The boys of Big Bang Theory

I've tried watching this a couple times, but the laugh track just drives me nuts. I did think it was sweet how thrilled Kaley Cuoco was when Sheldon won the People's Choice Award. I was happy for them.

this is harder than it would've been a year or two ago mainly because the show's been a little stale lately and i don't much care for any of them at the moment. i think they've each been the funniest at different times, though, although Wolowitz as a character is always pretty zzz to me.

a lot of episodes where Cuoco is the funniest person in the cast, though, might've voted for her if she was an option

I tried watching this a few times and it has got to be one of the worst shows on television. It's like someone who has never once set foot on a college campus mocking their really inaccurate lowest-common-denominaory idea of what grad school might be like.

It's very rare that I sit through multiple episodes of any sitcom without smiling at at least one "funny part"

i think the guy who plays sheldon is pretty amazing, not just in terms of being the funniest but as an acting feat

i've seen some of this. is the guy who plays The Horny Jew the junior rabbi from a serious man? i guess i could look that up. i'll do that right now. ok, it is. that's funny!

yeah he's totally a beast and deserves to be the one on this show winning awards and stuff. i think they've kinda taken Sheldon as a character to extremes where now it's all diminishing returns, though.

yeah Wolowitz was in A Serious Man

Howard singing "I Got You Babe" in the love car was the best part of this week's episode :)

yeah the show is treading water at this point. i like that theyre trying to introduce new characters but its getting increasingly unbelievable that penny doesnt have any friends who arent huge nerds, and blossom is fine but shes just doing "female sheldon" and not even as well as real sheldon.

would like to see more of pennys boyfriend "zach" he made me lol several times

otm, that dude is funny and adding more regulars is def a good look

I hate that they keep trying to make Wolowitz's mom happen as a Vera/Maris/Wilson/Carlton-style unseen character running gag

Sheldon is the obvious answer but he's the funniest character by such a large margin.

i've seen some of this. is the guy who plays The Horny Jew the junior rabbi from a serious man? i guess i could look that up. i'll do that right now. ok, it is. that's funny!

― difficult listening hour, Sunday, January 23, 2011 9:29 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

never seen the show, voted for this guy bc of serious man

xp
Sheldon is the annoyingest which often means that he is the unfunniest

For me the obvious answer is Raj or Howard

I disagree, he's usually annoying in a funny way.

xpost

Sheldon is the Kramer or Barney Stinson or whatever of this show and it's always a delicate balance to not go too annoying or cartoony or whatever with that kind of character

His shtick makes a million plain "one-liners" possible. I put one-liners in quotations because nerd talk isn't that funny no matter how you dress it up

And it is cartoony. Barney is much more believable

i think almost everyone in this basically awful show is way better than they should be, particularly the main guy whom i think max is right about, and that's why i watched a whole season of it and would watch another one if you put it in front of me. 100% true that the laugh track is ghastly though. like i know it's tedious to say "i can't watch shows with laugh tracks", but there's seinfeld and cheers and frasier and then there's this, where someone in the booth has O.D.ed and slumped forward onto the button.

the stuff online about how parents of autistic kids find Sheldon so familiar and feel like the writers must be depicting him as autistic on purpose is pretty freaky and makes me look at the character in a totally different light

the writers must be depicting him as autistic on purpose is pretty freaky and makes me look at the character in a totally different light

Er, maybe not fully autistic, but he's obviously supposed a bit aspergers at least... Surely that's integral to the character.

voted for leonard as penny proxy

might've been sheldon once but they went way too fonzie w/ him

My definitive ranking: Sheldon>Penny>Leonard>Raj>Howard

I agree that the latest series has been a bit shit, but there have still been some funny Sheldon bits, particularly if they involve Penny.

It's like someone who has never once set foot on a college campus mocking their really inaccurate lowest-common-denominaory idea of what grad school might be like.

They're full-fledged faculty though, not grad students, right?

