The Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang Theory Title Card
Format	Sitcom
Created by	Chuck Lorre Bill Prady
Starring	Johnny Galecki Jim Parsons Kaley Cuoco Simon Helberg Kunal Nayyar
Opening theme	"The Big Bang Theory" by Barenaked Ladies
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of episodes	6 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Chuck Lorre Bill Prady [Lee Aronsohn]]
Producer(s)	Steve Molaro Mike Collier Faye Oshima Belyeu
Associate Producer(s)	Toti Levine Kristy Cecil
Co-Producer(s)	Joe Bella Mary T. Quigley Peter Chakos
Editor(s)	Peter Chakos
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	22 minutes (Without Commercials) 30 Minutes (With Commercials)
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Picture format	480i (SDTV), 1080i (HDTV)
Original run	September 24, 2007 – present
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

The Big Bang Theory is an American comedy series created and executive produced by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady. The pilot was directed by James Burrows. ^[1]

Produced by Warner Bros. Television and Chuck Lorre Productions, the series was greenlit and given a thirteen-episode order on May 14, 2007.^[2] It premiered on September 24, 2007 on CBS. The show is also broadcast in Canada on A-Channel and in India on Zee Cafe, it will also be broadcast in the United Kingdom on Channel 4. ^[3].

The series is about two socially inept prodigies in their 20s who are living across the hall from a beautiful girl with a questionable intellect. When one genius falls for the girl, the other tries to discourage his interest because he believes his friend is chasing a dream he'll never catch.

On October 19, 2007 the show was picked-up for a full 22 episode season, the first comedy of the 07/08 year. [1]

[edit] Cast

• Johnny Galecki as Leonard Hofstadter
• Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper
• Kaley Cuoco as Penny
• Simon Helberg as Howard Wolowitz
• Kunal Nayyar as Rajesh Koothrappali

[edit] Notes

Several of Johnny Galecki's co-stars from his previous sitcom, Roseanne guest star in the series, including Sara Gilbert as Leonard's secondary love interest (a similar role to the one she played on Roseanne) and Laurie Metcalf as Sheldon's mother.

The sitcom itself takes place in Pasadena, CA, but the audience very rarely sees the characters venture outside of the apartment building. Most of the action takes place in Leonard and Sheldon's apartment, Penny's apartment, the hallway adjoining the two apartments, the staircases leading up to and above the hallway, and the lobby of the apartment building. It seems that the elevator is always out of order and that whenever we see Leonard and Sheldon traveling from outside their building to inside their apartment, the audience is able to see them as they walk up three flights of stairs. Also, the white boards that Sheldon and Leonard use for jotting down scientific theories and hypotheses hang in their apartment and have different information on them in each episode.

The show was criticised very early on for their presumed use of canned laughter, though the show is taped in front of a live studio audience.^[4]

The title of the show is a double entendre, both describing the scientific theory of the big bang that the geniuses portrayed in the show often discuss and the term 'bang', sexual slang for 'to have sex with', describing the presumably one-sided sexual tension between one genius and beautiful girl with whom he falls in love.

[edit] Theme Song

The band Barenaked Ladies sing the theme song, which describes the progress the human race has made since the dawn of time. During the theme, visual illustrations of such progress are shown and as the last line of the theme is played, it cuts to a scene of Leonard, Sheldon, Howard Wolowitz, and Rajesh Koothrappali gathered around Penny while they eat take-out, with the title card superimposed over them.

On October 9, 2007 a full version of the song 1 minute 45 seconds in length by Barenaked Ladies was released.

[edit] Characters

[edit] Leonard Hofstadter, Ph.D

Leonard is a physicist from Caltech that rooms with Sheldon in their rundown apartment building, in which the elevator always seems to be out of order. He keeps a whiteboard in their living room on which he works on theoretical physics. While Sheldon's genius seems to be focused primarily in math and science, Leonard is insinuated to be proficient in literature and history as well as the sciences; he is able to solve a woman's crossword puzzle in seconds, the answers being mostly literature based, e.g Vladimir Nabokov. It is also insinuated that Leonard's IQ is not as high as Sheldon's; Sheldon scoffs at Leonard's white board theories as common enough to be "scribbled on the wall of every men's room at MIT". Leonard feels at home with his genius colleagues, but wants more socially. He is reluctant to let Penny know about his recreational activities (such as Klingon Boggle) and is probably reluctant to even partake in such activities in the first place, because although he secretly likes them, he doesn't like to be seen as a nerd. He also dislikes his friends' habit of rattling off different trivial facts, something to which all the other geniuses enjoy both listening and participating. Sweet but sarcastic, Leonard also seems to be the most well-adjusted one of the group; he is quick to try new things apart from his nerd friends and, between he and Sheldon, is the only who feels that he "should do something" when Penny begins to recount her recent break up. Despite his attempts to reject his nerd status, he certainly is one, with his Star Wars hygiene products and his ability to blurt out the wrong things in front of women, such as when he's trying to invite Penny to lunch and mentions that curry is a natural laxative. He falls head over heels for Penny within seconds of spotting her and while at first it seems like lust rather than love, by the end of the pilot episode he has already announced to Sheldon, "our babies will be smart and beautiful." Sheldon, however, is quick to add, "not to mention imaginary."

