Peters Twp. man competes on ‘King of the Nerds’

What does it take to get on the third season of the TBS show “King of the Nerds?” For Peters Township resident Todd Landree, it was twice taping a Red Bull-fueled, three-hour whirlwind of nerd activities, like playing “Magic the Gathering” cards and the “Borderlands” video game while decked out in a ridiculous outfit.
“I sent the video after watching Season 2 last year with my cousin; watched every episode and thought, ‘I could win $100,000. I’m answering these questions faster than they are,'” Landree said.
So producers of the game show flew Landree, 26, out to Los Angeles for a final interview. And what would have backfired as misplaced enthusiasm in other job interviews turned out to be the edge that got Landree the spot as “Comic Book Nerd.”
“I brought my Aquaman action figure in with me to the interview and the hosts, Robert (Carradine) and Curtis (Armstrong), were like, ‘What? Aquaman is stupid.’ Well, I launched into a bit of a defense of him,” Landree said.
“He’s so badass! He punched out Superman,” Landree said in a torrent of Aquaman facts. “He commands an entire army. He’s bulletproof because he’s under the ocean, and while Superman is flying around, Aquaman controls 70 percent of the Earth.”
Carradine and Armstrong, executive producers of the game show known for their roles as Lewis and Booger in the “Revenge of the Nerds” movies, then cast Landree on the spot. Landing the interview wouldn’t have been possible for Landree if he didn’t change his outlook in seventh grade.
“I was shy all the time. I was really into professional wrestling and at the time Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura was getting big. Well, I’m a big guy, and I thought, why can’t I be ‘Todd the Bod?’ And once I started using that as part of my persona. I had a lot more fun, was more confident and I haven’t stopped being outgoing since.”
As for comic books, Landree’s expertise comes not from his day job as an information technology consultant in Mt. Lebanon, but from his 20-plus years of reading comics.
“My first comics were Green Lantern and they’re still my favorite,” he said, recalling a Green Lantern-Flash crossover comic that introduced him to his passion. And to his credit, Landree acknowledged Green Lantern is a similarly derided franchise as Aquaman.
“It’s all because of Ryan Reynolds and that stupid movie. It was so bad. But Green Lantern features such a great universe. It deals with willpower, and egalitarianism and the goodness of people as motivation for fighting against evil,” he said.
Green Lantern also happens to be written and illustrated by his favorite publisher as well.
“I’m fluent in DC, conversational in Marvel. The Marvel movies are admittedly better, but I’m 100 percent a DC fan.”
Landree said it’s DC that has been progressive about including various identities and ethnicities in their characters.
“They revealed that Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, to be a gay man in 2012 … and John Stewart, one of the first ‘replacement’ Lanterns was introduced in the ’70s and he’s black. Then there’s Simon Baz, one of the first superheros who’s a Muslim. He’s a Lantern who was introduced in 2011,” Landree said.
By now, Landree shouldn’t have to prove it to anyone else he’s truly a comic book nerd. The show, he said, should feature some similar twists and turns that parallel his favorite comics in the episode to air Feb. 13.
“Episode three, ‘The Gods Are Angry,’ it’s going to be a good one. It’s a turning point for the show. There’s comedy, there’s drama. It shakes the foundation a bit.”
There are six more episodes in the series that airs Friday nights at 9 p.m. on TBS.