Only watched the first few seasons and this thread makes me think I should keep it that way...

im invested enough in the characters that i wont stop watching till leonard and penny are together for good

the show's depiction of the arrested development of grown up nerds with degrees and jobs in academia is a little broad but imo not THAT off-base

avoided watching for the longest time (2 1/2 men connection), started watching due to coworker recommends and it being on after himym (cf how i started watching cougar town), still watching now despite move to a night when i have plenty to watch already. this close to dropping himym though. there is something to be said for this kind of mediocre but well-cast sitcom, that 70s show had a similar appeal for me also though i think big bang has much better jokes.

they haven't gotten the bad fashion of scientists in academia quite down imo though such a thing might not be ready for prime time.

No, it makes perfect sense to me.

xpost to some dude

So doesn't top first four seasons of That 70s Show though, at least from what I've seen.

I mainly like the fact that there are quite a lot of jokes about obscure-ish comic continuity that I get.

Like at its best it's not a demolition of nerd culture, but rather for nerds by nerds.

i mean honestly there are some decent jokes about physics. i'm always right on the cusp of active dislike for this show; it keeps nudging me back.

ive never really thought much of the show no offense to anyone who likes it

the humor on this show is def p broad, but fuiud this show was amazing last year. feel like it's treading water a bit now, but Sheldon is an all time tv character imo.

also what fucking decade is this where ppl are complaining about a laugh track. CBS is pretty much the only network using this shit, and r u really that peeved abt pausing two seconds between well executed nerd jokes??

Which one was David on Roseanne? I'm honoring him for his past work.

would vote Wil Wheaton just to spite Sheldon

So doesn't top first four seasons of That 70s Show though, at least from what I've seen.

That's "from what I've seen" of BBT btw. Obviously I know the first four seasons of That 70s Show.

Man, talk about overdoing laugh tracks - I'd say that about 20% of those 70s Show laugh lines were genuinely funny (or at least funny on paper.)

This is a rather unfair poll because Sheldon is set up in the show to blow everyone out of the water, which he does easily thanks to some terrific acting.

Leonard is a rather under rated character. Raj is...Raj. They really need to freshen up Howard even more, somehow.

Sheldon gets my vote without a second thought, but Raj is the most underrated character IMO.

It's like someone who has never once set foot on a college campus mocking their really inaccurate lowest-common-denominaory idea of what grad school might be like.

There are way too many well-executed academia-related jokes for this to be true, I think the writers do a pretty good balancing act between capturing the ridiculousness of actual academia, and making jokes that reflect what non-academics *think* academia is like. Along the lines of the latter, my favourite running gag is how they always refer to each other in public as "Dr."

And how they brag about their Ph.D.'s and make fun of people who don't have one (e.g. Howard)

I think the laugh track problem is made worse by the fact that they have a real audience also. So while the actors wait around for laughs, if they don't come they leave a too big gap for the laugh track to fill. Or am I talking crap? Anyway I can mostly ignore it after a couple of minutes.

I vote Sheldon obv. Raj would've won "hottest" for sure.

raj is funniest and cutest.

Raj has too many 'ho ho I am ethnic' jokes.

have to admit that i laughed hard at his "got to get back on the whores" line - obvious humour, and i was overtired, but i really did laugh. reminded me of that moment in Spin City where the mayor threw his (eye)glasses into the fireplace (opa!)

I think the laugh track problem is made worse by the fact that they have a real audience also. So while the actors wait around for laughs, if they don't come they leave a too big gap for the laugh track to fill. Or am I talking crap? Anyway I can mostly ignore it after a couple of minutes.

I vote Sheldon obv. Raj would've won "hottest" for sure.

― specifically, the word talking (Ned Trifle II), Monday, January 24, 2011 5:49 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

they probably do supplement the audience laughter w/ a laugh track but i have a hard time imagining it's as sinister or conspicuous as you seem to think it is.

