Make Me A Nerd with Mandy Kaplan
TruStory FM
Outreach Signals
Publishing Details
Contact & Outreach
About This Podcast
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!
Podcasting 2.0 Features
Social Media
Explore Statistics
Recent Episodes
Prince with Kyle Olson and Pete Wright
Here’s a fun fact about Prince Rogers Nelson: that wasn’t a stage name. Prince was his actual, legal, on-the-birth-certificate first name. Once you accept that a man named Prince grew up to become…
Sensual Creatures: Vampires, Frilly Shirts, and Interview with a Vampire with Jonny Lee Jr.
Vampires, as a concept, should not work. They are dead. They are allergic to weather. Their entire dating strategy is "what if I bit you." And yet — somehow, Anne Rice took this nonsense, draped it…
Shoot Again! Talking Pinball with Clark Hill
Pinball looks like two buttons and a ball. It is not two buttons and a ball. It is a 300-pound machine with layered rules, competitive leagues, wrist injuries, a flow state, and — this will surprise…
The Truth is RIGHT HERE: X-Files with Chelsea Stardust
The X-Files is, technically, a show about two FBI agents investigating extraterrestrial activity, government conspiracy, and the unexplained — which is why it's mildly hilarious that filmmaker…
Watch Me Fly… Serenity with Krissy Lenz
Here is a fact about Firefly, which is to say the beloved Joss Whedon space western that aired on Fox in 2002: the network, in its infinite wisdom, decided to air the two-hour pilot — the one…
No Time To Play… Ender’s Game with Erica Cochran
Mandy Kaplan has been handed a Hugo-winning, Nebula-winning, Mormon-authored military sci-fi classic about a six-year-old being psychologically tortured into committing accidental alien genocide, and…
One For The Kids: Battle Royale with Jimmy Aquino
Mandy Kaplan has thoughts about 42 Japanese ninth-graders being forced to murder each other on a deserted island, and honestly, who among us doesn't? This week, Jimmy Aquino returns to Make Me a Nerd…
Moon Prism Power, Make Me a Gorgeous Podcaster: Sailor Moon with Jonny Lee Jr.
Sailor Moon was a cartoon made for five-year-old Japanese girls. It aired in America at 6 AM, required an eight-year-old Jonny Lee Jr. to set his alarm for 5:30 every morning — before DVR, before…
From Basement Nerds to Amazon Prime: The Improbable (and Inevitable) Rise of Vox Machina with Hem Brewster
What do you get when you take eight adult friends — all professional voice actors — who've been playing a home D&D game for years and decide, on a lark, to put it on Twitch? You get Critical…
Movie Friends Michelle Rubinstein and Seth Vargas on the Strange Legacy of Ed Wood
Here is a fun fact about the worst movie ever made: it was declared the worst movie ever made by people who hadn’t seen it. In 1980, the Medved brothers published The Golden Turkey Awards, a book…
Nate McWhortor Makes Mandy a Future Folk Fan
Somewhere between O Brother Where Art Thou and the Lumineers' stomp-and-clap era, a folk comedy duo from the East Village made a movie about two aliens who abandon a mission to destroy Earth because…
It’s Manga Madness with Helen McCarthy!
Manga has a first-impression problem. It's enormous, genre-defying, visually foreign, and comes wrapped in the kind of devoted fan energy that makes newcomers feel like they've wandered into the…
Wonder Man: A Superhero Show About Not Being a Superhero
Wonder Man is, technically speaking, a Marvel show. It exists in the MCU. Captain America is out there somewhere. The Hulk is presumably smashing things. And none of that matters even a little bit,…
We Need to Talk About The Traitors (And Also Michael Rapaport)
The Traitors is, at its core, a game you play at birthday parties when someone's kid really wants to be a detective. You sit in a circle. Some people are secret murderers. Everyone points fingers…
The Stardom Burrito: Bo Burnham, Comedy Nerds, and Chipotle Metaphors with Tommy Metz III
There are two kinds of people in the world: people who cross their arms and dare a comedian to make them laugh, and people who show up already giggling before the lights go down. Mandy is firmly in…
Where's the Food? The Hunger Games Book-to-Movie Breakdown with Mona Chatterjee
Here's the thing about watching a movie one week after reading the book it's based on: you become the world's most insufferable viewing companion. And Mandy—who consumed Suzanne Collins's novel and…
May the Odds Ever Smell of Sweat: A Hunger Games Deep Dive with Mona Chatterjee • The Novel
Yes, I know—it's 2026, Hunger Games came out almost two decades ago, and we've all moved on now to whatever fresh dystopian nightmare is currently trending. But here's the thing: Suzanne Collins'…
It’s Our Time Down Here: A Goonies Comfort Rewatch with Krissy Lenz
This week on Make Me a Nerd, Mandy Kaplan does the bravest thing a grown adult can do: she prescribes herself a medically unnecessary, emotionally essential dose of The Goonies—because sometimes…
Superman... with Homework: Smallville with John Mundy
Mandy continues her noble quest to become the kind of nerd who can say “Smallville” without immediately being asked which season she started with, and she brings in returning guest John Mundy to…
The Great Pottery Throw Down: British, Boring, & Bang-On Perfect with Jeremy Klavens
Mandy’s latest “please turn me into a nerd” assignment comes disguised as the most harmless thing imaginable: a British competition show about pottery. And yes, at first it feels like the TV…
Frequently Asked Questions
Make Me A Nerd with Mandy Kaplan has published 101 episodes since June 2024, covering topics in Comedy, Society & Culture.
Make Me A Nerd with Mandy Kaplan is currently highly active with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 56m.
Sign up on Grep.FM to access contact details for Make Me A Nerd with Mandy Kaplan, including email and social media links.
Similar Podcasts
Sofia with an F
Sloot Media
338 episodes
VIEWS with David Dobrik & Jason Nash
VIEWS
357 episodes
SmartLess
Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, Will Arnett
358 episodes
Last Podcast On The Left
The Last Podcast Network
1,173 episodes
True Crime Obsessed
True Crime Obsessed
617 episodes
Zane and Heath: Unfiltered
Zane & Heath
336 episodes