Sentai GoGoV Mirai Sentai Timeranger Power Rangers Time Force Mashin Sentai Kiramager (the 2020 gemstone season) Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers Power Rangers Turbo Power Rangers Ninja Storm Power Rangers Mystic Force Kamen Rider Ryuki Kamen Rider Dragon Knight Masked Rider (1995 US series) Kamen Rider My-Th (2026) The People Haim Saban Stan Lee Margaret Loesch Jinkx Monsoon Jerome Robbins Films & TV Spider-Man (1978 Toei series) Inside Out (2015) Batman Beyond Sailor Moon Doctor Who, "The Devil's Chord" Friends Concepts Reiwa era Kabuki Vocaloid Hatsune Miku From the Make Me a Nerd Archive Batman Pulled a Gun: Batman Beyond with Jason Yeung Moon Prism Power, Make Me a Gorgeous Podcaster: Sailor Moon with Jonny Lee Jr. Visiting Doctor Who, Rolling with Krissy Lenz, Finding Danny Bonaduce

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  Episode #114

  Fackam Hall with Justine Huxley

  Sep 14, 202645 min

  The British period drama is a genre built on restraint. Longing glances across drawing rooms. Inheritance law. A great many people declining, for six or seven seasons, to say the one thing they most want to say. Fackham Hall surveys this rich and noble tradition, agrees that it is both rich and sufficiently noble, and then installs a bell in the servants’ hall labeled masturbatorium. The bell rings. It keeps ringing. It rings long enough that it eventually falls off the wall from structural fatigue. This is the establishing sequence.Justine Huxley picked this one. Mandy had previously watched it in the background while doing something else and absorbed roughly a fifth of it, so she came back for a proper viewing with a notebook, which turns out to be the only responsible way to approach a film that fires a joke every fifteen seconds. Together they excavate the good stuff: the family motto carved above the gate (incestus ad infinitum), the poster in the servants’ quarters gently informing staff that unionizing causes cancer, and Jimmy Carr as a vicar who cannot place a comma to save his life or anyone else’s. Roughly halfway through, the film quietly abandons Downton Abbey and becomes an Agatha Christie murder mystery instead, and that is just fine.The conversation wanders where the good ones do. Into Justine’s parallel career playing Dungeons and Dragons on stage for animal charities, which is a real job she has. Into the international editions of Last One Laughing, of which she has personally watched about nine. Into a sincere disagreement over whether After Life is a comedy or a grief spiral with jokes in it. Anyhow… you get the idea. Press play.Guest SpotlightJustine Huxley is an actress, singer, and voiceover artist from Los Angeles, best known as the voice of Wattson in Apex Legends , with credits including Sword Art Online , Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, and Spyro Reignited Trilogy. Voice acting is what pulled her into tabletop gaming, and in two years she has played more than fifty live Dungeons and Dragons shows, most of them for charity. She performs regularly alongside Mandy in Miscast LA . Instagram: @justinehuxley TikTok: @justinehuxley IMDb: Justine Huxley Referenced in This EpisodeThe Main Event Fackham Hall — 2025, directed by Jim O’Hanlon , written by Steve Dawson, Andrew Dawson, Tim Inman, Jimmy Carr , and Patrick Carr The Vicar — the official clip, if you want the punctuation bit before you commit Damian Lewis — Humphrey, Lord Davenport, who survives more than any man should Thomasin McKenzie — Rose Davenport Ben Radcliffe — Eric Noone Katherine Waterston — Prudence, Lady Davenport Tom Felton — Archibald Davenport Emma Laird — Poppy Davenport, who chooses the manure Anna Maxwell Martin — Mrs Edna McAllister Sue Johnston — Great Aunt Bonaparte Tom Goodman-Hill — Inspector Watt Tim McMullan — Cyril, who is always right there Jason Done — J. R. R. Tolkien Hayley Mills — the narrator The Comedy Lineage Airplane! The Naked Gun Monty Python and the Holy Grail A Fish Called Wanda — the source of Mandy’s single grievance Dumb and Dumber Family Guy — cited for the same permission structure The Bechdel test , without which the sisters are just two women at a party Other Films That Came Up Jojo Rabbit The Graduate The Notebook , which neither of them has seen The Wizard of Oz Fifty Shades of Grey , here reduced to one Television, Places, and Assorted Nerdery Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs Dame Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess, the Bonaparte template Call the Midwife The Forsyte Saga and Homeland , the Damian Lewis Mandy knew Motherland LOL: Last One Laughing UK and 8 Out of 10 Cats , both hosted by Jimmy Carr Alan Carr and The Traitors Rebel Wilson , host of the Australian Last One Laughing The Paper and