David on Roseanne is Leonard btw. i think i'm voting for him.

audience laughter seems real enough, i'm sure its supplemented w/ a lafftrack but it doesn't seem nearly as conspicuous or offputting to me as the lafftrack on himym or (all time most weird and awkward) early episodes of sports night. i remember reading some sitcom writer (i am guessing ken levine) saying that writing for trad 3 camera sitcom is much much harder than writing for single camera sitcom. can totally believe this. as much as it might seem the trad 3 cam sitcom is a dying species it seems to be still the huge ratings winner, to the extent that i think the format has to be a factor. my fave network comedies of the past decade have been overwhelmingly single cam sitcoms but the only single cam sitcom i can think of that's a true ratings smash is modern family, the only other single cam sitcoms i can think of that could even be called hit shows are malcolm in the middle, and to an increasingly less extent cougar town, the office (us), scrubs, and the bernie mac show. it's weird that this format that clearly grew out of 'stage a play and film it' when that stagey format would make sense and be comfortable for the audience still has such a toehold even though only a tiny percentage of the present day audience has ever seen a play (or at least ever seen a play and enjoyed it).

actually one other single cam sitcom (though it doesn't feel that way to me somehow, don't know why) that was a huge ratings smash: m*a*s*h. which sometimes had a lafftrack and sometimes didn't iirc.

been rewatching Sports Night this week and yeah the laugh track on the first season of that is the WORST. i don't mind it on HIMYM, though, i think maybe because it feels stagey enough in its performances and camera work that it's pretty easy to forget there's not really an audience there sometimes.

i never notice laugh tracks honestly

this show is funny

i have seen about four episodes. generally meh. there was a great joke last time i saw an episode where two of the guys were dressed as goths and someone said "did the kiss army repeal 'don't ask don't tell'?", which felt like it was from 30 rock or some other better show.

the physics/academia jokes on this show are sometimes really good, and it is pretty well loved by the academic science community afaict. i loved this joke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WPgDO3BAXM

Raj has too many 'ho ho I am ethnic' jokes.

― Rejoice that you weren't eaten (chap), Monday, January 24, 2011 12:09 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

totally. reminds me of apu in the simpsons. lol usa.

It's like someone who has never once set foot on a college campus mocking their really inaccurate lowest-common-denominaory idea of what grad school might be like.

There are way too many well-executed academia-related jokes for this to be true, I think the writers do a pretty good balancing act between capturing the ridiculousness of actual academia, and making jokes that reflect what non-academics *think* academia is like.

cosign that

i guess they vet all their physics joeks with a real science research dude

i don't think the science the jokes are really about science per se, and are much more often about the culture of science or academia or playing with the stereotypes

this is unlike xkcd, where the science jokes are basically acknowledgments that some science thing or other exists, and that's the whole joke.

this shit is thousands of times funnier and less creepy than xkcd

Probably the funniest episode I've seen involves Sheldon creating a ludicrously elaborate lie so him and Leonard don't have to do something or other with Penny, which ends up with him hiring a terrible actor to play his fictitious drug-addicted cousin. I think it's quite an early one.

yeah that was great

I don't watch this show but this thread reminds me of my old "That's Not A Laugh Track, It's an Audience and You're In It" tag. My devotion for cheesy old school sitcoms knows no bounds. I absolutely hate the majority of comedies currently on television because they lack the theatricality and fine wardrobes of traditional sitcoms. As much as I love Neil Patrick Harris, I'm rather tired of him being the only funny man on TV that wears a bespoke suit. I need VARIETY!

Massive fan, which is getting me through the weaknesses of Season Four. If I hadn't watched Seasons One to Three in their entirety, then I'd be wondering what all the fuss was about. It helps that I know a Sheldon-type and a Penny-type, who also recognise themselves and each other, and who find it hilarious. (The show is all about Sheldon and Penny for me. Loved Penny's just-detectable corpsing in earlier episodes - they used to leave similar stuff in episodes of Third Rock From The Sun.) Don't like the way they're currently reducing Raj to banal ninny-status.

Probably the funniest episode I've seen involves Sheldon creating a ludicrously elaborate lie so him and Leonard don't have to do something or other with Penny, which ends up with him hiring a terrible actor to play his fictitious drug-addicted cousin. I think it's quite an early one.

― Rejoice that you weren't eaten (chap), Monday, January 24, 2011 9:29 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

^otm

I'm srsly fighting the urge to make this post about my long-conflicted feelings about That 70s Show...

as far as poll goes, 'leonard as penny proxy' sounds like a good party to vote for...

Raj has too many 'ho ho I am ethnic' jokes.

― Rejoice that you weren't eaten (chap), Monday, January 24, 2011 12:09 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

totally. reminds me of apu in the simpsons. lol usa.

