The Big Bang Theory is an American Sitcom which is based on four scientists and one girl and their day-to-day lives. This show is a production of Chuck Lorry, Bill Prady and Steven Molaro. It was released on 24th September 2007, and it completed it’s 12 seasons on 16th May 2019 with 279 episodes. The five main characters of the show are Sheldon Cooper, played by Jim Parsons, Leonard Hofstader, played by Johnny Galecki, Penny, played by Kaley Cuoco, Raj Kothrapalli played by Kunal Nayyar and Howard Wolowitz played by Simon Helberg.
Sheldon and Leonard, who are physicists, are roommates and are famous for their role as socially awkward and geeky personalities. They work at Caltech along with their friends, Raj Kothrapalli, who is an astrophysicist and Howard Wolowitz, who is an aerospace engineer. Among all the geeks, there comes a beautiful struggling actress, Penny, who lives next-door to Sheldon and Leonard.
Some supporting roles were also included over time such as the arrival of Sheldon’s Girlfriend Amy Farrah Fowler who is a neuroscientist and is played by Mayim Bialik, Howard’s Girlfriend Bernadette Rostenkowski who is a microbiologist and is represented by Melissa Rauch, Stuart Bloom, a comic book store owner played by Kevin Sussman. This show is a production of Warner Bros.
Television and Chuck Lorre Productions and was filmed in front of a live audience. ‘Young Sheldon’ is a prequel series of this show that showcases the childhood of Sheldon and was premiered in 2012 and airs on CBS.
Production
The show first aired his pilot episode in front of a test audience where they introduced Sheldon, Leonard, Katie, who plays the role of a strong woman who is weak at heart and Gilda, a friend of Leonard and Sheldon and also a physicist. The test audience liked only Sheldon and Leonard’s character and also disapproved of the theme song “She Blinded Me with Science.” The second pilot was released on 24th September 2007 and hired Kaley Cuoco to replace Katie and play the role of Penny and was filmed in front of a live audience.
People liked this pilot and were excited about the rest of the show, but the production of the show came to a halt when there was a strike of the writers called the Writers Guild of America Strike on 6th November 2007. The show started it’s production on 17th March 2008, but unfortunately, they could release only 17 episodes for the first season. The show premiered its second season on 22nd September 2008.
The show got immense success and was soon built a large fan-base. Their ratings helped them to get a two-year renewal in 2009, and so they started to film for three more seasons in 2011, a three-year renovation in 2014 which enabled them to shoot three more seasons and also another two renewal in 2017 which allows them to reach their total of 12 seasons.
The famous theme song of the show, “The Big Bang Theory Anthem,” was written and record by Barenaked Ladies, a Canadian rock band. They described the making of the universe and the progress the man-kind did through all these years in that song. The song was initially titled “ History of Everything,” but was later changed to its current name, and the full version of the song was released on 9th October 2007.
Cast and Characters
- Leonard Hofstader: Johhny Galecki plays this role. Leonard is a physicist in Caltech and has an IQ of 173. He is a proper nerd who loves playing video games, like Dungeons and Dragons, enjoys reading comic books. He has issues with his mother, as his mother, who is a psychologist, doesn’t appreciate his success and fails to give him motherly love. He falls in love with Penny when she came to introduce herself as the next-door neighbour, but he fears that she will reject him as he feels that she is out of his league. All of these changes when Penny also confessed her love for him, and they eventually got married.
- Sheldon Cooper: Jim Parsons plays this role. Sheldon belonged from Texas and was a child prodigy. He belongs to a Christian family is the smartest of all, with an IQ of 187. He went to college at the age of 11 and earned a PhD at 16. He also works at Caltech and is a theoretical physicist. He is the roommate of Leonard and is very arrogant. He has a love for trains and always wants things his way. He is very weird and is very proud of his intelligence. His friends thought he could never get into a relationship because of his annoying and alien-like personality. But, this changed when he met Amy Farrah Fowler through some online dating sites, and they eventually got married.
- Penny: Played by Kaley Coco, Penny works as a waiter in the Cheesecake Factory to make her ends meet and came from Nebraska to fulfill her dreams of becoming an actress. She goes to many auditions but fails in them. Finally, she gave up on her dreams of becoming an actress and became a pharmaceutical sales representative. Penny is the best door neighbor of Leonard and Sheldon and became friends with them and hang out with them along with Raj, Howard, Bernadette, and Amy. She later married Leonard.
- Howard Wolowitz: He is an aerospace engineer and is played by Simon Helberg. He is Jewish and still lives with his mother. He sees himself as a womanizer and is always down to party. Sheldon always picks on him for not holding a doctorate like the rest. He later married Bernadette and also had a kid with her.
- Raj Kothrapalli: Kunal Nayyar plays him, and he came from India to work at Caltech as a particle astrophysicist. He is most introverted of them all and initially needed to be drunk to talk to women. He and Howard are excellent friends, and they often behave like couples, with Raj being the lady of the relationship. Raj’s fear of talking to women ended when he spoke to Penny without drinking alcohol and started dating Emily.
These were the main cast of the show. Some of the supporting characters are Amy Farrah Fowler, Sheldon’s girlfriend, Bernadette Rostenkowski, Howard’s girlfriend, and Stuart Bloom as the comic book store owner. Stephen Hawking, the famous cosmologist, also appeared in this show in many episodes.
Net Worth Of Big Bang Theory Cast in 2024
As of December 2024, Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, and Jim parsons initially got $350,000 per episode, which later changed to $900,000 per episode for three years. Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch initially were making $30,000 per episode, but it then changed to $200,000. Kunal Nayyar and Simon Helberg also get $900,000 per episode.
Big Bang Theory is an American sitcom that has won the heart of million because of the humorous plot and the interesting characters. The show has completed 12 seasons, with each season being more entertaining than the other. The show had earned a large fan-base whose hearts were broken when it ended. It is one of the classic shows and will always have a particular spot in everyone’s heart.