Laugh tracks are there for a reason! Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for those “Big Bang” moments that - take away the laugh track - might be more uncomfortable than funny.
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00:00 "This conversation is making me uncomfortable."
00:02 "Yeah, you and me both, sister."
00:04 "Oh, no, no."
00:04 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for those
00:08 big bang moments that, take away the laugh track, might be more uncomfortable
00:13 than funny.
00:14 "You gotta see what you're doing is a little creepy."
00:16 "You sound just like Sigourney Weaver when I followed her into a restroom."
00:20 Number 10 - Howard and the Robot Hand
00:24 [Laughter]
00:27 "There you have it, gentlemen, our entire dinner unpacked by robot."
00:31 "And it only took 28 minutes."
00:33 In the season 4 premiere, Howard borrows a robotic arm from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
00:39 and shows it off to the gang by having it unpack their Chinese food.
00:43 Pretty cool. Totally not creepy.
00:45 Later, at home, he programs the hand to massage his shoulder.
00:48 Helpful, and still not creepy.
00:51 Then he gets an idea. A very creepy idea.
00:54 Howard, the king of self-gratification, sees the hand as a perfect tool for his,
00:58 shall we say, pleasure.
01:00 "Hold on, Howard, Howard, slow down. The robot hand is stuck on your what?"
01:04 [Laughter]
01:09 "You're not gonna believe this."
01:10 The fact that the program glitches and he finds himself and his genitals
01:14 in a very precarious position.
01:16 Well, okay, that's funny.
01:18 But the fact that it went that far, we're sticking with creepy.
01:22 "No, no, don't touch. The program is paused."
01:24 "Well, then what's unpaused?"
01:25 "No, no, I loaded the wrong program. The hand thinks it's holding a screwdriver in outer space.
01:28 If you continue the program, it's gonna start twisting."
01:31 [Laughter]
01:33 Number 9. Raj sleeps over at Howard's mom's house.
01:36 In the season 6 episode "The Spoiler Alert Segmentation,"
01:40 Howard asks Raj to look in on his mother while he and Bernadette are away for the weekend.
01:45 "Half dessert!"
01:46 "I really couldn't. But I've had a lovely time eating your brisket
01:50 and hearing about the things you've had removed from your body over the years."
01:54 Raj agrees, but what starts off as just going over for dinner turns into dessert,
01:59 a sleepover, and breakfast the next morning.
02:02 "After dinner, we watched a rerun of Rockford Files,
02:05 and then she opened a bottle of Cream Sherry,
02:08 and the next thing I know, she was tucking me into your bed."
02:11 [Laughter]
02:12 And no, Raj doesn't sleep with Howard's mom, but she does, as Howard warned him,
02:16 take his clothes as a way of making sure he can't leave.
02:20 It all gets a good laugh, but an older lady imprisoning her son's friend
02:24 by taking away his clothes? Come on!
02:26 "My God, she's not gonna bathe me, is she?"
02:30 [Laughter]
02:33 "Gee, I wish I could tell you no."
02:35 [Laughter]
02:37 Number 8. Raj's drunk job interview.
02:40 In season 3, Raj reveals to the gang that his grant money is running out,
02:45 and that, with his research not showing any results,
02:48 he might be deported back to India.
02:50 "My visa's only good as long as I'm employed at the university,
02:53 and when they find out I've got squat, they're going to cut me off.
02:56 By the way, when I say squat, I mean diddly squat."
02:59 Later at the university, Howard tells Raj that a stellar research team
03:03 is looking for people, and Raj quickly sets up an interview.
03:06 The interview goes very well when it's just him and the male professor in charge.
03:10 "Little early, isn't it? Not on Proxima Centauri."
03:14 "Oh, that's very good. Jolly amusing.
03:17 But if you don't mind, I'll hold off until sunset on Titan."
03:21 However, when a female member of the team walks in,
03:23 Raj quickly downs a little alcohol in order to be able to talk to her.
03:27 Unfortunately, that talking involves asking her if she would want to join him in his hot tub.
03:32 "That's just fascinating."
03:34 "Thank you.
03:35 Would you like to hear more about it in my hot tub?"
03:40 Funny with a laughing track, harassment without one.
03:43 "So when do I start?"
03:45 Number 7. Leonard's childhood stories.
03:48 You know what's really funny? A little boy whose mother never celebrates his birthday.
03:52 "I don't celebrate my birthday."
03:53 "Shut up, yeah you do."
03:55 "It's no big deal, it's just the way I was raised.
03:57 My parents focused on celebrating achievements,
04:00 and being expelled from a birth canal was not considered one of them."
04:03 Oh, isn't it hysterical when a parent sets up an Easter egg hunt for their child,
04:08 but doesn't hide any eggs?
04:09 "Did you get to the chapter where she staged the Easter egg hunt with no eggs to see how long I'd keep looking?
04:14 The answer, by the way, June."
04:19 And let's not overlook the humour of a child building a hugging machine
04:23 in order to feel the human affection that his mother isn't giving him.
04:26 "A hugging machine?"
04:28 "Yeah, I got a dressmaker's mannequin, I stuffed it with an electric blanket so it would be warm,
04:32 and I built two radio-controlled arms that would hug me and pat my back."
