Rick London came for Alien: Earth — Noah Hawley's reportedly quarter-billion-dollar fever dream about corporations, immortality, and dying children installed in adult bodies — and he came prepared to defend every last drop of the show's frankly staggering liquid output. (There is a lot of liquid. Mandy counted. It was her first note, and the most consistent theme of her entire viewing experience.) What Rick did not anticipate was that Mandy would arrive with a theory about Willy Wonka.Somewhere between the dot-matrix screens and the dead bodies nobody reacts to, there is a scientist who genuinely cared but can still be complicit about what kids understand about death and when they understand it, and about which of the show's creatures is the one that will actually keep you up at night. (Rick has a pick. It is not the one you're thinking of.) There is also a werewolf novel, an eyeball, and a slug that Mandy would like formally stricken from the record. Press play.Guest SpotlightRick London is a Bay Area–raised author of supernatural fiction, and a lifelong devotee of the seventies sci-fi and horror that shaped his taste — a fact he cheerfully cops to somewhere around the point where he realizes he's the nerd in the room. His debut novel, The Dancing Wolfeman, Volume I, follows Titus Wolfe, a high school music teacher and weekend DJ whose life takes a decidedly lupine turn on the road home from a gig in Sonoma County. It's a werewolf story with romantasy in its bones, and music as the thing standing between a man and the beast inside him.

• Website & book: dancingwolfeman.com
• The Dancing Wolfeman on Amazon: Buy the book
• About the book: dancingwolfeman.com/about-the-book
• Instagram: @ricklondon26
• Facebook: Rick London
• X: @RickLondon1964

If you read it, leave a review. Wherever you bought it. He and Mandy are in violent agreement on this point.Links & NotesThe Show

• Alien: Earth — Wikipedia
• "The Real Monsters" — Season 1, Episode 8, the finale Mandy declares her favorite
• Meet the characters — FX's official character guide, useful for untangling cyborg vs. synthetic vs. hybrid
• Alien: Earth — The Official Podcast — the companion show Mandy tells Rick about, hosted by Adam Rogers with Noah Hawley and cast

The Franchise

• Alien (1979) — Letterboxd. The one Rick insists Mandy watch next.
• Aliens (1986) — Letterboxd

The Cast

• Sydney Chandler — Wendy
• Alex Lawther — Hermit
• Timothy Olyphant — Kirsh
• Essie Davis — Dame Sylvia
• Samuel Blenkin — Boy Kavalier
• Babou Ceesay — Morrow
• Noah Hawley — creator, showrunner, and the throughline of Mandy's entire nerd journey

The 1979 Ensemble

• Sigourney Weaver
• Yaphet Kotto
• Veronica Cartwright
• Harry Dean Stanton
• Ian Holm

Also Mentioned

• Legion — the Noah Hawley series that launched this entire podcast
• Fargo — Wikipedia
• Peter Pan (1953) — Letterboxd. Playing on the screen in the operating room, and not by accident.
• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) — Letterboxd. Mandy's Boy Kavalier theory. Solid.
• The Babadook (2014) — Letterboxd. Where Mandy knew Essie Davis from.
• Jaws (1975) — Letterboxd
• The Last of Us — Wikipedia. The one Mandy tapped out on.

Elsewhere on TruStory FM

• Game Over, Man(dy)! It's Aliens with Darnell Smith — Mandy's own trip into the franchise, back in the early days
• Aliens (1986) on the Most Excellent 80s Movies Podcast — Krissy Lenz and Nathan Blackwell take the same film from a very different angle

Fact-Check Corner
Because we love our guests and we also love being right.

• Wendy is played by Sydney Chandler, not Cindy Chandler. Daughter of Kyle Chandler, and formerly of Pistoland Don't Worry Darling.
• The $250 million figure is widely repeated in trade coverage but hard to pin to a primary source. What isdocumented: the Thailand shoot alone ran roughly 2.8–3 billion baht (about $85 million), making it the most expensive foreign production in Thai history. Either way, Mandy's point about the drool budget stands.
• The eyeball creature has a name: the Ocellus. Most of the internet just calls it the Eye. Both are worse than the xenomorph, on this Rick and the fandom agree.
• Sigourney Weaver is not, in fact, in all of them. She's in the first four. Prometheus, Covenant, and Romuluswent on without her.

