What’s truly amazing is that it’s taken six years for them to get to this point (longer, for just Sheldon and Leonard). I mean, how long would you put up with neighbors/roommates like that? :dubious:
Remember that Leonard’s mother is basically a female version of Sheldon. Arguablly she’s even worse than Sheldon, and Leonard still isn’t able to stand up to her. If Leonard’s moving past passive-aggression to actual aggression with Sheldon hopefully we’ll get to see him finally call his mother out on her behavior and what a horrible mother she is. Of course all Beverly would do is comment on how fascinating his breakdown is & try to get him to reenact it under a brain scanner. It’d be even funnier if Mary Cooper was there to watch.
Some people are doormats. Leonard, Howard and to some extent Raj are doormats. But Leonard is the uber-doormat on the show. His mother seriously screwed him up.
These are not normal people. They don’t behave normally. A show full of normal people isn’t going to work.
Personal economics on TV are typically screwed up. Penny is clearly living well beyond her means (à la most of the Friends), while the guys are apparently not being paid anywhere near a normal salary. (Sheldon’s finances are mixed on the show. He has to take in Leonard as a roommate. But it doesn’t cash his paychecks. Not sure how that all works.)
BTW, I like the proposal of Penny getting a job on an SF TV show. Leonard vs. her fan base would be an interesting conflict.
Howard has complained of being all but poverty-stricken as well. Truth be told, I imagine career scientists at CalTech aren’t doing too badly.
So I guess we will get to see Mrs. Walowitz then…
Schulz obviously didn’t draw her, and he said that he never would. Like most of the Star Trek crap that’s been floating on the surface for so many years, this “Heather” is non-canon.
(For a long time, I thought Schulz had broken his promise and that Peggy Jean was the little red-haired girl, which is certainly more the way I imagined her. This “Heather,” so far as I’m concerned, is a huge disappointment.)
Peggy Jean: http://c0389161.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/dyn/str_strip/252107.full.gif
Peggy Jean’s the one who always called him “Brownie Charles”, right?
Regarding Penny’s finances, I’m willing to assume that either her parents are subsidizing her or she has a trust fund from a grandmother or other relative. In other words, most of her expenses are taken care of. As for Sheldon and Leonard, I assume that they don’t need the roommate for financial reasons, but for friendship. I imagine that their jobs pay something like 100K per year. (BTW, do they just do research, or do they also teach classes? Because I’m trying to imagine undergrads in Sheldon Cooper’s classroom and it’s not a pretty picture.)
Sheldon has been called upon to teach at least once, and it was predictably a disaster (a lot of the students posted videos of his class on YouTube). Leonard has given at least one lecture that was okay, and Sheldon (again predictably) ruined the end of it.
I think it’s pretty clear their primary function at the university is to do research and serve as status symbols. They just don’t relate to students.
Leonard has said on at least one occasion that he lives with Sheldon because he loves the apartment and it’s (relatively, I’d assume) cheap. None of the guys seem to be hurting for money.
That’s a good question. In “The Cooper-Nowitzki Theorem” teaser, Leonard and Sheldon do presentations to incoming freshmen, and it’s implied that Leonard had to bribe Sheldon to do it. Which suggests that Sheldon, at least, does NOT handle classes. But I’ve never seen any of the guys actually TEACHING, that I can remember.
I think they mentioned that Raj is capable of giving lectures while sober; at least to mixed groups of men & women (an all-female audience would probally freak him out). Obviously we wouln’t be able to actually teach a class, unless CalTech was willing to assign him male TAs to take care of all the one on one student interaction.
I didn’t care for this episode. Sheldon seemed off. He’s not normally mean without provocation like that, and he’d generally observe spoiler courtesies, I think. Hated the B plot with Raj/Howard’s Mother. That just seemed uncomfortably forced.
From the “stuff I’d like to see” department, I vote for a road trip to Burning Man. Maybe let Raj meet some mystic woman that cures his can’t talk to women thing. And let Sheldon and Amy finally knock boots in an RV while the rest of the group is out experiencing the scene or whatever.
No one’s going to be that guy? Fine, I’ll be that guy.
The finances of the Friends made total sense within the show’s world and within the real world.
- Chandler was a bigwig executive that made a good salary. He was basically subsidizing Joey for years.
- Towards the end of the show, Joey got a regular acting gig on Days of Our Lives again, which allowed him to afford to live in their apartment alone.
- Monica and Rachel lived in Monica’s grandmother’s apartment, which was rent-controlled for the past 50 years.
- Ross had a good job at the museum and, later, at the university and never hurt for money.
- Phoebe lived in the boonies and paid much less in rent than the rest of the gang.
Sheldon once told Penny that he doesn’t need a roommate for monetary reasons, but he likes the companionship and he needs rides.
From The Dumpling Paradox:
“Sheldon: Well first, we don’t have house guests, frankly if I could afford the rent I’d ask you to leave.”
Plus several other similar lines by both Sheldon and Leonard.
Their roommateness is a combination of financial and psychological dependence. If Leonard was the type who wasn’t willing to put up with Sheldon’s demands, he would have moved out long before Penny moved into the building. And there’d be no show.
As to the Friends: Chandler was the only one who really had money in the long term. Rachel came from money but was cut off and was terrible at most jobs she held. No way could she afford even half of a rent controlled apartment most of the time. Monica was frequently in dire financial straights. E.g., when she worked as a waitress in a theme restaurant with wig and skates. Joey was a barely employed actor for a large chunk of the show, and the money as a secondary actor in DOOL isn’t all that great. In later years Ross was a part-time instructor at the university. I can tell you from working in the business, that part timers are paid very, very poorly. That leaves Phoebe as the only one whose living conditions are somewhat realistically portrayed given her low income. But even then she couldn’t really afford the apartment she had.
Phoebe did live with Monica for a while (before the show started) but left because she had to live in a land where people can spill.
it’s a comedy.
did Lucy need most of the jobs she got so that she could do her physical comedy?
you can hang a joke on a very slim thread.
At other times Sheldon mentions he can afford it by himself.
From The Financial Permeability:
Sheldon: My expenses account for 46.9% of my after-tax income. The rest is divvied up between a small savings account, this deceptive container of peanut brittle and the hollowed-out buttocks of a superhero action figure who shall remain nameless for his own protection. Or her own protection. Take some.
Even if he were making scale, as a regular cast member, he’d be entitled to over $100,000 a year. I doubt Joey was ever hurting for money after that.
This episode was a complete clunker for me. Missed on just about every cylinder.
As far as finances go, if they lived in LA or San Francisco, it would explain their need to have a roommate. But I agree that they could afford to live on their own. I also agree that Penny would be flat broke just on her clothes and shoes.
Apparently Bernadette is rolling in the dough, though!