Big Bang Just the Tip of the Geek-berg
The Big Bang Theory set is just like walking into your favorite comic book store, jam packed with little toys and geeky guys.
Really funny geeky guys.
Each week, viewers tune in to one of the top two comedies on the air,
The Big Bang Theory
. They chuckle at the scary smart antics of roommates Leonard and Sheldon and their geek squad Howard, the nerd who’s always trying to score with the ladies and Raj, who turns mute around women.
Jim Parsons plays the anti-social obsessive-compulsive Sheldon, who is tolerated by his friends, and his sweet roommate Leonard. Sheldon’s a character who could be widely hated because of his abrasiveness. Instead, Parsons makes him sort of loveable, although you’d never want him to be your friend.
“I just want to say that no one ever says they are just like Sheldon. Everyone knows someone just like Sheldon,” the droll Parson says. “(They’ll say) I’m the Leonard of the group. I will even go with Howard, but no one ever claims to be just like Sheldon. And neither do I.”
As Johnny Galecki, who plays Leonard, quips “The math on that just doesn’t work.”
Geeks and nerd list have been widely circulated, especially in the last few years. You’ve always got the perennial favorites like Steve Urkel, Screech, Barney Fife and even Velma Dinkley.
But that’s only the tip of the geek-berg. Try a few of these current TV characters:
10. Landry Clarke (Jesse Plemons),
Friday Night Lights> – The first season started with Landry and his best friend Matt Saracen as outcasts. While making the team may have boosted them a bit, Landry’s still the geeky guy trying to get the girl.
9. Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), 30 Rock – Liz lacks many of the social skills that define her as a geek. She’s a self-proclaimed nerd, who thought that people in high school disliked her because of it. Turned out that didn’t like her because she used her wit like nunchucks. And she’s obsessed with Star Wars. Enough said.
8. Lisa Simpson (Yeardley Smith) The Simpsons – Intelligent, plays the sax in the school band and is a vegetarian. If that’s not enough to tip you off, she also wears the same clothes year after year.
7. Larry Fleinhardt (Peter MacNicol) Numb3rs – Peter MacNicol excels at playing nerds, including his stint on Ally McBeal. But this is the ultimate geek role as the Cal Tech genius professor Larry, who is beyond awkward in any given social situation. Larry, like Leonard, wants more out of life than just the insular existence of your average nerd. So he has branched out by actually getting the pretty woman, at least for a short time, and becoming an astronaut (which allowed the actor to takes some time off for a role on 24).
6. Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness)
Criminal Minds
– She dropped out of Cal Tech (which is code for all things geeky and nerdy) to become a computer hacker (again, a career that screams g and n). She’s into massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MOORPG, and works as an online crime analyst for the FBI.
5. Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) Lost – This time traveling genius professor also has a problem with his social and interpersonal skills. Like, experimenting on a human, albeit willing, that resulted in tossing her into a coma. The professor has mommy issues and can’t quite connect with people, although he seems to want to give it a go.
4. Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette)
NCIS
– Goth girl often sleeps in a coffin, is covered in tats, yet she’s as sweet and good-natured as Pollyanna. And she’s also awesome in her job as a forensic scientist with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
3. Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi)
Chuck
– He’s the leader of the Nerd Herd, a guy set up by a former friend that resulted in getting Chuck expelled from Stanford. Stuck in what seems to be a dead-end job, his brain becomes a hot commodity after critical information is downloaded into his brain. Chuck’s smart,adorable and the ultimate geek.
2. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) Bones – Even beautiful women can be nerds, as proven by lovely forensic anthropologist known as Bones or Tempe. She doesn’t understand most pop culture references and is hyper rational. She sees relationships with the opposite sex as pleasurable experiences that don’t really need to be any more than that. Although intensely loyal to her friends, she tries to maintain a certain distance from humans in general.
1. Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka)
Heroes
– Hiro is the geek’s geek, the ultimate nerd. He lives the life of a comic book hero, believing that good overcomes evil, and that he’s the Luke Skywalker of his generation.