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PremiereSeptember 24

2007

The Big Bang Theory premieres

CBS launched a sitcom about two Pasadena physicists and their neighbor. It grew from a slow start into a 12-season hit with 279 episodes.

Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, and Simon Helberg seated at a panel table with microphones
Cast members of The Big Bang Theory at a Comic-Con panel in 2008, the year after the premiere. Image: Phil Plait from Rohnert Park, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

On September 24, 2007, CBS aired the first episode of The Big Bang Theory, a sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady. It followed Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), two physicists at the California Institute of Technology who share an apartment in Pasadena. Their lives change when Penny (Kaley Cuoco), a waitress and aspiring actress, moves in across the hall. Their friends Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) completed the group.

The show had a false start. A first pilot, made for the previous season, featured different female leads, and test audiences disliked one of them, though they responded well to Leonard and Sheldon. The creators kept those two characters, rebuilt the rest of the cast, and shot a second pilot. CBS ordered 13 episodes in May 2007, offered the pilot free on iTunes before broadcast, and in October extended the order to a full season. The Writers Guild of America strike later halted production, so the first season ended with only 17 episodes.

The series was filmed in front of a live audience. Physicist David Saltzberg of the University of California, Los Angeles, checked the scripts and supplied the equations that filled the whiteboards in Leonard and Sheldon’s apartment. The Canadian band Barenaked Ladies wrote the theme song, a rapid tour of the history of the universe.

Why it matters

Ratings were weak at first: the show ranked 68th in its first season. It climbed steadily after that, helped by a move to Thursday nights and by reruns in syndication. Several episodes drew more than 20 million viewers, and the show reached the top of the season rankings in its 11th year. It ran until May 16, 2019, for 12 seasons and 279 episodes. Parsons won the Emmy for lead actor in a comedy four times.

The sitcom put scientists, comic books, and fan culture at the center of a prime-time network comedy. It also started a franchise: the prequel Young Sheldon, its sequel Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, and the spinoff Stuart Fails to Save the Universe.

Did you know?

Leonard and Sheldon take their names from Sheldon Leonard, a longtime television producer, director, and actor.

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