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The instant a movie is pitched to Mandy as "aliens come to Earth," she has already changed the channel, mentally relocated to a spa, and started a calmer life. So naturally, this week she sat down with Arrival, a film she spent years confusing with The Martian (fair), which she also assumed was basically the plot of Project Hail Mary (it is not), a book that gave her an actual, physiological anxiety response somewhere around page 100. This is a person who cannot watch a character face death without briefly leaving her own body. We handed her two hours of grief, linguistics, and the horror of knowing how things end. What could possibly go wrong.Her guide is Justin "JJ" Jaeger, a man who loves spoilers the way most people love their own children, and who will well up, gloriously and on cue, over a canary, a Sanskrit etymology lesson, or the mere existence of a birdcage. The result is a genuinely moving conversation about the people who run toward the questions and the people who sprint for the answers, a shared and slightly tearful devotion to American Sign Language, a working theory that the correct qualification for saving humanity might be spinach artichoke dip, Sheena Easton, and the phrase "the Giselled-up version of it," which you will simply have to hear in context. Whether Mandy comes out converted or remains the lone cheese standing alone is not ours to spoil. Press play.Guest SpotlightJustin "JJ" Jaeger is a recovering television news reporter who never quite got over the taste of a hot microphone. A member of both the International Cinematographers Guild and SAG-AFTRA, he lives in Portland, Oregon, and consumes arts and entertainment in all its forms, always angling to drag anyone within earshot into a deep conversation about music, books, or movies. He's a longtime contributing voice across the TruStory FM slate, popping up on The Film Board, Trailer Rewind, and the Marvel Movie Minute, and on his YouTube channel, Jayge's Pages, he's working through every book he's read since 2008 (chronologically, from his Goodreads archive), across every genre, with clips now on TikTok too. Catch him at any dive-y karaoke bar in town, thumbing through the songbook for the number that brings the house down.

• YouTube — Jayge's Pages: youtube.com/@jjaeger44
• TruStory FM host page: trustory.fm/host/justin-jaeger
• The Film Board: trustory.fm/the-film-board

Reference LinksThe Main Event

• Arrival (2016) on Letterboxd — directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Amy Adams as linguist Louise Banks, Jeremy Renner as Ian, and Forest Whitaker as Colonel Weber
• Mark O'Brien — plays Captain Marks (the soldier on the phone), and yes, also the husband in Ready or Not

The Movies They Wandered Into

• Disclosure Day (2026) — Steven Spielberg's alien return, the jumping-off point from The Film Board
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) — the other Spielberg touchstone; Mandy's own MMAN episode on it was with Steve Sarmento
• The Martian (2015) — the movie Mandy thought Arrival was
• Project Hail Mary (2026) — the Andy Weir adaptation; she made it 100 pages of the novel
• Spaceman (2024) — Adam Sandler's trip to the therapist's office in space
• Uncut Gems (2019) and Punch-Drunk Love (2002) — the Sandler-anxiety spectrum
• Spaceballs (1987) — not what Spaceman is
• Enchanted (2007) — Amy Adams as Giselle, the movie that changed Mandy forever
• The Sixth Sense (1999) — M. Night Shyamalan's twist, spoiled for JJ by a radio ad
• Erin Brockovich (2000) — Steven Soderbergh and Julia Roberts, and JJ's "trust yourself" tangent
• Ready or Not (2019) — where you've seen that soldier before
• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) — the "is he a stalker or a helper?" guy
• Sphere (1998) — the Michael Crichton adaptation Mandy's got queued up next (no relation to the glowing Vegas orb)

Odds & Ends They Name-Checked

• Doctor Who — origin of "timey-wimey," which JJ used without realizing it
• Linda Bove — the deaf actress whose Sesame Street work got Mandy hooked on ASL as a kid
• Louise Brooks — the silent-film actress Mandy briefly mixed up with the character Louise Banks
• Sphere (Las Vegas venue) — the "Wizard of Oz" immersive experience Mandy wishes she could watch Arrival inside

Fact-Check Corner

• Big Little Lies (TV series) and Big Eyes (2014) — the two titles Mandy fused together and pinned on the wrong director (Villeneuve made neither)
• Prince actually wrote Sheena Ea...

