A special bonus episode recorded at the WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival. It's about life and death (but mostly death). Featuring your host Brendon Bennetts, YA author Karen Healey, alternative mortician Caitlin Doughty, director Andrew Todd, and ITV science correspondent Alok Jha.
From the Four Seasons to One Direction, from Bach to the future, hear two bands of nerds sound off, and find out who gets the fanfare of triumph and who goes home feeling crotchety. Featuring: Matt Powell, Jeff Clark, Katie Cowan, Brendon Bennetts, Jennifer O'Sullivan, Ben Allan, and the music talents of Michael Bell
Jennifer O'Sullivan just wants to have fun as she chaperones the nerds through the mystery of the Surfer Ghost, Karen's disturbingly encyclopedic knowledge of teen girl movies, and the electoral showdown between Katniss Everdeen and Joan of Arc. Featuring: Karen Healey, Laura Borrowdale, Matt Powell, Emma Cusdin, and Ben Allan
Ben Allan leads the Nerds on a journey to the very limits of their knowledge. Find out how far Frodo really travelled, meet the most impressively named polar explorers, and prepare for the ultimate Mars expedition. Featuring: Andrew Todd, Wiremu Tuhiwai, Laura Borrowdale, and Henri Nelis
Andrew Todd hosts our celebration of 50 years of Star Trek. Our nerds debate the relative merits of the Borg versus the Klingons, speculate as to why Bones was such a dick, and bring a five year old's Picard fan fiction to life. Featuring: Henri Nelis, Wiremu Tuhiwai, Karen Healey, and Ben Allan
In this episode the nerds take time to appreciate the little things in life: arguing about sky prawns, the smurfs, and what MODOK really stands for. Featuring: Jeff Clark, Erin Harrington, Ben Allan, Dan Bain, and Andrew Kepple Theme music: “Another beek beep beer please” by Rolemusic.
This episode of Nerd Degree is all about size, as we discuss: Godzilla in a bikini, the big sperm paradox, how to kill a dog with time travel, and who would win between King Kong and the BFG. Featuring: Brendon Bennetts, Jeff Clark, Katie Cowan, Dan Bain, Scott Koorey, and Erin Harrington
In this internet themed episode, our panel of experts speed down the information superhighway, miss the information super turnoff, and end up driving all the way to information super-Ashburton. Featuring: Brendon Bennetts, Andrew Kepple, Erin Harrington, Kathleen Burns, Andrew Todd, and Ben Allan Theme music: “Another beek beep beer please” by Rolemusic.
In this episode Brendon challenges our nerds to use all their artifice and intelligence, to explain what is going on with artificial intelligence. Featuring: Erin Harrington, Andrew Todd, Kathleen Burns, Ben Allan, and Andrew Kepple. Theme music: “Another beek beep beer please” by Rolemusic.
In this episode Karen Healey challenges the nerds to decode fan fiction tags, discover the origin of feels, and debate the benefits of telepathy. Featuring: Erin Harrington, Laura Borrowdale, Ben Allan, and Brendon Bennetts
With a spate of movies pitting heroes against one another, Jeff Clark asks the teams: why can’t all the superheroes just get along? Featuring: Brendon Bennetts, Erin Harrington, Ben Allan, and Laura Borrowdale. Theme music: “Another beek beep beer please” by Rolemusic.
Splice your mainbrace, shiver your timbers and suck a lime to stave off scurvy as the Nerd Degree broadsides easily the most popular category of murderers among small children: pirates. Which team will plunder a king’s ransom in Spanish gold, which team will be detained at His Majesty’s pleasure until they dance the hemp jig at Execution Dock, and what does a bo’sun even do, anyway? We know of a one-eyed man in Tortuga with a mysterious map who may have the answers you seek… Featuring: Ben Allan...
Jiminy Cricket! This episode looks at all things creepy crawly, from the microscopic to the world-destroying, all delivered in a breathy, Attenborough whisper. The Nerd Degree: lifting 5000 times its own weight since whenever ago. Featuring: Erin Harrington, Dan Bain, Henri Nelis, Brendon Bennetts, Laura Borrowdale, and Katie Cowan
Jeff Clark took the Nerd Degree gang to the 2015 NZ Skeptics conference. The theme was The Apocalypse, and for some reason they weren't willing to take some of our more outrageous claims at face value, but it turned out that wasn't the end of the world. Theme music: “Another beek beep beer please” by Rolemusic.