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  Episode #113

  The Smell Test: Parasite with Sherry Mandujano

  Sep 7, 202649 min

  Three times in the theater. Twenty-odd more at home. Six years of having thoughts about Parasite, and roughly four minutes total in which anyone has let her share them. This week Sherry Mandujano gets an hour.Mandy had never seen it. She takes notes throughout, and most of them are some version of "what genre is this," because the film keeps answering differently. The conversation follows it wherever it goes: production design, then class, then smell, then a woman scaling a wall sideways, then a formal grievance against the screenplay concerning facial hair. Nobody in this movie comes out looking good, and by the end that includes the people watching it. Press play.Guest SpotlightSherry Mandujano is an actress, singer, and director based in Los Angeles. Originally from the Bay Area, she trained at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York, studying theatre performance and classical voice, before moving to LA. Her screen credits include The Young and the Restless , This Is Us , I'm Dying Up Here , Baskets , and Downsizing . On stage she's appeared in Real Women Have Curves , Man of La Mancha, and Songs for a New World, and she made her directorial debut in 2021. She performs regularly alongside Mandy in Miscast LA . Instagram: @sherry_mandujano IMDb: Sherry Mandujano Referenced in This EpisodeThe Main Event Parasite — 2019, directed by Bong Joon Ho Lee Jung-eun — Moon-gwang, the housekeeper Park So-dam — Ki-jung, the "art therapist" Song Kang-ho — Ki-taek, the Kim family father Suseok — the Korean scholar's stone tradition Jjapaguri (ram-don) — the noodle dish in the stairway scene 92nd Academy Awards — where Parasite won four, including Best Picture Palme d'Or — Cannes 2019 Other Films Mandy Brought Up Being John Malkovich The Talented Mr. Ripley Miss Congeniality Starship Troopers Television, Games, and Assorted Nerdery Squid Game The Potato Lab — Sherry's happy-ending K-drama counterexample Game of Thrones and the Red Wedding The Golden Girls Magic: The Gathering Icarus , who flew too close to the sun Past Episodes You Might Like Squid Game Season 2 with Jimmy Aquino Married North of the Wall: Game of Thrones with Jeremy Klavens Fact-Check Corner The peach fuzz isn't poison. Sherry says the Kims "poisoned the housekeeper with the peach fuzz," and Mandy repeats it. What the film actually shows is the Kims exploiting Moon-gwang's peach allergy to produce symptoms that Mrs. Park reads as tuberculosis. She gets framed for being sick, not poisoned. The Oscar categories. Sherry's count is correct. Four wins at the 92nd Academy Awards in February 2020, under the official names Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. It was the first non-English-language film to win Best Picture, and it took the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2019, also a first for a Korean film. The production design claims hold up and it’s just crazy. Sherry's account of the crew salvaging real doors, windows, and gates from neighborhoods slated for redevelopment is confirmed by both Bong and production designer Lee Ha-jun, who also made silicone molds of real bricks from those sites. The entire semi-basement neighborhood was a built set, constructed in a water tank in Ilsan so it could be flooded and drained on schedule. The Park mansion was a set too: a real plot of land with a ground floor built on it and the upper floor added in post. Da-hye's age. Mandy says "they're only like nineteen or whatever." The film never states an age. Da-hye is confirmed as a high school student being tutored for her English exams. The ramyeon. Sherry calls it "the pot of ramyeon," which is accurate as far as it goes. The dish is jjapaguri specifically, sold to English-language audiences as "ram-don," built from two instant noodle brands with sirloin dropped in. It’s another one of those class comments of the film, taking fifty-cent packages of instant noodles and topping them with sixty bucks of Wagyu and serving it to a kid as a snack. Connect with the Show Follow Mandy on Instagram: @mandy_kaplan_klavens (both with K's) TikTok: @mandymiscast Make Me a Nerd runs on curious people. If that's you, the inner circle is at makemeanerd.com/join , where episodes arrive ad-free and early, and the show goes deeper between installments. Listening on Apple Podcasts? Leave a review. Mandy reads them on air and will absolutely say your username out loud. Make Me a Nerd is a production of TruStory FM. Engineering by Pete Wright. Theme song: "Wonderstruck" by Jane and the Boy .