• Leonard wants to win a Nobel prize someday (though Sheldon doubts he'll ever achieve it).
• Leonard, as a physicist, is skeptical of string theory.
• Leonard has a grandmother with Alzheimer's.
• Leonard wears boxer shorts.
• Leonard cannot process corn and is lactose intolerant.
• Leonard has Darth Vader shampoo and Luke Skywalker conditioner.
• Leonard is a huge Superman fan, so much so that he owns all of the Superman films and more than 2600 Superman comics.
• Leonard once dated a, presumably Korean, girl named Joyce Kim. He claims to have broken up with her, but Sheldon reveals that the end of their relationship was because she actually defected to North Korea.
• Leonard is commonly seen wearing "Geek Ware" (clothes that are scientifically inspired) such as, in episode 103 where he can be seen wearing a shirt with a "Paradox" monocle.
• Leonard and Sheldon have a combined IQ of 360, making the average IQ 180.
• Leonard and Sheldon own Dell XPS computers.
• Leonard can play the cello.
• Leonard's middle name is Leakey.
• Leonard and Sheldon are named after actor and producer Sheldon Leonard.^[5]

[edit] Sheldon Cooper, Ph.D

Sheldon is Leonard's best friend, roommate, and colleague, who appears to have OCD, beginning with suspicion of it in episode 102. He's a physicist like Leonard and also keeps a white board in the living room for scientific theories. Unlike Leonard, he embraces his genius fully and doesn't mind sharing details of his life that Leonard finds embarrassing, such as their main weekend activity being Klingon Boggle tournaments until 1 AM. It's insinuated that Sheldon's genius is concentrated fully on science and that his IQ is higher than Leonard's; he tends to question Leonard's theories and has a larger background full of behavior common to child prodigies. When he was a child, he conducted experiments involving the height of stairs and deduced that if a step on a staircase is 2 millimeters off or more, a person is always likely to trip (this resulted in his father breaking his clavicle). At age 14, he dabbled in lasers and this resulted in his being sent to boarding school; it is heavily implied in a CBS promotional clip that the government took Sheldon's laser away and hushed the college professor who witnessed the experiment. Sheldon graduated high school very early; he asks Penny, in complete disbelief, "It took you four years to get through high school?!" He told Penny he was eleven years old when he was going to college. Sheldon also has common qualities associated with being a prodigy, such as an inflated ego, social ineptness, and an inability to identify emotionally with others. He fails to understand not only the simplest sarcastic jokes made by Leonard, but also regards Penny's sadness over her break up with blatant disgust. That isn't to say Sheldon doesn't have a conscience; he's simply more likely to do what's scientifically ethical (not donate to a "high IQ sperm bank" because his sperm won't guarantee high IQ offspring) rather than morally and socially ethical (break into Penny's home to organize her things). Sheldon also remains un-swayed by Penny's beauty. He also has symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder and Asperger syndrome; when he finds Penny's apartment messy, he sneaks in during the night and cleans it up because he can't stand being in the same hallway with something so disastrous. Also, he refuses to sit anywhere other than his designated spot on the couch. He is calculating and cynical, believing that Leonard is only setting himself up for disappointment as he continues to crush on Penny.

• Sheldon, according to Leonard, masturbates quite often.
• Sheldon has two siblings, one of whom is a sister who hostesses at Fuddrucker's.
• Sheldon loves to eat at Big Boy (restaurant), an American restaurant chain
• Sheldon is interested in string theory.
• Sheldon has 212 friends on Myspace.
• Sheldon wears briefs.
• Sheldon is allergic to bees and cats, and also has asthma.
• Sheldon loves Battlestar Galactica.
• Sheldon has a Master's degree and two Ph.Ds.
• Sheldon sometimes wears vintage t-shirts adorned with superhero logos, among them the Flash and Superman.
• Sheldon and Leonard have a combined IQ of 360, making the average IQ 180.
• Leonard and Sheldon own Dell XPS computers.
• Sheldon and all of his friends play World of Warcraft seen in episode 2, Sheldon is a rogue night elf

[edit] Penny

Penny is Leonard and Sheldon's new neighbor across the hallway and is, as described by Wolowitz, a "cheesecake-scented goddess". This description is fairly accurate, considering Penny works for minimum wage at the local Cheesecake Factory. She is also writing a movie about a girl from Lincoln, Nebraska, who travels to Los Angeles to become an actress but ends up working at the Cheesecake Factory instead. When Leonard asks if the movie is autobiographical, she replies no because she's from Omaha, Nebraska. The reason Penny is in the apartment building in the first place is because she recently split with her boyfriend of four years, Kurt, and was thrown out of their place. She says she still loves him but wants custody of their television set. The shower in her apartment is currently broken, much to Leonard and Sheldon's friends' delight (she now uses Leonard and Sheldon's shower and tends to wear nothing but a towel). She is very aware of her neighbors' nerd status but remains friends with them anyway, revealing her kindly nature. She's either ignorant of or all too aware of her effect on the boys, because within minutes of meeting them, she asks Leonard to retrieve her television set from ex-boyfriend's apartment, which he immediately sets out to do. It is not known if Penny returns Leonard's affections. She is messy and disorganized but appears to like it that way. Whenever Penny goes on a rebound relationship, she picks up an attractive man and then has 36 hours of meaningless sex over the course of a weekend; afterward, the relationship deteriorates.