In this episode, host Brendon Bennetts studiously avoids anything related to that popular movie about space violence. Instead this episode deals with questions relation to stars, and questions relating to wars, but never BOTH AT THE SAME TIME. Theme music: “Another beek beep beer please” by Rolemusic.
It is a period of civil war. Nerdy comedians, striking from a hidden base (well, a couple of desks with microphones), have answered their first questions posed by their evil host: Brendon Bennetts. Yup, it's STAR WARS time. All STAR WARS, all the time. STAR WARS STAR WARS STAR WARS. Theme music: “Another beek beep beer please” by Rolemusic.
From radioactive spiders to damn dirty apes, nerd culture is a sprawling petting zoo of animal antics. Join Andrew Todd and the Nerd Degree pack, as we examine the killer and cuddly sides of the geek bestiary. Theme music: “Another beek beep beer please” by Rolemusic.
Who rules in Nerd Culture? Guided by Jeff Clark, our panellists consider a range of candidates to decide the supreme Emperor/Khaleesi/Overlord – and whether they’ll use PC or Mac Theme music: “Another beek beep beer please” by Rolemusic
The world of tomorrow is calling! (Will you accept the charges?) This episode, the nerds (featuring special guest Ned the Nerdbot) venture into an exciting future filled with killer A.I., Martian butterflies, and Kevin Costner.
Host Ben Allan leads the teams onto the field to see which team ultimately has what it takes to take out this year's League Cup Premiership, and tackles the nerd sports pantheon from Ground Quidditch to Battlemech Duelling. Centuri Chan and Henri Nelis vs Scott Koorey and Karen Healey. Announcer: Cameron McLeod.
In our New Zealand Improv Festival special episode, Brendon Bennetts challenges improvisers from Melbourne and Wellington to resolve some of the classic rivalries from science and pop culture. Featuring: Jen O’Sullivan, Dianne Pulham, Rik Brown vs. Jason Geary, Matt Powell, April Seymore
Host Brendon Bennetts challenges the nerds to deal with stories in different languages. From Shakespeare in its original Klingon to International Maritime Signal Flags Erotica Centuri Chan and Ben Allan vs Erin Harrington and Karen Healey Announcer: Henri Nelis
Host Brendon Bennetts introduces the nerds to big names like Scarbrous Scrotus, Manmeet Colon, Infinite Grover, and Arthurdactylus Conandoylei. Ben Allan and Karen Healey vs Jeff Clark and Henri Nelis Announcer: Erin Harrington
Karen Healey and the nerds go where angels fear to tread, into the underworld of humanity's origin stories, where heroes smash skulls and gods are forever on the prowl. It's the Myths and Legends episode! Host: Karen Erin and Jeff vs Cen and Brendon Voice: Andrew
The Soylent Green Party (Brendon Bennetts and Henri Nelis) and the Knights Of The Old Republican Party (Ben Allan and Erin Harrington) debate all the tough issues, from coal-mine monsters to North Korean cartoons to youth death arenas. Moderated by Andrew Todd, with analysis by Karen Healey.
Brendon Bennetts is haunted by ECTO-1 (Jeff Clark and Karen Healey), The Mystery Machine (Matt Powell and Grain of Truth host David Innes), and Cusdin the Friendly Ghost. (Sorry this episode is up late: Matt vanished and nobody else could solve the mystery of how to upload the file. Turns out Old Man Withers stole the password. Also sorry about the previously-missing final 17 minutes or so of this episode. Hopefully everything is fixed now.)
Team Spleen (Jeff and Cen) face off against Team Bad Blood (Brendon and Jen) under the watchful eye of Dr Erin Harrington and right-hand man Ben Allan, and explore a body of knowledge while trying not to make dicks of themselves.
Journey back in time to when dinosaurs roamed the earth and 6-year-old you gazed at them in wonder. Ben Allan hosts the Thag Simmons Institute for Empirical Research (Matt Powell and Jen O'Sullivan) and the KT Extinction (Scott Koorey and Andrew Todd).
Family is everything. Host: Andrew Todd House Tanner (Derek Flores, Brendon Bennets, and Karen Healey) versus House Cunningham (Kav P, Dan Bain, and Ben Allan) Announcer: Jeff Clark
Bam! Pow! Ba-throom! Jeff Clark assembles two teams of Earth's mightiest heroes: The New Worriers (Dan Bain, Brendon Bennetts, and Karen Healey) versus The Social Justice League (Kav P, Matt Powell, and Derek Flores).
