Big Bang Theory Bloopers Funnier Than The Original Scene

Throughout its 12 long seasons, popular sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" packed in the laughs. Vulture even calculated the number of jokes it doled out per minute — 4.3, if you were wondering — in an attempt to identify what made it so irresistible to the 23.4 million viewers tuning in. Some critics lauded its ability to balance obscure humor with more accessible reference points. Others noted its capacity to remain consistently funny, despite its long run: At least as late as eight seasons in, the series would continue to be declared one of the funniest shows on TV.

Still, some of the funniest moments on "The Big Bang Theory" were unscripted and unaired, showcasing the show's beloved cast members at their most brazen and raw. These bloopers would've made for superb television, but the very elements that made them so hilarious are also the reasons they didn't make the final cut. Luckily, for all you blooper scavengers, we've assembled the best of the best "Big Bang" outtakes — the moments even funnier than what ended up on the small screen.

Before Simon Helberg nabbed the role of Howard Wolowitz on "Big Bang," he cut his teeth on the sketch comedy scene. While the scripted format of "Big Bang" may not have allowed as much room for Helberg's comedic roots to shine, the few episodes that did so made up for all the others.

"The Love Spell Potential" brings the entire "Big Bang" gang together for a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Howard is the dungeon master, and he plays his role to critical acclaim, complete with voices and impressions of celebrities. Amy (Mayim Bialik), Penny (Kaley Cuoco), and Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) are late entrants to the game, and our dungeon master takes it upon himself to induct them into D&D gaming with a spot-on Al Pacino impression.

In the blooper, Helberg dials up his impression of Pacino for the audience with exaggerated facial expressions and hip movements. He earns laughter all around the set and a hearty round of applause from co-star Bialik. It's no wonder that Helberg counts this among his favorite episodes – and as a key reason why impressions and voices became one of Howard's trademarks.

The "Big Bang" finale neatly ties up the show's loose ends, save for one: Penny's last name. At the start of the show, Penny's surname held such little significance that it was left out of the equation entirely. Ironically, in the end, not revealing Penny's surname became a crucial superstitious commitment, for fear of jinxing the series' success if the pattern was broken. Her lack of an official surname even gave rise to many a fan theory and the occasional hysterical outtake. (Hardcore "Big Bang" fans know Penny's last name is shown to be "Teller" in a background detail from an early episode, but still.)

To set the scene for this blooper from the episode "The Tangible Affection Proof": It's Valentine's Day in the "Big Bang" universe, and Leonard (Johnny Galecki) has designated himself "Romance Ninja" for the night. But his plans go awry when Penny sees her ex-boyfriend proposing to another girl. This soon segues into a heated argument during dinner, and the couple begins trading insults like they're Mystic Warlords of Ka'a cards.

The blooper version of the clip shows Galecki and Cuoco artfully improvising different jibes. When Galecki opens with "What is your problem?", Cuoco fires back, "I don't have any problems!" Galecki takes this chance to work in a reference to Penny's (lack of a) last name, and points out that she does, in fact, have at least one glaring problem. He retorts, "You don't have problems? What's your last name?" A stumped Cuoco sputters, "I don't know!"

How actors react to their own faux pas can end up being the difference between a mildly funny blooper and a downright rib-tickling one. Galecki, for instance, famously punctuates each of his blunders with the word "Balls!" In this blooper — or, rather, series of bloopers: One botched line by Galecki sets off a ripple effect of goof-ups from the entire cast, and Galecki ends up loaning his interjection to each of his co-stars.

In the episode "The Loobenfeld Decay," Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Leonard spin yarn after yarn to get out of watching Penny perform in the musical "Rent." Things come to a head, though, when Howard and Raj (Kunal Nayyar) drop by and are also taken captive by the former pair's web of lies. Just as he's launching into an explanation of his character's many fibs, Galecki flubs his line and sets the ball rolling (pun not intended) when he exclaims "Balls!" A few moments later, Parsons forgets his line as well and is prompted by Helberg to say the obligatory "Balls!" Soon after, Cuoco borrows Galecki's catchphrase for herself when she bungles her line. All the while, the audience is having a hoot.

