LEONARD HOFSTADTERLeonard Hofstadter and Shel-

don Cooper are both brilliant

physicists working at Cal Tech

in Pasadena, California. They

are colleagues, best friends

and roommates, although in

all capacities their relation-

ship is always tested primar-

ily by Sheldon’s regimented

and non-conventional ways.

They are also friends with

their Cal Tech colleagues, me-

chanical engineer Howard

Wolowitz and astrophysi-

cist Rajesh Koothrappali. The

foursome spend their time

working on their individual

work projects, playing video

games, watching science fi c-

tion movies or reading comic

books. As they are self-pro-

fessed nerds, all have little or

no luck with “popular” women.

When Penny, a pretty woman and

an aspiring actress original-

ly from Omaha, moves into the

apartment next to Leonard and

Sheldon’s, Leonard has another

aspiration in life, namely to

get Penny to be his girlfriend.

Leonard’s last name, Hofstad-

ter, refers to two well-known

scientists: Robert Hofstad-

ter, the 1961 Nobel Laureate in

Physics, and his son Douglas

Hofstadter, who researches

consciousness and cognition

and whose best-selling book

about philosophy, mathematics,

puzzles, art, and music, “Gödel,

Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden

Braid,” was published in 1979

and won him the 1980 Pulitzer

Prize for general nonfi ction.

Most of the time Leonard

has no glass in his glasses.

smart is the

new sexy

SHELDON COOPERDespite the fact that some

viewers take Sheldon’s behav-

ior, mannerisms, and social

skills as a sign that Sheldon

has Asperger’s Syndrome or

otherwise falls on the “Autism

spectrum,” the show-runners

have persistently denied in

many interviews that Shel-

don has Asperger’s or Autism.

Sheldon occasionally wears

t-shirts featuring a specif-

ic color with a correspond-

ing symbol. These shirts are

from the “Green Lantern”

comic book series, with each

color representing a differ-

ent corps of heroes or vil-

lains (e.g. Red Lanterns, Or-

ange Lanterns, etc). In the

comics, each color also rep-

resents a specifi c emotion:

Red=Anger, Orange=Greed,

Yellow=Fear, Green= Will-

power/Courage,Blue=Hope,

In d i g o = C o m pa s s i o n , a n d

Violet=Love. Not surpris-

ingly, the color of shirt

Sheldon wears in each scene

is often a clue to his mood.

Sheldon is from Tex-

as, as is Jim Parsons.

Sheldon verbally reveals his

and Leonard’s Pasadena apart-

ment 4A’s location as be-

ing 2311 Los Robles in “The

Desperation Emanation.”

Sheldon frequently wears T-

shirts with the characters

or symbols of Green Lan-

tern, the Flash, or Superman.

The two main characters

(Sheldon Cooper and Leon-

ard Hofstadter) are named

after Sheldon Leonard.

I’m not insane, my mother had

me tested.

HOWARD WOLOWITZThe character Howard Wolow-

itz is named after some-

one the creator worked

with at a computer company.

Howard sports a bowl-style

haircut and tends to wear loud,

vintage, 1960-era outfi ts, a V-

neck or tee shirt over a turtle-

neck or dickey which sport a

variety of pins, and always has

skinny pants. He is also fond

of unusual belt buckles, which

have included a Nintendo con-

troller, a silver Batman logo, a

45 RPM record insert, a Klin-

gon communicator and a buck-

le containing the superhero the

Flash. Like his friends, Howard

is a big fan of comic books and

superheroes. It is also quite

clear that his current and pre-

ferred personal transportation

is via his Vespa motor scooter.

Besides English, Howard is fl u-

ent in French, Mandarin, Rus-

sian, Arabic, and Persian and

the constructed language Klin-

gon from the Star Trek franchise.

Howard fancies himself a “la-

dies’ man” and he provides out-

rageous pick-up lines whenever

there is a female present. Howard

describes himself as a romantic,

although he usually comes across

as overtly sexual and, in the

words of Penny, disgusting. How-

ever, Penny’s animosity toward

Howard has mellowed somewhat

since Howard began dating Pen-

ny’s work colleague Bernadette.

Howard is allergic to peanuts,

and they pose a life-threatening

risk to him. He also mentioned

having transient idiopathic ar-

rhythmia. Howard is proud of

the fact that he has only 3% body

fat, which Raj notes makes him

look like a human chicken wing.

Love is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.

RAJesh KOOTHRAPPALIRaj is a friend of Sheldon and

Leonard’s. He likes girls but is

too shy to talk to them, except, as

it turns out, when he is drink-

ing. If he is sober, he is unable

to speak when a girl is in the

room. He sometimes talks to his

parents back home in India over

the Internet using a webcam.

Rajesh, who is normally called

Raj or by his last name Koo-

thrappali, is from New Delhi,

India, yet despises Indian food,

and his knowledge regarding

Indian culture and Hinduism is

disputed by Sheldon Cooper. He is

normally seen wearing a layered

combination of a shirt and a vest,

khakis, and a jacket. He wore a

red cap only in the pilot episode.

All of the guys enjoy play-

ing Halo every Wednesday at

Sheldon and Leonard’s apart-

ment and occasionally at Koo-

thrappali’s apartment. They also

play Age of Conan excessive-

ly, with Raj stating he has ex-

perienced gaming addiction.

Raj has a “nervous bladder”,

meaning he gets an urge to re-

lieve himself when under stress.

Raj likes Sex and the City, Archie

Comics, Grey’s Anatomy, The Good

Wife and Bridget Jones’ Diary.

Raj’s inability to talk to wom-

en except when drunk is based

on an old coworker of execu-

tive producer Bill Prady when he

worked at a computer company.

In general terms, Raj is more pa-

tient with Sheldon than Leonard,

Howard, or Penny; however Sheldon

is oblivious to this as he once cut him

off as a friend. Raj even stated that

the reason he puts up with Sheldon

was so that he could be reborn as a

“well-hung billionaire with wings”,

Namaste, white

people!