Freaks and Geeks with Jeffrey Nicholas Brown

This week on Make Me a Nerd, Mandy Kaplan welcomes actor, drummer, writer, and all-time Blue Man Grouper Jeffrey Nicholas Brown—yes, an actual Blue Man.The two dive headfirst into Freaks and Geeks, the show that lasted only one season but somehow altered the DNA of television comedy forever. Jeffrey confesses he was both a freak and a geek in high school—which is really just a polite way of saying “I was constantly confused and occasionally sticky”—while Mandy proudly claims her kinship with Millie, the choir-loving buzzkill who warns that French kissing too soon will send you straight to hell. Together they relive dodgeball terror, disastrous crushes, and the eternal question: how much would you need to be paid to do the “blender challenge” now? (Spoiler: more than scale.)They don’t shy away from calling out the show’s one-note characters or its lack of diversity, but they also revel in Martin Starr’s deadpan, Linda Cardellini’s flawless sincerity, and Jason Segel’s gloriously mediocre drumming. Along the way you’ll get behind-the-scenes tidbits about Busy Philipps’ billing, Franco’s inexplicable accent, and why Freaks and Geeks is still considered to have filmed the most accurate Dungeons & Dragons scene in television history. It’s nostalgia, it’s critique, it’s two grown-ups confessing their teenage traumas on mic—and it’s glorious.
Links & Notes

• Mandy Kaplan on Instagram (@mandy_kaplan_klavins)
• Join Make Me A Nerd for Bonus Content

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