The Grateful Dead's own biographer opens their official four-hour documentary by admitting it's really hard to love this band if you're not already a fan — which is a bold marketing strategy, like a restaurant with a sign reading "you probably won't like the food." Naturally, Mandy took the dare. Her spirit guide through the patchouli: Jeffrey Nicholas Brown — actor, Blue Man, drummer in numerous Dead cover bands, and a man who followed this band across the country in a van that smelled exactly how you think it smelled.What follows is a genuine attempt to explain the unexplainable: why a drummer would claim he can't keep time, why a sober fellowship called the Wharf Rats holds meetings at set break, why the peace-and-love band was secretly a heavily armed pirate crew, and why one backup singer splits the fandom like a papal schism. Also, Jeffrey invents a word so good Mandy may never recover, and a roadie explains that a skull with a lightning bolt means "bang." Press play.Guest SpotlightJeffrey Nicholas Brown is an actor, drummer, and Blue Man Group performer you've seen as Jake Hart on Nickelodeon's Henry Danger, Corbett Stackhouse on True Blood, and heard as Bronty on Disney's Doc McStuffins. An Evanston, Illinois kid who came up through Steppenwolf, the Piven Theatre Workshop, and The Second City (where a teacher first put him on the bus), he saw the Grateful Dead 27 times with Jerry Garcia and still plays their music in multiple cover bands. Catch him next in the Green Day comedy Nimrods, in theaters August 14.

• Website
• Instagram
• IMDb
• Blue Man Group
• Nimrods (in theaters August 14)

Reference LinksWatch

• Long Strange Trip — the official Grateful Dead documentary, streaming on Amazon Prime Video
• Miss Americana
• Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
• Freaks and Geeks
• Playboy After Dark
• Grahame Lesh points out Phil Lesh's Real Housewives cameo on Watch What Happens Live

The Band and the Scene

• Grateful Dead
• Jerry Garcia
• Bob Weir
• Donna Jean Godchaux
• Ron "Pigpen" McKernan
• Robert Hunter
• Dead & Company
• The Wharf Rats — the sober Deadhead fellowship
• The Acid Tests
• Wavy Gravy
• Camp Winnarainbow

Listen

• Friend of the Devil
• Scarlet Begonias
• Fire on the Mountain
• Bird Song
• Uncle John's Band
• Touch of Grey
• Dark Star
• New Speedway Boogie
• Wharf Rat
• Teach Your Children — CSNY, featuring Jerry Garcia
• Workingman's Dead and American Beauty

More Make Me A Nerd

• Freaks and Geeks with Jeffrey Nicholas Brown
• The Godfather with Seth Vargas

Follow Mandy on Instagram at @Mandy_Kaplan_Klavens and on TikTok at @MandyMiscast.Make Me A Nerd is a production of TruStory FM. Want your episodes ad-free and early? Join us at makemeanerd.com/join.
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Mandy has never seen Psycho. She has, however, seen Hot in Cleveland, which — it turns out — quotes Psycho constantly, meaning Mandy has been unknowingly absorbing the cultural shrapnel of a movie she'd never actually watched. It's the kind of realization that says more about the half-life of a seventy-two-minute-in shower scene than anything else could. Enter Jesse Pfister: voice actor, day trader, and a man who showed up to this recording with a wig, a suspiciously well-lit prop murder weapon, and enough notes to make Mel Gibson's conspiracy board in Conspiracy Theory look understaffed.What follows is somehow both a tender character defense of Norman Bates and a forensic audit of Hitchcock's lighting choices, his taste for laxative-based practical jokes, and his opinion on a certain pop star's music-video security protocols. There's a real serial killer involved. There's a fruit cellar. There is a genuinely upsetting amount of chocolate syrup standing in for blood. Press play.Guest HighlightJesse Pfister, voice actor of nearly a decade, day trader, and regular host on the Trade the Pool YouTube channel, where he covers market analysis and trading strategy. Formerly co-hosted the Love of Life podcast (currently on hiatus).

• Trade the Pool: https://tradethepool.com/
• Instagram: @JesseFister

Films & Shows Discussed

• Psycho (1960): https://letterboxd.com/film/psycho/
• Psycho (1998 remake, dir. Gus Van Sant): https://letterboxd.com/film/psycho-1998/
• The Godfather: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-godfather/
• Jaws: https://letterboxd.com/film/jaws/
• Hot in Cleveland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_in_Cleveland
• Rear Window: https://letterboxd.com/film/rear-window/
• Dial M for Murder: https://letterboxd.com/film/dial-m-for-murder/
• Rope (1948): https://letterboxd.com/film/rope/
• North by Northwest: https://letterboxd.com/film/north-by-northwest/
• Charade (1963, dir. Stanley Donen): https://letterboxd.com/film/charade/
• Hitchcock (2012, dir. Sacha Gervasi): https://letterboxd.com/film/hitchcock/
• The Babadook: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-babadook/
• Diabolique (1955): https://letterboxd.com/film/diabolique/
• National Lampoon's Vacation (1983): https://letterboxd.com/film/national-lampoons-vacation/
• The Maltese Falcon: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-maltese-falcon/
• Taxi Driver: https://letterboxd.com/film/taxi-driver/
• Raging Bull: https://letterboxd.com/film/raging-bull/

