I would love to see him in a recurring role!
Maybe they could get him to do a guest speaker for the faculty at Caltech and it turns out that many of the professors love him and he lives happily ever after.
(if someone else upthread already said this and I missed it, sorry…)
I think Penny had to be ‘stupid’ here because the storyline was that Prof. Proton was jaded and sick of his job, but Sheldon and Leonard make him feel a little better. If he was actually teaching Penny some science he’d get his reassurance from that, and we wouldn’t need the (IMO) lovely pep talk the Sheldon & Leonard gave.
I can see Prof. Proton Jr. guesting on “Fun With Flags.”
For me it wasn’t so much her not knowing of potato clocks but the tone of awe with which she responded to it. Also, the followup question about solving the world’s energy problem was kind of dumb, though maybe the kind of thing you’d ask before giving something any thought.
The “can we plug your pacemaker into the potato question was really dumb” but I am willing to accept it being in the camp of going where the joke is.
Frankly, I can’t see him being willing to re-enter chez Cooper/Hofstadter until the elevator is repaired.
Maybe if they were to produce an episode at Amy Farrah Fowler’s apartment…
What am I saying; that setting would be completely wrong for “Fun With Flags.” It doesn’t have Sheldon’s SPOT, for starters
Come on guys, its was just a funny gag.
Penny = Dumb. Sometimes she’s dumber for the sake of a joke.
Like I said, I saw my 6th teacher plug a lightbulb into a potato and then the lightbulb lit up. I’m 31 years old now and that still seems impossible to me. I know it’s real, but my brain doesn’t want to believe it because electricity isn’t supposed to come from vegetables.
there likely would not have been a potato clock but a lemon clock on the original Prof. Proton show.
[snarky retort]
It’s not coming from the vegetables…
[/snarky retort]
I agree though. If someone just told you that you could stick things into a vegetable and get electricity (not the point of the experiment, AT ALL) someone like Penny and even smarter would be incredulous.
I do also agree with Silenus that it was a missed opportunity for Penny to show a little growth. Even a tiny smidge where she didn’t have to be the full idiot all the time would have been nice.
That’s what I like about this place. You don’t have to explain the jokes.
Not only IS he pretty old right now, the character is supposed to be - old frail and a bit bitter.
I sure hope he is recurring … as a reluctant father figure to Sheldon. He was great.
Dr. Proton: “I have a doctorate from Cornell…”
Sheldon: “Yeah, yeah. But did you bring your puppet?!”
It was nice to see Bob Newhart, but I don’t particularly want to see him again. He’s just too old, and he’s lost “it”. His performance seemed forced, and didn’t really work for me.
Don’t piss on my dreams of seeing him and Ellen DeGeneres play father and daughter.
I enjoyed it quite a bit. I was expecting Bob to play a bitter old man, but he put his own spin on it and made it more exasperated/tired. He was less bitter than resigned to his situation. His continued disbelief at Sheldon was played great. “I-I’m awake, right? This. . .this is happening?” Which, if you think about it, should be EVERYONE’S reaction to Sheldon.
I liked that. She seemed amazed by the potato-clock idea, but no one wanted to talk about it. She’d use any pretense to come back to it: Hey, it can power a clock, can it power a pacemaker?
Personally I thought it was absolutely awful, possibly the worst episode they’ve done. So much of it was built around a “woo hoo it is this Newhart chap”. The problem is, I’ve heard of the show (via here) but never seen it. I’m not even sure if they showed it in the UK. So I had absolutely no emotional connection to it, all I saw was an old guy that really couldn’t act.
I really hope the earlier poster is wrong in that there are rumours of a recurring role.
It was meant to give us another chance to see an aging comedy television icon. His performance wasn’t great, he’s quite old, and it’s a shame it wasn’t a better episode otherwise. I think everyone can admit, and still see that it was a worthwhile gesture to honor an industry great. I do hope to see him on again, but I do hope it will be done with a better episode.
BTW: The BBT cast and writers are pretty good, but they present easy stereotypical roles, it’s tough for an old man who once displayed the epitome of comic timing to really shine in those circumstances. The devious subtlety of his comedy is not going to work in a show that consists almost entirely of punchlines.
I felt the same way after seeing Groucho Marx live in 1972. It made me a little sad.
. . . unless AFF discovers a way of knocking up Sheldon.