Howard and Raj could have been just as normal. They picked them to play clowns, they could have had either one be Sheldon’s roommate, best friend, or any other relationship.
That’s fine, enjoy the rest of the show. But the show is there because so many people would rather see Sheldon.
Ah, so it is the actor Johnny Galecki that bothers you, not the character Leonard per se? If so I’d still disagree ( I like Galecki ), but that’s really more a matter of taste. Structurally I think a Leonard-like character is absolutely necessary, but it is true any number of people could play him.
I’m neither fan nor foe of Galecki, but that’s not it. His character isn’t funny and barely necessary as compared to Sheldon. I think **Reluctant **is in a small minority in considering that Sheldon isn’t funny.
You could not have had a Sheldon character working as well without a Leonard character.
Gracie Allen was the source of the jokes in Burns and Allen but the material would not have worked without Burns setting them up and acting as our surrogate. Likewise Costello was the comedy and Abbot wasn’t very funny, but the comedy of Costello required Abbot’s frustration on our behalf. Tommy Smothers’schtick required Dick’s surrogacy for the audience to work.
Leonard’s formulaic role was not to be funny so often but to be that which allowed the clowns around him to be funny. Not quite a straight man but close.
The initial bit had the variation on the theme in that there were three clowns to one relative straight man but that another source of humor was the extreme insecurities of three of the guys in contrast to the clueless total lack of any self-doubt in one - hence one clown was special and the straight man’s shared with the remaining guys’ insecurity was part of the premise and source of the jokes.
The challenge for the show, and specifically for the Leonard character, is that it has been long running enough that they’ve had to evolve the characters and expand the team to keep it engaging. Wolowitz became less of a clown, Penny took on more straight man role, Bernadette also plays the function some, Raj’s partial mimeness and extreme anxiety got old and had to go, Amy has grown more to be the relative normal contrast to Sheldon too … there is not as much need for Leonard as relative straight man and his growth arc is just not as engaging as Sheldon’s. Keeping him as insecure after he’s gotten the woman of his dreams also wouldn’t work. Turning Stuart into the new source of extreme insecurity has not worked.
IMHO.
That’s kind of surprising to me. I’ve always felt Sheldon was there to generate reactions from the other characters, rather than being funny. He was essentially a neurotic bully, and what I liked most about Penny in the early seasons is her refusal to put up with his crap. Sheldon is Kramer without the charm.
On another note, when Bernie kicked Howard he was wondering about if they were in a good school district. He’s lived there his entire life, and went to all the schools their kid will be going to.
That’s not unusual. On many sitcoms, the funniest character is someone whom you would find annoying in real life. Think about Kramer from Seinfeld, for instance. Would you want him living next door to you? If sitcom characters were like real people, the shows would be boring and not very funny.
As for that, Howard is thirty-something. The schools may have changed since he was a child.
Or, more likely, the writers just didn’t think about that. 
Or, like me, he just never cared before (I’ve lived in the same house since 1999 and I have no idea what the school district here is like, since I don’t have kids.)
At first I thought neighbor lady was Carrie Fisher. (which would have made that whole character work better, she was not needed at all.)
I’m getting kind of sick of watching Penny just stand to the side with her lips pursed and spitting the occasional snide comment. I really feel like Cuoco got super bitter over the last few years and it’s bleeding through to the character.
Is it just me?
That was one hell of a stack of photo’s that Leonard had - I’m assuming they didn’t get anywhere near break even on them. Although I suppose Penny could get invited to more D-list cons in the future.
He went to his old grade school to give a speech about being an astronaut in one ep.
3 unrelated stories. Not enough time to do them all properly. The titular fetal part was particularly too short.
The inability of this show to regularly tie together the story threads is disappointing.
Sheldon and Amy’s dinner party. 2 of the 3 guests are inherently lame. The neighbor woman was particularly trite. As to Stewart: this wasn’t Stewart. Sure, it’d be nice if they made him like in his original form, but this went off in another direction.
The low-rent con: What’s with Leonard and the change machine? Sure, certain types of obsessive people get carried away with something. But Leonard would know it was lame, that giving out change at a con just isn’t done, etc. Put a big ol’ crater in that segment. And, as noted, by the end Penny wasn’t given anything interesting to do.
The fetal kick stuff. Just more of the same as they’ve been doing the whole pregnancy. Same jokes, different stage of pregnancy.
One can give a speech at a grade school without learning the school district’s current average SAT scores, graduation rates, and college attendance statistics. I’m pretty sure that’s what he meant by “good school district”, not whether the grade schoolers are shivving each other in line at the cafeteria.
Still doesn’t make much sense. He’s lived there his entire life. I’m assuming he reads the newspaper or on-line Pasadena news, if for nothing else than traffic. If there were major problems with the schools he would know them. Pasadena just isn’t that big. As an employee of JPL, he also would have encountered countless students touring the place or working as interns or gone out to schools for presentations. And didn’t they get tasked with trying to recruit girls into the sciences? At the very least they would know the graduation rates and STEM track figures. No, that whole sub-sub-plot was just bad writing. As was this entire episode. Still had a few laughs, but bad.
Yes, I see Howard sitting there each morning reading the Pasadena Times as Bernadette makes him breakfast. Or not.
In other words, until Bernadette got pregnant, I’ll bet he didn’t think at all about the local school system. I’m a single childless adult and I really don’t either. In short, I don’t agree with your objection to this very minor plot point.
The ‘good schools’ thing was just a joke. It’s a sitcom, there’s no reason to have that level of continuity. It’s the kind of thing Howard would say even if he knows the status of the local schools. And it wouldn’t be uncommon for an expectant parent to wonder about such things in the same circumstance. IOW, what is there to get so nit-picky about here?
But he’s just entered full-on crazy new parent mode. He’s not just worried about major problems, he’s worried about 97th vs 99th percentile of graduation rates. Look, I thought it was a stupid plotline too, but not because Howard should already know how good the schools currently are.