People Mentioned

• Alfred Hitchcock: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock
• Robert Bloch (author of the novel Psycho): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bloch
• Joseph Stefano (screenwriter): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stefano
• Anthony Perkins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Perkins
• Janet Leigh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Leigh
• Vera Miles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Miles
• Martin Balsam (played Detective Arbogast): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Balsam
• Bernard Herrmann (composer): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Herrmann
• Ed Gein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein
• Grace Kelly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Kelly
• Cary Grant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cary_Grant
• Eva Marie Saint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Marie_Saint
• Ingrid Bergman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Bergman
• Anthony Hopkins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Hopkins
• Vince Vaughn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Vaughn
• Stanley Donen (director): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Donen
• Patricia Hitchcock (played Caroline): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Hitchcock
• Taylor Swift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift

Music

• Taylor Swift, "The Fate of Ophelia": https://music.youtube.com/search?q=The+Fate+of+Ophelia+Taylor+Swift

Other Podcasts

• You Must Remember This
• Make Me a Nerd — The Godfather episode with Seth Vargas
• Sitting in the Dark

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There exists a specific cohort of women who, if you say the words "do you remember My So-Called Life," will respond — instantly, involuntarily, with the faraway look of someone recalling a first love — "Jordan Catalano." They cannot help it. This is a documented phenomenon. And so Mandy, a mainstream mom who spent the 90s sensibly watching shows that got renewed, sits down to discover what exactly happened to these people, only to run face-first into the deeply inconvenient realization that a one-season teen drama from 1994 (cancelled, unceremoniously, opposite Friends, by a network that did not know what it had) may have understood the experience of being alive more precisely than anything she's watched since. There is a boy who leans. There is a yearbook monologue that turns out to be about social media thirty years early. There is the creeping suspicion that the rage Angela feels toward her mother and the rage you feel during menopause are, biochemically speaking, the same rage.Her guide is performer Sloan Just, who knew Jordan Catalano long before she knew the man playing him — a distinction that becomes its own quietly devastating conversation — and who refuses to let any of this stay safely in 1994. They get into the art versus the artist. They get into who you were "supposed" to end up with. And then, because this is that kind of friendship, they get into Sloan's burlesque alter ego, a flame-pastied creation by the name of Dasha Paprika, and honestly you'll just have to hear how they got there. Some of what you learn in this episode you will not be able to un-know. Press play.Guest SpotlightSloan Just is a performer, professional dancer, and choreographer with a theater background — and a returning Make Me a Nerd guest, last seen walking Mandy through Veronica Mars. These days she's channeling a years-long midlife crisis into the most productive possible outlet: Dasha Paprika, her burlesque alter ego ("the spiciest rack in town"), performing live around Manhattan and Brooklyn. Comedy-forward, theater-degree-justifying, occasionally on fire (literally — ask about the Crucible number).

• Dasha Paprika on Instagram: @dasha_paprika
• Sloan's previous MMAN episode: Veronica Mars with Sloan Just

Reference Links
The Show & Its Makers

• My So-Called Life
• Winnie Holzman (creator)
• Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick (executive producers)
• thirtysomething
• Steppenwolf Theatre Company — founded by Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney, and Jeff Perry

Cast

• Claire Danes (Angela Chase)
• Jared Leto (Jordan Catalano)
• Wilson Cruz (Rickie Vasquez)
• Devon Gummersall (Brian Krakow)
• A. J. Langer (Rayanne Graff)
• Tom Irwin (Graham Chase)
• Jeff Perry (Mr. Katimski)
• Senta Moses (Delia Fisher)
• Patti D'Arbanville (Amber, Rayanne's mother)

Films Mentioned

• The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and The Godfather Part III
• Pretty in Pink (the Ducky vs. Blaine of it all)
• Sixteen Candles (Jake Ryan)
• You've Got Mail
• Heathers
• Zootopia
• Baby Boom
• 30 Nights of Sex to Save Your Marriage — Mandy's film, on Tubi

Other Shows & Stage

• Beverly Hills, 90210
• This Is Us (Dan Fogelman)
• Family Ties
• Frasier (Maris) and Cheers (Vera)
• Hot in Cleveland
• Growing Pains
• Three's Company (Chrissy and Cindy Snow)
• Doogie Howser, M.D.
• Wicked (musical) (Holzman's book)
• The Crucible wink. 