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  Episode #112

  Formula 1 with Pete Wright: Everybody Wants Kimi

  Aug 31, 202657 min

  Mandy Kaplan came to this with three episodes of Drive to Survive and one other piece of racing knowledge, which is that she can recite Talladega Nights from memory. Ninety seconds into the first episode a teenager gets dropped off at school by his mother, says bye Mom, grabs his backpack, and turns out to be a professional Formula 1 driver. Something maternal took hold around then and never really let go.Pete Wright is here to explain the sport, which he maintains is an engineering competition that happens to involve drivers. He gets a few minutes into that before the whole thing falls sideways into a team principal who called himself Darth Vader and then got fired for reasons nobody will say out loud, a crash in Singapore in 2008 that wasn't a crash, and what happens to a car when it gets within one second of the car ahead of it. Mandy wants to know who these boys are and where they came from. Pete would rather discuss regenerative braking. The part where a nineteen-year-old is currently beating the greatest driver of his generation doesn't come up until almost the end. Press play.Guest Spotlight: Pete WrightPete Wright is co-founder of TruStory FM, where he produces and engineers a bunch of what you listen to, this show included. He co-hosts The Next Reel family of film shows, Craft & Chaos, and Marvel Movie Minute, and Mandy has designated him her overlord. His debut novel Onset, Book One of the Manifest trilogy, is out now. It's a dark YA crossover thriller about foster kids, hidden abilities, and what it costs to be noticed. His novella Lattice came out earlier this year. Website: It's Me... Pete. On writing Onset: itsmepete.com/blog/2026/on-writing-onset Instagram: @_petewright Bluesky: @itsmepete.com Reference LinksThe Show That Started It Formula 1: Drive to Survive Drive to Survive, Season 8 , covering the 2025 season, released on Netflix and, in the US, Apple TV At the Movies F1 (2025) , directed by Joseph Kosinski and shot with real paddock access on real race weekends Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) Quarterback , the Netflix series Mandy wishes Drive to Survive were more like The Drivers Kimi Antonelli Lewis Hamilton George Russell Charles Leclerc Max Verstappen Lando Norris Oscar Piastri Isack Hadjar Liam Lawson Jack Doohan Gabriel Bortoleto Oliver Bearman Michael Schumacher The Men in Charge Christian Horner Flavio Briatore How Any of This Works Crashgate, the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix The halo Drag Reduction System How 2026 qualifying works 2026 F1 season calendar Current 2026 standings The Circuits Circuit de Monaco Silverstone Circuit Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore Red Bull Ring, Spielberg Tangents The Ship of Theseus Ernst Stavro Blofeld Pole Position, the arcade game "Wonderstruck" by Jane and the Boy Elsewhere on TruStory FM Hangman Adam Page with Kevin Ryan , the wrestling episode Mandy brings up Prince with Kyle Olson and Pete Wright The Film Board , where Pete writes the openings Mandy likes Fact-Check CornerSix corrections. Most of what Pete rattles off holds up under checking, including the qualifying format, the championship math, and the entire Horner chronology. These are the exceptions.Hangman Adam Page wrestles for AEW, not WWE. Mandy calls her earlier wrestling episode a WWE episode. Page has been with AEW since the promotion started and held its world championship.Nelson Piquet Jr., not Nelson Piquet. The Singapore driver was the son. His father is a three-time world champion who had nothing to do with it. Pete was clearly spea...