To the "Big Bang" cast, the pieces of scientific jargon they use are not unlike long, winding tongue twisters – hard to remember and harder to pronounce. This becomes most apparent in "The Work Song Nanocluster" when the Caltech scientists use their smarts to help Penny take her small business to the next level. Unsurprisingly, their business plans end up being innovative, but also quite complex. As a result, the cast has to navigate a minefield of complex terminology in this scene, and Helberg understandably trips up. Parsons — who always seems to have a sharp retort handy — immediately exclaims, "How could you not know that?"

Ultimately, though, Helberg and karma have the last laugh when Parsons soon forgets his own line and has to ask for help. Galecki then gleefully lobs Parson's own quip back at him, demanding, "How could you not know that?" The rest of the cast and the audience erupt in laughter, as Parsons looks bashful. As Raj would say, what goes around, comes around. After all, karma is "practically Newtonian."

Not only do the actors in "Big Bang" have to take on confounding science, but they also have to contend with science-fiction. (After all, you could practically fashion an entire season's worth of episodes out of all the "Star Trek" references in "Big Bang.") And like they do with the scientific terminology, the cast members also occasionally bungle their sci-fi trivia.

In "The Thespian Catalyst" Penny helps Sheldon hone his performing skills by running lines with him. They act out portions of a play that could rival the likes of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." We're talking, of course, about the play "Where No Sheldon Has Gone Before," written by the great physicist-playwright Sheldon Cooper himself. The work is adapted from a "Star Trek" fan-fiction novella Sheldon wrote when he was all of 10, and stars the great Mr. Spock.

In the scene study, Penny assumes the role of Spock, while Sheldon plays his own mother. But when Cuoco has to perform the Vulcan salutation, she fumbles and makes a different gesture instead. The audience's laughter and Parsons' confused face cue Cuoco in on her mistake, and she quickly seeks help from a producer to get the sign right. As the audience continues to laugh at her plight, a fake-offended Cuoco yells for them to "shut up!"

By Cuoco's own account, performing before a live studio audience can cut both ways. While it allows actors to see their punchlines land in real-time, every so often, it can also provoke unforeseen reactions. One such reaction became one of the show's most memorable bloopers.

In "The Cohabitation Experimentation," Sheldon and Amy agree to perform what is arguably one of the most important experiments of their lives: living together. This, of course, means that Penny and Leonard are finally free of Sheldon's eccentric rules and can do and say as they please. In the unaired version of this scene, when Galecki suggests they "dance in their underwear" to celebrate a Sheldon-free house, an audience member counters that with a two-letter punchline of their own, "Ew!" Clearly, something about the sight of the couple in nothing but their unmentionables was comically appalling to this viewer, who felt the need to (rather loudly) make their opinion known.

Immediately, Cuoco and Galecki both break character and playfully banish the audience member from the room. And that's not all. Apparently, a lot more was said and done that didn't make it to the blooper reel. Producer Steven Molaro also claimed that a faux-outraged Galecki remarked, "Are you kidding me? Am I that disgusting?"

Often, the meatiest part of a blooper is watching your favorite cast members' off-screen relationships play into their on-screen performance. That is precisely what happens with Bialik and Parsons when their real-life counterparts get into a risqué situation on camera while filming "The Fish Guts Displacement." When Amy falls sick, Sheldon is contractually bound to take care of her. As per Sheldon's nursing rulebook, this involves rubbing VapoRub all over her chest (yes, all over it). His sex-starved patient is only too happy to oblige.

As is obvious in their interaction during this blooper scene, Bialik and Parsons form a wonderful equation in real life, too. The duo can be seen trying — and failing — to stick to the script as the crowd roars with laughter. They then decide to throw the script out the window and ham it up for the audience, smirking and winking at one another in playfulness. The moment is so symbolic of their real friendship that it featured in a blooper reel Bialik shared as a tribute to Parsons on his birthday.

The catalog of guest actors who have populated the "Big Bang" universe might just be lengthier than Sheldon's Roommate Agreement. While some struggled to find their footing before a live TV audience, one sci-fi veteran sank so gracefully into his role that he began to improvise his lines.

Season 10 marks the crucial moment when Sheldon trades in Leonard for Amy as his roommate. As expected, this transition does not go smoothly. The 10th episode of the season, "The Property Division Collision," sees Sheldon and Leonard come to blows while dividing their possessions. Their tiff soon devolves into a vicious prank war.