People Mentioned

• Betty White
• Alicia Silverstone (almost cast as Angela)
• Judith Light
• Nora Ephron
• Alan Cumming

Moments to Watch

• Jordan Catalano leaning
• Rickie's dance from "Life of Brian"
• The Sonnet 130 classroo...

This week we have a three-act superhero musical, shot on a borrowed studio lot during a labor strike, financed by one guy's personal credit card, in which approximately none of the songs are allowed to finish. Weird as it may be, it all clicks into place, and you understand why a generation of nerds has had this thing memorized for going on two decades.This week, returning guides Kyle Olson and Krissy Lenz walk our favorite mainstream mom through Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. We’ve got all the hits: Neil Patrick Harris fan mail that borders on a restraining order, the deeply important economics of the Henchmen's Guild, why Felicia Day was building the internet before the internet knew it needed building, and a shiny new Australia offered up purely for the sake of a rhyme. There's a horse who is also a chairman. There's a tragedy you will not see coming. There's a meaningful high note. Press play.GUEST SPOTLIGHTKyle Olson is an award-winning writer, producer, and podcast host, and a recurring nerd-whisperer here on Make Me a Nerd. He's the co-host of Craft and Chaos on TruStory FM, creator of the steampunk queer radio drama The Swashbuckling Ladies Debate Society, host of The Story Well, and logged 300-plus episodes of The Marvel Movie Minute.

• Craft and Chaos: trustory.fm/craft-and-chaos
• Kyle's host page on TruStory FM: trustory.fm/host/kyle-olson

Krissy Lenz is Mandy's most frequent guest and partner in nerd crime. She co-hosts The Most Excellent 80s Movies Podcast and Gank That Drank on TruStory FM. Her Most Excellent episode on When Harry Met Sally — featuring a certain mainstream mom — is on the way.

• Krissy’s host page on TruStory FM: https://trustory.fm/host/krissy-lenz/

REFERENCE LINKSThe Main Event

• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008 miniseries) — Wikipedia

People

• Neil Patrick Harris — Wikipedia
• Nathan Fillion — Wikipedia
• Felicia Day — Wikipedia
• Simon Helberg — Wikipedia
• Joss Whedon — Wikipedia
• Jed Whedon — Wikipedia
• Zack Whedon — Wikipedia
• Maurissa Tancharoen (co-writer; one of the three superfans) — Wikipedia
• Ben Edlund (Bad Horse champion; creator of The Tick) — Wikipedia
• David Fury (newscaster cameo) — Wikipedia
• Marti Noxon (newscaster cameo) — Wikipedia
• Lin-Manuel Miranda — Wikipedia
• Bo Burnham — Wikipedia
• Sarah Michelle Gellar — Wikipedia

Shows & Series

• Firefly — Wikipedia
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Wikipedia
• "Once More, with Feeling" (Buffy musical episode) — Wikipedia
• How I Met Your Mother — Wikipedia
• The Big Bang Theory — Wikipedia
• The Guild (Felicia Day's web series) — Wikipedia
• Critical Role — Wikipedia
• Game Changer (Dropout) — Wikipedia
• Phineas and Ferb (home of Dr. Doofenshmirtz) — Wikipedia
• Scrubs — Wikipedia
• Supernatural — Wikipedia

Films

• Serenity (2005) — Letterboxd

Stage & Adaptations

• Hamilton — Wikipedia
• Hadestown — Wikipedia
• Six — Wikipedia

Things & Curiosities

• Box ONE (Neil Patrick Harris's solo escape-room game) — theory11
• The Magic Misfits (NPH's children's book series) — Amazon
• Geek & Sundry — Wikipedia
• "Brand New Day" / "A Man's Gotta Do" / "Everyone's a Hero" — YouTube Music search
• The 2013 Tony Awards opening (NPH's "Bigger!" number, with the closing recap rap) — YouTube search

From the TruStory FM Vault

• Game Changer with Kyle Olson (Make Me a Nerd) — trustory.fm
• Make Me a Nerd show archive — trustory.fm/make-me-a-nerd