This is interesting. Raj never bothered me like Apu did in the early Simpsons. I wonder if it's just that I was younger when I watched The Simpsons...

I think Raj was the only one to actually get laid early on though, so he has got that going for him...

I think both Raj and Howard (and even Leonard) have been sidelined a bit recently - the producers obv think Sheldon is the big draw. There's been a few scenes with "The Girls Of Big Bang Theory" but not enough to make up for Kaley Cuoco's absence (which I know was to do with her breaking her foot or something) which I missed. The last episode (i've seen) with the app storyline made more use of The Boys so the detriment of Cuoco. Also Sheldon was on fire in that episode.

(sidenote: we did have a thread for this already - Hey, Nerdlinger,Sheldon Has Klingon Hearing! (Big Bang Theory Thread))

"The Girls" would be a trickier poll.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2010/12/07/girl-in-big-bang-theory_1.jpg

Plus Sara Gilbert and a Special Mention for Judy Greer as a horny physicist. And Raj's sister.

i think bernadette is hotter than penny but theyre always trying to play her as like ugly

Yeah, Bernadette in a walk. Kaley Cuoco has some decent comic timing, Melissa Rauch is funny.

Although I'd trade them all to get Sara Rue back.

http://images.buddytv.com/articles/Image/sara-rue.jpg

word. her rapport w/ Warburton is the best thing about Rules of Engagement lately, though.

i think bernadette is hotter than penny but theyre always trying to play her as like ugly

― max, Tuesday, January 25, 2011 9:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Nah, Penny is completely adorable.

how have they played Bernadette as ugly? i mean she's one of the nerd girls but she's the hot nerd girl who's out of Wolowitz's league.

just last week wolowitz was all "girls like you," like she wasnt banging enough for professor rick fox. and there have been other jokes that i cant remember now...

It seems more like she's being played as so dorky that she's not attractive to the average guy. They're not even doing the bad hairstyle thing.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

ugh Outsourced is gonna have a tough time doing anything as embarrassing as BBT's Bollywood routine tonight

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Yeah, Bollywood thing was cringy but the ep was funny around it. Last nights episode was hilarious tho I thought. Am loving Raunch and Bialik at the moment - they should do an all women episode. Also the return of Raj's hot sis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/nov/06/big-bang-theory-physics-boom

Why I'm posting this is just because you can go to the comments and read all the people complaining about the article as a conversation between Sheldon and Leonard.

i enjoy this, though it's far from perfect. The laugh track is an abomination for a start, not only is it totally over done but what's with the constant "ooh's" and "aah's"

the female sheldon character just bores me, particularly her droning voice.

Sheldon is a delight, the kramer of the show, a little is perfect. too much is grating.

I really like howard, love his fashion sense more than anything else in the show. Although his girlfriend has got it going on up top if you know what i mean.

I dunno, I always found female Sheldon pretty funny, even if most of the things she says isn't. Overall I think this show overplays the whole "smart guys make dumb jokes but use a lot of big, physics-y words", because despite knowing a lot of nerds IRL, I have never once encountered someone who talks like this. I do like the Wolowitz character though, especially his wardrobe. I kinda wish I owned some clothes like that. Agreed that his girlfriend is super cute, even if she sounds like a cartoon character. What's shocking to me is how Penny went from bombshell to pretty average-looking throughout the run of the show, though I'm thinking that maybe this was a producer decision?

They need to let Bernadette talk about her microbiology work more. Melissa Rauch sells that stuff like gangbusters.

basically I feel like they spend so much time reinforcing the characters awkwardness and, say, Raj's effeminate side, that it kind of ruins what should be really great characters

e.g.

Bernadette: Boy, I don't know if I could be friends with Howie if we broke up.
Howard: Why not?
Bernadette: I'm a very vengeful person.
Howard: Really?
Bernadette: With access to weaponized smallpox.

premise of Golden Girls: LOL GRANDMAS HAVE SEX
premise of this show: LOL NERDS HAVE SEX

also puzzled why title of series isn't Breaking a Chair Over Sheldon's Head, RIP

i wd like to retract my praise of this show from 9 years ago btw

The family watches an on-demand episode of this show with dinner every night, and the only reason i haven't excused myself is that they are in the middle of the final (12th!!!) season.