『Make Me A Nerd with Mandy Kaplan』のカバーアート

Make Me A Nerd with Mandy Kaplan

Make Me A Nerd with Mandy Kaplan

著者： TruStory FM
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 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 join me on this journey. Who knows? Maybe you’ll discover or remember a side of yourself along the way. Or at least make fun of me as I try!© TruStory FM アート 社会科学
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  • Veronica Mars with Sloan Just

    Veronica Mars with Sloan Just
    2025/12/22
    Mandy brings on longtime friend Sloan Just—former Broadway performer, professional quote-reciter, and unapologetic teen-drama connoisseur—to finally introduce her to Veronica Mars. Somehow, Mandy has made it through adulthood without seeing a single minute of the show, which feels as statistically likely as living in New York City and never seeing a pigeon.They start with the pilot and immediately collide with the thing Veronica Mars does better than most shows: it looks light, talks fast, and then suddenly gets very serious without asking permission. One minute you’re watching a snarky teenager rescue a kid from a flagpole; the next, you’re dealing with sexual assault, class warfare, and a town that runs on cruelty. Mandy and Sloan talk about how the show uses voiceover not as a gimmick, but as a survival tool—and why Kristen Bell is doing far more work here than the genre usually demands.From there, they hop around the series rather than marching through it, landing on episodes that show the show’s range: tight mystery-of-the-week plotting, long-game emotional damage, and a frankly impressive roster of guest stars who all seem to understand the assignment. Mandy struggles—loudly—with the Logan Eccles problem, while Sloan argues that the show’s greatest strength might be its refusal to make anyone simple or comfortable to root for.They spend time with the darker turns too: the way trauma is revisited rather than solved, the messiness of memory, and how often Veronica is wrong, scared, or in over her head.They wrap up with the movie, fan devotion, and the strange satisfaction of reunions—seeing who people became, who didn’t change, and who carried the same damage into adulthood. Along the way there are detours into noir tropes, aging brains, and the kind of pop-culture shorthand that only old friends can get away with. Mandy may not emerge a full marshmallow, but she absolutely gets why so many people still are.Make Me a Nerd:
    • Website: makemeanerd.com/join
    • Instagram: @mandy_kaplan_klavens
    • TikTok & Bluesky: @mandymiscast

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    Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. It's just $5/month or $55/year. Visit our website to learn more.
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    1 時間 6 分
  • Hangman Adam Page with Kevin Ryan

    Hangman Adam Page with Kevin Ryan
    2025/12/15
    This week, Mandy dives into one of the most intimidating corners of nerd culture she’s ever faced: professional wrestling. Yes. Wrestling. AEW wrestling. The one with the hair flips, the pyrotechnics, the questionable fashion choices, the crowd chanting things you can’t say in front of your kids… that wrestling.And she didn’t do it alone. Mandy is joined by Kevin Ryan, creator and host of the improv-comedy podcast Tyrant in Training, a show in which guests build and rule their own fictional country while Kevin shape-shifts into various advisors, bureaucrats, and chaos agents. (Mandy herself recently appeared as a Supermodel-Tyrant, which feels exactly correct.)Kevin may live all the way in Ireland, but he arrives ready to induct Mandy into the lore-heavy, storyline-infested, deeply theatrical, occasionally violent world of AEW. He explains babyfaces and heels (good guys and bad guys, but with more spandex), demystifies why everyone has long hair (physics!), and unpacks the epic ongoing saga of Hangman Adam Page — the anxious, whiskey-swirling cowboy who somehow embodies the millennial hero’s journey.Mandy, meanwhile, wrestles (pun intended) with a set of entirely reasonable questions:• Why is everyone bleeding?• Why does the “good guy” burn down someone’s childhood home?• Why does the ref seem like a frantic unpaid intern who’s given up on life?• And why on earth does everyone look like they’re auditioning for a shampoo commercial?
    Not everything lands for Mandy — including one infamous Dark Order Christmas video that contains acting choices best described as “porn-adjacent.” But the surprising part? Mandy begins to understand the nerd appeal of wrestling: the world-building, the lore, the serialized storytelling, the soap-opera energy with a side of pyrotechnics. It turns out AEW is basically Days of Our Lives if everyone was constantly flipping off turnbuckles and crying in stylish leather boots.Kevin brings the jokes, the enthusiasm, and the blanket — literally, the man owns a blanket featuring Hangman Page sitting calmly in front of a burning house. Mandy brings the questions, the honesty, and the allergy to sweat. Together, they bridge two nations through the universal language of niche fandom.Make Me a Nerd:
    • Website: makemeanerd.com/join
    • Instagram: @mandy_kaplan_klavens
    • TikTok & Bluesky: @mandymiscast

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    Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. It's just $5/month or $55/year. Visit our website to learn more.
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    57 分
  • Return to Oz with Jessica Jimenez

    Return to Oz with Jessica Jimenez
    2025/12/08
    There are childhood movies that sparkle like nostalgia-soaked comfort food… and then there’s Return to Oz, the 1985 fever dream that terrified an entire generation and somehow ended up beloved anyway. This week, Mandy reconnects with returning guest — and one of her favorite humans on planet Earth — Jessica Jimenez, a TV producer, musical-theater mischief-maker, and scholar of the pop-culture deep cut. Together, they dive into the gloriously weird, unexpectedly dark, and unmistakably cult-classic world of Oz’s most misunderstood sequel.Jessica grew up watching Return to Oz on repeat in the Caribbean, where VHS tapes were the lifeline to American pop culture. Mandy, meanwhile, had never seen it — and approaches this movie armed only with her dog-breed expertise, her deep fear of tornado-adjacent bicycle women, and her ongoing emotional recovery from having watched Showgirls for Jessica’s last appearance. The two quickly tumble down the yellow-brick rabbit hole (well… rubble), unpacking everything from claymation rock-faces spying on Dorothy to the Wheelers and their nightmare Cirque du Soleil energy.They marvel at Fairuza Balk, who somehow channels Judy Garland while delivering a performance that’s shockingly grounded for a nine-year-old navigating hallways full of severed heads. They explore why Disney made a sequel that feels more like a Tim Burton acid trip, why Piper Laurie should never be allowed near impressionable Kansan farm girls, and how TikTok (the character, not the app) remains one of the most charming robot sidekicks in 80s fantasy filmmaking.Make Me a Nerd:
    • Website: makemeanerd.com/join
    • Instagram: @mandy_kaplan_klavens
    • TikTok & Bluesky: @mandymiscast

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    Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. It's just $5/month or $55/year. Visit our website to learn more.
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    54 分
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