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Batman: he does not use guns. This is practically the whole point of him — a man so committed to a single rule that he built an entire personality, a cave, and a frankly concerning number of themed vehicles around it. So when Batman Beyond opens its very first episode with an aging Bruce Wayne pulling a gun, under a content warning slapped over the face of Bugs Bunny, you understand exactly why mainstream mom Mandy Kaplan pressed play and immediately thought: what, precisely, am I getting into?What she got into — with the help of voiceover actor and lifelong nerd Jason Yeung — is the 1999 series that aged Bruce Wayne out of the cowl and handed it to a teenager named Terry McGinnis, set in a grimy neon 2039, scored like a Nine Inch Nails B-side, and casually staffed with George Takei and Stockard Channing. It's darker than the Adam West you remember (Mandy has some feelings about a young Burt Ward that we will not be getting into here), weirder than you'd expect (one villain is essentially sentient ink; another is a sword-wielding assassin who never says a single word), and built on an idea that is genuinely, ambush-you-on-a-Saturday-morning moving: you can't do the thing you love forever, and one day you have to hand it to someone else.It snuck real grief, real ethics, and real "wait, why IS he a bat?" questions into a kids' time slot, and then got canceled before most of the world noticed. Mandy noticed. Press play.
Guest SpotlightJason Yeung is a voiceover actor who met Mandy in the voiceover world, where the two have had the pleasure of working together. A self-described huge nerd who "grew up in the space" — and who got his start working the counter at Hollywood Video and Blockbuster, hand-selling underrated gems to anyone who'd listen — Jason can, by his own admission, talk nerd stuff for forever. On this episode he makes the passionate, deeply-felt case for Batman Beyond as one of the most criminally underrated entries in the entire Batman canon.
Links & Notes

• Batman Beyond (TV series)
• Terry McGinnis / Batman
• Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker — the follow-up film referenced
• Batman: The Animated Series

Cast & Crew

• Will Friedle — voice of Terry McGinnis
• Kevin Conroy — voice of Bruce Wayne
• George Takei — voice of Mr. Fixx
• Stockard Channing — voice of Commissioner Barbara Gordon
• Lauren Tom — voice of Dana Tan
• Melissa Disney — voice of Curaré (Mandy's friend)
• Kristopher Carter — Emmy-winning composer of the main theme

Batman on Screen (other adaptations referenced)

• Batman (1966 TV series) — the Adam West version
• Adam West
• Burt Ward — the original Robin
• Chris O'Donnell — the other Robin
• Joel Schumacher
• Tim Burton
• Batman & Robin (1997) — the "bat nipples" apology movie
• Batman Begins (2005)
• Christopher Nolan
• Christian Bale
• The Lego Batman Movie (2017) — Will Arnett's Batman
• Will Arnett
• Arnold Schwarzenegger — the live-action Mr. Freeze

Also Mentioned

• Firefly
• Big Hero 6 (2014)
• Boy Meets World
• Animaniacs
• Power Rangers
• Beverly Hills, 90210
• Nine Inch Nails / Trent Reznor — the theme's sonic cousin

Music

• Theme: "Wonderstruck" by Jane and the Boy
• Batman Beyond Main Theme — Kristopher Carter

Watch/Hear the Moment

• Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin apology

In the TruStory FM Universe

• Watch Me Fly… Serenity with Krissy Lenz — the episode that recruited Mandy as a Browncoat
• Sensual Creatures: Vampires, Frilly Shirts, and Interview with a Vampire with Jonny Lee Jr. — Mandy's recent vampire deep-dive (the 1994 film + the AMC series)
• Superhero Ethics with Matthew Fox — the deeper-ethics show Mandy recommends (they covered Batman Beyond)

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There are two kinds of people in this world: those who have seen The Godfather, and those who have built an entire personality around not having seen it (a group that, until this week, proudly included our own Mandy Kaplan — a grown woman fully comfortable assigning Rotten Tomatoes scores to a film she had never once watched). Enter Seth Vargas of the Movie Friends podcast, back in the nerd chair to commit the bold act of sitting a self-described mainstream mom down in front of the most quoted movie in American history and asking her to actually have feelings about it.She does. Boy, she does. What comes out of it is a conversation about violence and family and loneliness and whether the most beloved father figure in all of cinema is secretly the devil — the kind of talk that sneaks up and turns profound while you’re still laughing at the pasta jokes. If you’ve been quietly running your own decades-long Godfather standoff, consider this your way out. Press play.GUEST SPOTLIGHTSeth Vargas is one half of Movie Friends, the weekly film podcast he co-hosts with Michelle Rubinstein on a beautifully simple premise: Seth has seen it, Michelle hasn’t, and together they take a curious, friends-first tour through movie history one title at a time. This is Seth’s second visit to Make Me a Nerd — he and Michelle previously walked Mandy through the strange legacy of Ed Wood. Find Movie Friends on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and on Instagram at @moviefriendspodcast.LINKS & REFERENCESThe Films