When Sheldon begins running a "vengeful bed-and-breakfast" out of Leonard's apartment, the notorious Christopher Lloyd plays Theodore, his first tenant. In one clip, Sheldon's peace offering to Leonard is to "rub his genitals" on the apartment flag — the same flag that Leonard had worn buck-naked a few minutes ago. Theodore is supposed to follow Sheldon's absurdity with more of his own by saying, "If we're 'rubbing genitals' on things, that's where I shine." Instead, Lloyd pokes fun at the outlandish situation and comically exclaims, "This is too weird for me!" before making a dramatic exit. The actors and audience are left in splits.

Most times, a blooper is the result of a misspoken line, a faulty prop, or a cast member improvising their lines. But sometimes a scene is so inherently humorous that nothing needs to be out of place for the cast to break character.

You know you're in for fits of laughter when the premise of this "Big Bang" episode, "The 2003 Approximation," is Raj and Howard starting a band called "Footprints on the Moon." Of course, their first song is of the "filk" genre, that is, a marriage of the sci-fi and folk genres. They're due to perform this original composition — called "Thor and Dr. Jones" — at Stuart's comic book store for the first time.

Now, Helberg and Nayyar are hardly out of their element as live performers, what with Helberg being a trained pianist and Nayyar once playing in his own band (via his book "Yes, My Accent is Real"). But the sight of two grown men passionately singing about a fictional rivalry between the God of Thunder and the whip-wielding adventurer is enough to evoke laughter from the toughest of audiences. And as Nayyar and Helberg hit some particularly high notes, Cuoco breaks out laughing, triggering bouts of cackling from the rest of the cast and crew. Nayyar and Helberg, unable to keep straight faces either, have to cut the scene short.

It might surprise some to know that Parsons shares a few geeky traits with his on-screen persona. For one, he has a compulsive need to get his lines exactly right, to the extent that he relentlessly researches the definitions and pronunciations of the science jargon he spews on "Big Bang." So, one can only imagine Parsons' frame of mind when, in one segment, the biggest spoke in his wheel is not esoteric language or lengthy monologues, but the game "Rock Paper Scissors."

In this clip, Sheldon demonstrates to Raj a newer version of the age-old game, "Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock," as invented by Sam Kass (all hail Sam Kass!). The blooper reel from this episode, which is aptly titled "The Lizard-Spock Expansion," shows Parsons attempting to get the sequence of the game right but repeatedly — and hilariously — failing each time. In one cut, Parsons almost makes it to the finish line but flails before he can get there. In another, he gives up before he can even begin, much to the amusement of co-star Galecki. Finally, director Mark Cendrowski can be heard encouraging Parsons off-camera, "It's very simple!" Parsons replies, "It's not as simple as you think, Mark!" Despite the hilarity it caused, Parsons counts this among the hardest lines he's ever had to memorize – a problem Sheldon and his eidetic memory surely couldn't relate to.

Despite all the controversy around its origins, the "Soft Kitty" song produced some of the most heartwarming and side-splitting moments on "Big Bang." But one such scene never made it to the small screen — and is even more memorable for the mistake that kept it off the air.

After suffering not one but two nasty falls in the episode "The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplification," Sheldon swears off in-person interactions and confines himself to his bedroom. He uses a self-fashioned "Mobile Virtual Presence Device" — essentially a screen wearing his shirt — as his mode of communicating with the world.

But while robot Sheldon is alive and kicking, actual Sheldon needs to be nursed back to health. His remedy? "Soft Kitty," sung by his good friend Penny. In the blooper, as Cuoco serenades Shel-Bot, her voice changes pitch, and she hits a comically bad note. What's even funnier, though, is her reaction. She immediately exclaims, "Oh my God, that was so bad!" Her candor is rewarded with a lively round of laughter from the crowd.

The "Big Bang" cast is notorious for fake-eating their way through dinner and lunch scenes. In one outtake, however, Nayyar goes against the grain to properly taste his meal and, along the way, bring to life a blooper. Nayyar himself has previously remarked that eating while reciting lines can be a source of great distraction — and, at times, even a choking hazard — to any actor. In this scene from "The Spaghetti Catalyst," we finally understand why.

The outtake features Raj and Leonard, both with a bowl of soup in hand, whiling away their time together. A seemingly distracted Nayyar begins his line but forgets the rest of it mid-sentence. He quickly points to the real culprit: his soup. "This soup is too good, man," he says, to guffaws from the audience. Whether the soup is good enough to cause temporary memory loss or not, the clip proved to be a memorable one.