I figured Debbie not being seen was in the same tradition as Charley of the Angels, Vera of Cheers, Carleton your doorman from Rhoda, and Maris from Frasier…
I always pictured Maris as Calista Flockhart. LoL!
Calista’s too heavy to play Maris.
There’s a material difference between that and:
True. Not caring and not knowing that it’s happening are two very different things.
But still, not caring is a real possibility.
For everybody. I don’t think geeks are more likely to not care than other people. Just as many stoners don’t care either, I bet.
I simply thought it was because they liked Carol Ann Susi and her voice, but she wasn’t nearly fat enough to play the character on-screen. If she had the role, they’d have had to think of something else for Howard to make fun of. It would also have been harder to avoid exploring his inappropriate relationship with her, and they wanted to work on other story lines instead. The never-seen meme was just fun to play with.
In one of the articles I read it said it was a sudden and aggressive cancer, so I think at the end of the last season they didn’t even know she was unwell.
By never showing Mrs. Wolowitz, they had more possibilities. She was like a living Noodle Incident.