• The Godfather
• The Godfather Part II
• Zootopia
• The Exorcist
• Rosemary’s Baby
• The Outsiders
• Peggy Sue Got Married
• Megalopolis
• THX 1138
• Star Wars
• Jaws
• Singin’ in the Rain
• Hello, Dolly!
• Miss Congeniality
• Analyze This
• Mickey Blue Eyes
• All That Jazz
• The Many Saints of Newark
• Plan 9 from Outer Space
• Ed Wood

The Filmmakers & Cast

• Francis Ford Coppola
• Mario Puzo
• Marlon Brando
• Al Pacino
• Diane Keaton
• Robert Duvall
• James Caan
• Robert De Niro
• Lee Strasberg
• George Lucas
• Nicolas Cage
• Hugh Grant
• Roy Scheider
• Matt Dillon

People & History

• Frank Sinatra — the rumored real-life inspiration behind Johnny Fontane
• Joe Colombo — the mob boss behind the real protest campaign Seth describes
• Italian-American Civil Rights League — the organization that rallied against the film’s production
• The Hays Code (Motion Picture Production Code)

Watch & Listen

• Seth’s homework: the Vito Corleone mustache-to-tree dissolve
• Theme song: “Wonder Struck” by Jane and the Boy

Previously on Make Me a Nerd

• Movie Friends Michelle Rubinstein and Seth Vargas on the Strange Legacy of Ed Wood
• The Exorcist with Lester Ryan Clark and Kynan Dias

While you’re at it… Check out this great show!

• Sitting in the Dark — TruStory FM’s monthly horror deep-dive with Chelsea Stardust, Tommy Metz III, Pete Wright, and Kynan Dias

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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 the artist known as Prince, you’re already most of the way to accepting everything else. The 8,000 unreleased tracks in a literal underground vault. The candles balanced precariously on the mixing boards. The 2 a.m. phone calls to musicians who had to be at Paisley Park by sunrise because the basketball game just ended and inspiration had struck.Pete Wright and Kyle Olson have feelings about this man. Deep, well-organized, road-tripped-to-Minnesota-for-the-Purple-Rain-musical feelings. They’ve come to walk Mandy through the empire — the side projects, the symbol, the Warner Brothers war, the Rolling Stones opening slot that ended in chicken bones — and to make a case that the artist most people think they know is actually three or four artists they don’t. There are detours into Sinéad O’Connor, Joni Mitchell, Michael Jackson ping pong, and one of Mandy’s most committed pre-adolescent performance choices. Press play.Guest SpotlightPete Wright and Kyle Olson are TruStory FM family — Pete is the engineer and producer behind much of the network (and Make Me a Nerd itself), and Kyle is a writer, playwright, and his frequent co-conspirator. Together they host Craft and Chaos, a podcast about staying creative through difficult times, and The Marvel Movie Minute, where they break down Marvel films five minutes at a time. Kyle’s plays can be found at the New Play Exchange (when he remembers to put his name on them — long story, listen to Craft and Chaos). Pete just released his debut work of fiction, a novella called Lattice, available at itsmepete.com, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.The PlaylistPete and Kyle’s Prince playlist on YouTube Music — the listening companion for this episode.Songs Mentioned

• “My Name Is Prince” — Prince & The New Power Generation
• “Darling Nikki” — Prince & The Revolution
• “When Doves Cry” — Prince & The Revolution
• “Let’s Go Crazy” — Prince & The Revolution
• “Little Red Corvette” — Prince
• “Raspberry Beret” — Prince & The Revolution
• “1999” — Prince
• “Delirious” — Prince
• “Head” — Prince
• “Sister” — Prince
• “When You Were Mine” — Prince
• “I Feel for You” — Chaka Khan (written by Prince)
• “A Case of You” — Prince (Joni Mitchell cover)
• “Nothing Compares 2 U” — Sinéad O’Connor (written by Prince)
• “Nothing Compares 2 U” — Prince (original)
• “Manic Monday” — The Bangles (written by Prince)
• “Sugar Walls” — Sheena Easton (written by Prince as Alexander Nevermind)
• “The Glamorous Life” — Sheila E. (written by Prince)
• “A Love Bizarre” — Sheila E. (with Prince)
• “Stand Back” — Stevie Nicks (co-written with Prince)
• “Kiss” — Art of Noise feat. Tom Jones (Prince cover)
• “Round and Round” — Tevin Campbell (from Graffiti Bridge)
• “How Come You Don’t Call Me” — Alicia Keys (Prince cover)
• “Thieves in the Temple” — Prince
• “New Power Generation” — Prince
• “Get Off” — Prince & The New Power Generation
• “Tick, Tick, Bang” — Prince
• “Tamborine” — Prince
• “Scandalous” — Prince
• “Venus de Milo” — Prince (Parade)