• Penny is a Sagittarius but most people think that she's a water sign.
• Leonard and Sheldon's previous neighbor before Penny was a 200 pound transvestite named Louis/Louise with a skin condition.
• Penny claims to be a vegetarian but will eat fish and "...the occasional steak. I love steak!"
• Penny grew up on a farm and rebuilt an entire tractor engine by herself before she was 12.
• Penny wears vanilla perfume or smells of vanilla cheesecake because she works at The Cheesecake Factory
• Penny has a sister, who once shot her husband.

[edit] Supporting Cast

[edit] Howard Wolowitz

Wolowitz is an engineer who often hangs out at Leonard and Sheldon's apartment. He designed a satellite that is currently circling Jupiter's orbit taking high-res photos. He doesn't show signs of discontentment like Leonard, but rather is confident enough to try to woo Penny with his knowledge of languages, of which he knows six. Most of the languages were revealed in only the matter of one episode; in revealed order, they are English, French, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, and Farsi. Hitting on Penny in different tongues has become a regular occurrence; one which angers Leonard greatly. Wolowitz also knows Klingon because as Sheldon stated, they all played Klingon Boggle together.

• Wolowitz is a fan of Stephen Hawking and likes to watch tapes of his lectures, preferably ones prior to 1985, "before he became a 'creepy' computer voice" (Hawking lost his voice due to a tracheotomy performed after a life-threatening bout of pneumonia and now communicates using a voice synthesizer).
• Wolowitz spends a large amount of time playing MMORPGs like World of Warcraft; additionally, on one of these RPGs, he has a tiger companion named Buttons.
• Howard is allergic to peanuts.
• Howard owns an Alienware computer.
• Howard can beatbox.
• The character of Howard Wolowitz is named after the show's producer Bill Prady's former business partner, Howard Wolowitz in a software development company.

[edit] Rajesh "Raj" Koothrappali

Koothrappali is Wolowitz's best friend and yet another genius. He has a thick Indian accent and like Wolowitz, a love for Stephen Hawking. He approaches women in the exact opposite way of Wolowitz: he is so shy that he is unable to speak to them. When Penny speaks to him, he voices a lengthy inner monologue, sometimes reminiscing of his native customs and even singing.

• Raj owns a 17" Macbook Pro.
• Raj has thought about someday marrying an Indian woman so she can sing lullabies from his native land to his future children.

[edit] Secondary Cast

Kurt (Brian Wade) (two episodes): Kurt is Penny's ex-boyfriend. He is a typical intimidating bully and not only has custody of his and Penny's old apartment, but their old television set as well, which Penny wants very badly. When Leonard and Sheldon try to retrieve the TV for her, he takes their pants and forces them to go home pantsless. Penny left him because he cheated on her.

Leslie Winkle (Sara Gilbert) (two episodes): Leslie is another physicist who works in the same lab as Leonard. Leonard tries to ask her out because he considers her to be in his league (indeed, she is his female doppelganger, glasses and all) and they decide to kiss to see if they have chemistry. Leslie feels no sparks and no date occurs. Leslie usually doesn't shave her legs and only started to recently to imply sexual availability. Leslie plays in a string quartet and appears to be interested in Leonard.

Mary Cooper (Laurie Metcalf) (one episode): Mary is Sheldon's long suffering Southern mother. She has given birth to two children besides Sheldon, both apparently Sheldon's intellectual opposites. Mary herself isn't book smart but is very wise; she appears to be an extremely good mother and is the only one who has ever been able to control Sheldon (besides the government). Sheldon's father has long since passed on and he is mentioned as being incredibly foolish. His death may have resulted from one of Sheldon's dangerous childhood experiments, of which he usually bore the brunt; of course, this is merely speculation.

[edit] Episodes

Further information: List of The Big Bang Theory Episodes

[edit] U.S. Television Ratings

[edit] Standard Ratings

In the following summary, "rating" is the percentage of all households with televisions that tuned to the show, and "share" is the percentage of all televisions in use at that time that are tuned in. "18-49" is the percentage of all adults aged 18-49 tuned into the show. "Viewers" are the amount of viewers, in million, watching at the time. "Rank" how well the show did compared to other TV shows aired that week.

Unless otherwise cited, the overnight rating, share, 18-49 and viewing information come from Your Entertainment Now.^[6] The weekly ranks come from The Programming Insider.^[7]

[edit] Ratings Competition

Further information: Mondays in the 2007-08 Television Season

The Big Bang Theory currently airs against fellow freshmen shows Chuck on NBC and Aliens in America on The CW. It also airs against Prison Break on FOX and the top rated show on ABC^[8], Dancing with the Stars.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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The Big Bang Theory (TV series)

• CBS.com - official site
• Fan Site
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