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By: Janice Malone
The TBS network is taking the glory of nerd-dom to the next level in the new unscripted competition series King of the Nerds, show hosted by actors Robert Carradine (Revenge of the Nerds and The Long Riders) and Curtis Armstrong (Revenge of the Nerds and Ray). The show invites 11 competitors spanning the full nerd spectrum to come together to face challenges that will test their intellect, ingenuity, skills and pop-culture prowess.
Nashville is represented in this battle of the super brains competition by contestant Brandon Moore, who is a PhD student at Vanderbilt University, where he’s studying to be a neuro scientist. “I’m really interested in learning how the brain works with visual perception. It’s a pretty complicated area of study but it’s fascinating,” says the 24-year-old who excels at wordplay humor and has named all of his computers after different infectious diseases. On this show the nerds will first compete as teams before moving on to individual challenges, all with the goal of being named the quintessential master of all things nerdy and winning the $100,000 prize. Each week the nerdy competitors will face challenges like a giant game of chess, a debate, live gaming and a dance-off. In fact, some of the dance professionals from the hit TV show Dancing With the Stars were brought in to offer their expertise to the nerdy ones. One competitor will be eliminated each week, leading to the ultimate champion being crowned "King of the Nerds."
Two years ago Brandon was a finalist for the Beauty and the Geek TV reality show before it was cancelled. Luckily, his audition video landed with the casting director for the King of the Nerds show and within a short time he was being flown out to Los Angeles for an audition. It seems that Brandon may have a potential future in TV, in addition to being a neuroscientist. He says, “I definitely don’t want to do any acting but maybe down the road if I was offered something I would be interested.”
Along with being a super nerd, Brandon is also an avid rapper who often shows off his rapping talents at various karaoke clubs throughout Nashville. Digital Underground’s “Humpty Dance” is one of his favorite rap songs he performs during karaoke competition. Like any bonafide nerd Brandon has top technology gear--8 computers and 2 servers. As noted earlier, he’s named his computers after infectious diseases. “My largest desktop is called malaria; my main server is call cholera; and my little 5 inch notebook is call small pox. I have others name typhoid, Ebola and so on. And my removable media devices like USB drives are named after sexually transmitted infections because they’re always being plugged into various computers. I thought this was rather amusing,” (laughs) reveals Brandon. Yes, Brandon wears his nerdiness pedigree quite well. If he’s crowned King of the Nerds Mr. Brandon doesn’t have any plans on shopping for more nerdy gear. He says the money will be used to pay off student loans from his under graduate degrees. King of the Nerds premiered Jan. 17, on the TBS Network but it’s not sure if Brandon had a big premiere party or not. He says, “I have a rather interesting situation because I don’t have cable TV. In fact, most of the people in my PhD program also don’t have cable either. Most of us can’t afford it on our meager salaries. We’re hoping that we can find a kind hearted professor at Vanderbilt who will allow us to come over to watch the premiere of the show at their place or something. We’ll figure it out,” he says with a laugh. Connect with King of the Nerds Website: http://www.tbs.com/shows/king-of-the-nerds
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