Albums Mentioned

• For You (1978)
• Prince (1979)
• Dirty Mind (1980)
• Controversy (1981)
• 1999 (1982)
• Purple Rain (1984)
• Parade (1986)
• Sign o’ the Times (1987)
• The Black Album (1987/1994)
• Batman (1989)
• Graffiti Bridge (1990)
• Love Symbol Album (1992)

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 in frilly eighteenth-century shirts (a look Jonny Lee Jr. has, to his eternal credit, brought to this very podcast), and produced one of the most genuinely seductive pieces of pulp fiction of the twentieth century. This week, Jonny returns to walk Mandy through the entire blood-soaked architecture of Interview with the Vampire — the 1994 film, the AMC series, and the lore that Anne Rice constructed to power both.Along the way: Cher was almost cast as Louis (yes, that Cher; yes, in a corset; no, it would not have worked). Tom Cruise was, by Anne Rice's own admission, the wrong man for Lestat — right up until he opened his mouth on screen and became the only possible man for Lestat. Brad Pitt may have been miserable filming this and you can, if you squint, kind of tell. Kirsten Dunst, age eleven, delivered a performance so calibrated that they auditioned a thousand other children and quietly admitted defeat. And Anne Rice herself wrote Claudia — a five-year-old trapped in eternal childhood — because her own five-year-old daughter had died of leukemia, which recontextualizes the entire story so violently that you may need to sit down.Also covered: why blood drinking, in the Anne Rice cosmology, is better than sex (the vampires are the most sex-positive characters in 1990s cinema); why the second half of the movie kind of falls apart the moment Antonio Banderas shows up to monologue at everyone; why the AMC series is gayer than the movie which is gayer than the books which are already pretty gay; and the fact that one of the most cinematic shots in nineties film involves a child vampire worrying about getting blood on her pink satin shoes. Welcome back to nerd-dom.GUEST SPOTLIGHT
Jonny Lee Jr. is one of Make Me a Nerd's original guests and a self-described "very well-rounded nerd" — a designation he has now earned across episodes on Zelda, Sailor Moon, and the present descent into Anne Rice's vampire universe. He is an actor and singer with the rare ability to make you genuinely excited about a frilly eighteenth-century shirt, and he has read every single Vampire Chronicles novel, which is the kind of qualification you cannot fake.
Links & ReferencesPast Make Me a Nerd Episodes Referenced

• Moon Prism Power, Make Me a Gorgeous Podcaster: Sailor Moon with Jonny Lee Jr.
• Make Me a Nerd Takes a Hearty Breath of the Wild with Jonny Lee, Jr. — the Zelda episode
• Mommie Dearest with Abdi Nazemian

Film & Television
Discussed in depth

• Interview with the Vampire (1994, dir. Neil Jordan)
• Interview with the Vampire (AMC series, 2022–present)
• Byzantium (2012, dir. Neil Jordan) — the Saoirse Ronan vampire film Jonny was trying to remember on air
• Queen of the Damned (2002)

Referenced in passing

• The Crying Game (1992, dir. Neil Jordan)
• Mommie Dearest (1981)
• Hook (1991, dir. Steven Spielberg)
• Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991)
• Desperado (1995, dir. Robert Rodriguez)
• Philadelphia (1993, dir. Jonathan Demme)
• Top Gun (1986)
• Legends of the Fall (1994)
• Nine (2009, dir. Rob Marshall)
• Sliding Doors (1998)
• Game of Thrones (HBO series)
• Will & Grace (2017 reboot)

Books

• Interview with the Vampire (1976) by Anne Rice
• The Vampire Lestat (1985) by Anne Rice
• The Queen of the Damned (1988) by Anne Rice
• The Vampire Armand (1998) by Anne Rice
• The Vampire Chronicles (series overview)

Stage

• Lestat (musical, Broadway 2006) — music by Elton John, lyrics by Bernie Taupin
• Nine (musical) — the 2003 Broadway revival, dir. David Leveaux, starred Antonio Banderas and Jane Krakowski

People
Creators

• Anne Rice (1941–2021)
• Stan Rice — Anne Rice's husband, the real-world basis for Lestat
• Christopher Rice — Anne and Stan's son
• Neil Jordan

1994 film cast

• Tom Cruise
• Brad Pitt
• Kirsten Dunst
• Antonio Banderas
• Stephen Rea
• Thandiwe Newton — credited in 1994 as "Thandie Newton"
• Christian Slater
• Evan Rachel Wood — the other actress considered for Claudia

AMC series cast

• Sam Reid