The Big Bang Theory just keeps getting bigger. With the Season 4 additions of Melissa Rauch and Mayim Blalik, the series added a solid dose of girl power — and comedy last year. The growing cast and exec producers Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady and Steve Molaro spilled on Season 5 and some of their favorite moment from the lovable need series on Friday at Comic-Con.
Here are the 10 best moments.
1. The panel opened with the voice of Mrs. Wolowitz (Carol Ann Susi) welcoming everyone to “Comics-Con,” before introducing everyone – in character – to the panel, joking that the cast were “the people you really care about,” after screening a blooper reel from Season 4. It was a cute way to follow-up last year’s Barenaked Ladies performance to open the panel.
2. Jim Parsons doesn’t see the by-the-book Dr. Sheldon Cooper as lacking emotion and didn’t set out to play him as a lovable nerd without empathy. “I didn’t think about it in that way,” he said. “I didn’t try to make him sympathetic; I didn’t try to garner sympathy for him. I’ve always felt empathy for him and he’s always seemed very human to me. I never suspected from the moment I read his first line that he had any nefarious meaning or that he did lack emotion; this is simply his way of dealing. He’s a lovely fellow.”
3. Kaley Cuoco is Penny and shares one major quality with her on-screen alter-ego. “Penny digs nerds … and Kaley digs nerds, too!” she said with a smile.
4. Melissa Rauch (Bernadette) does a wicked impersonation of Mrs. Wolowitz and put Simon Helberg to shame when the on-screen duo both offered the jam-packed Ballroom 20 attendees a sample of their best Jewish mother voices. Said Rauch in her best guilt-riddled voice: “What is this Comic-Con you’re at? Is it some kind of sex convention I saw on 20/20?” Susi, watch your back!
5. Mayim Bialik (Amy) had no idea who Jim Parsons was until the night before her audition when she was told Big Bang Theory “needed a female Jim Parsons.” “I said, ‘Who’s Jim Parsons?’ I Googled him the night before my audition,” she confessed. The next day, she went in for the audition and the executive producers questioned whether she really had a doctorate in neuroscience. She did and the next day, she got the job. “I still get a tinge when a neuroscience term isn’t pronounced quite right,” she joked.
6. The cast had a number of favorite moments from Season 4, but among the cutest was when Helberg joked that he loved the wrestling scenes and wearing the unitard. “I liked putting on the unitard, which I had never done,” Helberg confessed, adding that he most enjoyed his sweetness with Bernadette. “I’ve enjoyed working with Melissa and proposing and being all sweet,” he said. “I’m so sweet!” To which Kunal Nayyar immediately started chanting, “Make out!”
7. Parsons is continuing to learn from the show – and Sheldon – offering that the science is still a work in progress. “I don’t know what [Sheldon] is talking about a lot of the time,” he said. “That’s what Mayim is for. There’s little to nothing that anybody is able to phone in; there’s some version of challenge to every episode for everybody.”
8. The Season 4 cliffhanger with Raj and Penny waking up in bed after a night together will be resolved, exec producer Prady said. “There will be a resolution and we think whichever way you came down on which way it happened, you’ll be happy with how it works out,” he offered. When Lorre pushed him for more details, Prady was quick to respond that he and Molaro “worked on that for a while.”
9. When a fan with a question was spotted wearing a Howard costume, Helberg joked, “It’s like looking into an Asian mirror!”
10. Kiss and tell: Johnny Galecki’s first on-screen kiss was with Bialik. Say it with me, “Awww.” Later, when a fan pointed out that Sheldon’s first kiss wasn’t with Amy but with Leonard’s mom instead. Prady noted that there were two sides in the writers’ room having the debate and noted that Molaro warned Prady and Lorre that fans at Comic-Con would ask. Added Parsons to settle the debate: “I personally as an actor count both of them. I’m honored as an actor to have done, I mean, kissed both of them.”
Season 5 of The Big Bang Theory premieres in September.
Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com
Twitter: @Snoodit
