Posted in: CBS, Star Trek, TV | Tagged: adam nimoy, cbs, Jim Parsons, leonard nimoy, The Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang Theory: Adam Nimoy Reflects on Leonard Nimoy's Episode
Adam Nimoy reflects on his father, Leonard Nimoy's interesting "appearance" as Star Trek's Mr. Spock in a 2012 episode of CBS's The Big Bang Theory.
It's hard to deny the Chuck Lorre CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory and its place in pop culture history. It's not only known to help elevate fandom to the mainstream even when sometimes the jokes at times, derivative and perpetuate stereotypes. TBBT has attracted guest stars from across several popular franchises including Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and more. There have been a few themed Star Trek-themed episodes, which is easy considering the Warner Bros TV series is on a Paramount-owned conglomerate. Actors from The Original Series alone who appeared on the sitcom include William Shatner, George Takei, and Leonard Nimoy…well, sort of.
The Big Bang Theory: Leonard Nimoy Voiced a Mr. Spock Action Figure
While Shatner and Takei's appearances were live-action as fictionalized versions of themselves in their episodes, Nimoy reprised and voiced Mr. Spock in an uncredited appearance in the season five episode "The Transporter Malfunction," offering sage advice to Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), who was dreaming. Leonard's son Adam Nimoy (who also appeared in the series) reflected on that episode, writing on social media with a behind-the-scenes photo of Parsons and the elder Nimoy, who passed in 2015, doing the Vulcan salute of "Live Long and Prosper." "On this day in 2012: [Big Bang Theory] aired the Season 5 episode 'The Transporter Malfunction' in which Dad guest starred, providing the voice of Spock. It's a hilarious episode, one of my favorites from the series. Dad really enjoyed the experience," the younger Nimoy wrote.
The 10-time Emmy-Award-winning Lorre series, which also starred Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Melissa Rauch, and Mayim Bialik, ran for 12 seasons on CBS across 280 episodes, becoming one of the network's biggest hits when it ran from 2007-2019. It's unsurprising, considering Lorre was also behind another long-running megahit in Two and a Half Men. The franchise spawned a prequel for Parson's character in Young Sheldon in a primary voiceover role as he narrates his life with Iain Armitage playing his younger counterpart. The series is about to wrap with another Cooper-centric spinoff on its way – and with Parsons & Bialik returning to reprise their roles as Sheldon & Amy, respectively, for the Young Sheldon series finale.