The Best Time Sheldon Ever Broke Character On The Big Bang Theory

"The Big Bang Theory” ran for 279 episodes, which means there were a lot of flubbed lines and blown takes over the years. A number of those mistakes have been compiled into "Big Bang Theory" blooper reels, some of which are on YouTube and are over 10 minutes long. They're really fun to watch, because you get to see the actors' real personalities shine through. Kaley Cuoco loves to have fun. Johnny Galecki says "balls!" when he messes up. And Jim Parsons' real laugh when he or Cuoco makes a mistake is really sweet. Just because Jim Parsons won four Emmys and got paid an unfathomable amount of money for playing Sheldon Cooper doesn't mean he never forgot a line. 

The best time Sheldon ever broke character and became Jim Parsons while the cameras were rolling happened early in the show's run — in one of the scenes that helped the show become the ratings sensation it was. It was a perfect encapsulation of the show's nerdy humor, and a demonstration of Parsons' comedic abilities. But he had a hard time nailing it, which you can see starting at 8:37 in this video. 

We're talking, of course, about the game "Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock," which has complicated rules that Jim Parsons seemed to have some trouble memorizing.

In the Season 2 episode entitled "The Lizard-Spock Expansion," Sheldon teaches Raj (Kunal Nayyar) how to play the game, which is an augmented version of "Rock, Paper, Scissors." It introduces two new variables, which lead to scenarios like "Lizard poisons Spock" and "Scissors decapitates Lizard." The game was invented by a man named Sam Kass. All hail Sam Kass.

Sheldon delivers the complicated list of rules rapidly, without even thinking about it, plus using all the gestures. In the finished scene, it seems effortless. In reality, it was anything but.

In the blooper reel, at first Parsons mixes up the order of examples and says "Oh GOSH I messed up" so suddenly that he startles Nayyar. Off camera, someone says "It's very simple," and Parsons answers "It's not as simple as you think, Mark!" (Presumably he's talking to director Mark Cendrowski, who helmed most episodes). He tries it again, gets to "Lizard eats Paper," then stops and makes a helpless noise. Nayyal and Johnny Galecki make the "this close" hand gesture at him. The next take, he gets flustered before he even starts, which makes Galecki cackle.

As you can see in the final product, eventually Parsons got it. By the time he did it again in Season 5, he could nail it three times in rapid succession.