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  Episode #111

  Pushing Daisies with Jessica Jimenez: Mandy Would Like a Cheese Box

  Aug 24, 202650 min

  Mandy has a real, non-joking anxiety about death. You'd think that's the sort of thing a person would mention to a friend before that friend assigns her a series about a man who reanimates corpses for sixty seconds at a stretch to ask them who did it. Jessica Jimenez knew. Jessica Jimenez picked it anyway. Third appearance, still working off the Showgirls debt.So Mandy watched all nine episodes with a Xanax in one hand and a notebook in the other. Six Emmys. One writers' strike. Cancelled anyway. By about episode four she has stopped bracing for the death stuff and girded for the fight with Jessica about Olive Snook's wardrobe. Jessica may be wrong about the wardrobe. Press play.Guest Spotlight Jessica Jimenez — TV producer, musical-theater mischief-maker, and scholar of the pop-culture deep cut. This is her third trip through the Make Me A Nerd gauntlet, following Return to Oz and Showgirls . Her stated goal this time was redemption. Her actual achievement was getting Mandy to voluntarily watch a show about corpses.Jessica's social links to be supplied — see Pete-Notes. Reference Links The Show Pushing Daisies (ABC, 2007–2009) Pie-lette — the Barry Sonnenfeld–directed pilot Pigeon — episode four, the one Mandy got lost in List of Pushing Daisies episodes Pushing Daisies at the Television Academy — the official Emmy tally Where to watch The Cast & Creators Lee Pace — Ned, the pie maker Anna Friel — Charlotte "Chuck" Charles Kristin Chenoweth — Olive Snook Chi McBride — Emerson Cod, knitter Swoosie Kurtz — Lily Charles Ellen Greene — Vivian Charles Jim Dale — the Narrator Sy Richardson — the Coroner Raúl Esparza — Alfredo Aldarisio Patrick Fabian — Dandelion car salesman, and Mandy's actual friend Paul Reubens — Oscar Vibenius, who can smell death Jayma Mays — Elista, in "Pigeon" Joel McHale — Harold Hundin, in "Bitches" Bryan Fuller — creator Cami Patton — casting director, with Meg Liberman and Jennifer Lare Films & Shows Mentioned Edward Scissorhands Alice in Wonderland (1951) The Fall (2006) — the Lee Pace movie Jessica couldn't name: Tarsem Singh, a hospital, a stuntman, and a little girl Bodies Bodies Bodies Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel — where Lee Pace actually plays the bad guy Dust Bunny (2025) — Bryan Fuller's directorial debut Scream 7 — peak-hotness Joel McHale The Gilded Age Better Call Saul and Saved by the Bell: The College Years Will & Grace — for the Jack-and-Karen of it all Elsewhere on Make Me A Nerd Return to Oz with Jessica Jimenez Showgirls with Jessica Jimenez Labyrinth with Krissy Lenz Veronica Mars with Sloan Just — where Mandy learned what noir was Movie Friends Michelle Rubinstein and Seth Vargas on the Strange Legacy of Ed Wood Podcasts Mentioned We Are Liars — A Pretty Little Liars Podcast , hosted by Michelle Rubinstein and Liss Daley Total Betty Podcast Network Movie Friends Fact-Check CornerThe Emmy count. Mandy reads out 57 nominations, 18 wins, "including seven Primetime Emmy Awards." The overall figure tracks with IMDb's all-award-bodies tally, but the Emmy number is one high: the Television Academy lists 16 Primetime Emmy nominations and 6 wins across the two seasons. The wins were Directing for a Comedy Series and Picture Editing (2008), and Kristin Chenoweth for Supporting Actress, plus Art Direction, Costumes, and Makeup (2009). Jessica's "I think it was like seven" and Mandy's confirmation were both, endearingly, wrong together.Lee Pace is not in Star Wars. Jessica says he's "a bad guy in the newer Star Wars movies." He plays Ronan the Accuser in Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel — Marvel, not Lucasfilm. He's also Thranduil in The Hobbittrilogy and Brother Day in Foundation. No Star Wars.Season 3 is not announced. Jessica says it was announced earlier this year for 2027. As of now, Bryan Fuller has confirmed he has a season 3 pitch and that the cast is willing — but there's no platform attached, no formal order, and no 2027 date. Mandy's cited Dust Bunny press cycle quote is currently the accurate story.Kristin Chenoweth is 4'11", not 4'10". Lee Pace at 6'5" checks out, so the height gag survives intact.Joel McHale is 54. Mandy guessed "probably fifty-two or something." Born November 1971. Dear God… he and producer Pete are the same age. What’s the word for “delightful and depressing at the same time?”Four wives, not three....

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