04:38 These are just some of the stories Leonard has recounted about his mother
04:42 and his emotionally difficult childhood.
04:44 And while they all came with audience laughter, are they really that funny?
04:48 "Do you know she never let me celebrate my birthday because being born was her achievement, not mine?"
04:52 "That's heartbreaking."
04:55 Number 6. Amy Films Penny
04:57 In preparation for Bernadette's wedding, the girls go out to try on dresses,
05:01 and Maid of Honour Amy films the shopping experience.
05:05 "Maid of Honour, Amy Farrah Fowler's amazing behind-the-scenes wedding video, take one."
05:10 "We're just trying on dresses, do we really need to record this?"
05:16 It's a nice idea to get it on tape, but Amy doesn't just film them in the dresses.
05:21 At the end of the episode, an anxious Amy actually walks into Penny's dressing room,
05:25 camera on, and catches her bestie in her underwear.
05:28 "What is taking you so long?"
05:30 "Oh, Amy, get the hell out of here!"
05:33 Barging into the private dressing room is bad enough, but in an extra funny and creepy moment,
05:38 she swings the camera back to get a second look at her beautiful and very uncomfortable friend.
05:43 "Sorry, sorry!"
05:44 "Oh, God, Amy!"
05:46 "Sorry!"
05:47 Number 5. Bedroom Stuart
05:49 "You guys got a minute or are you still coddling?"
05:51 "What is it, Stuart?"
05:55 "Can I come in?"
05:56 "Hang on!"
05:57 In season 9, after having lived with Howard and Bernadette for years,
06:00 Stuart tells the couple that, with everything going on, he's decided to move into his own apartment.
06:05 Beside the fact that Howard and Bernadette are in bed and naked under the covers,
06:09 this is a pretty normal conversation.
06:11 "So when are you thinking of moving?"
06:13 "Uh, actually, I already found an apartment, so in a couple of days."
06:16 "Oh, okay. Sorry to see you go."
06:21 That is, until Stuart looks around the room and casually mentions that it's the first time
06:26 he's been in said room when the two of them were awake.
06:29 "I just have never been in this room while you're awake."
06:32 Hold on, what? The line gets a nice laugh, but think about what he just said.
06:39 And if your creepy radar isn't going off right now, then you need to get it fixed.
06:43 Number 4. Alex and an egg salad sandwich
06:47 In most cases, comparing your female assistant to an egg salad sandwich would be anything but funny.
06:53 However, Sheldon does just that when reprimanding Alex about her previous flirtations towards Leonard.
06:58 "What did I do?"
07:00 "You don't know? Oh, you poor dear. Your ovaries are squirting so much goofy juice into your brains,
07:05 you don't even know which way is up."
07:07 His heart might have been in the right place, but his decision to employ the misogynistic words
07:12 of his late father was oh so wrong, and it made us feel almost as uncomfortable as Alex.
07:18 "My father used to say that a woman is like an egg salad sandwich on a warm Texas day."
07:27 "What?"
07:29 Yes, it got laughs. However, take away the laugh track, and the scene could have just as easily
07:34 been taken from an office training video on workplace harassment.
07:38 "When you feel possessed by amorous intent, may I suggest that you suppress it
07:43 by leafing through this illustrated book of sexually transmitted diseases."
07:48 Number 3. Dr. Stalker
07:51 In the Season 8 episode "The Misinterpretation Agitation," Billy Bob Thornton guest stars
07:56 as Dr. Oliver Lawvis, one of Penny's pharmaceutical clients who misinterprets
08:00 her friendly nature for romantic desire.
08:03 "I met her at my office, she winked at me, and I came hoping to initiate a romantic relationship."
08:12 Take away the laugh track on this one, and you have a scary stalker episode.
08:17 Not to mention the fact that Penny is essentially victim-shamed for her flirty nature on the job.
08:22 "The first someone is the deceitful you. The second someone is the delightful Dr. Lawvis."
08:29 "Oh, this is very embarrassing."
08:32 Also, Lawvis imprisons her friends and her fiancé in his house in order to return to woo Penny.
08:38 Again, locking them in his nerd paradise of a basement is playing for laughs,
08:43 but behind those laughs, it's downright creepy.
08:46 "You locked them in your basement?"
08:48 "Well, they're not locked in, the door just sticks."
08:52 "Okay, so how do they unstick it?"
08:55 "They'd need the key."
08:58 Number 2. The Top Model House
09:01 From one supposedly funny stalker to another, many seasons before Dr. Lawvis became obsessed with Penny,
09:07 Howard and Raj became obsessed with America's Next Top Model.
09:10 "That's Anais, none of the other girls in the house like her."
09:13 "House? What house?"
09:16 "They all live in a house together."
09:18 "A house where?"
09:20 Not just the show, but the models themselves, and the quest to find and infiltrate the house they were all living in.
09:26 And using their smarts, the positions of the stars, and the military spy drone, they do it.
09:31 "Can I help you?"
09:33 "Yes, we're here to fix the cable."
09:36 "I think we have satellite."
09:39 "That's what I meant."
09:42 They find the house, show up pretending to be cable repair guys, and get inside.
09:46 There are lots of laughs throughout their quest, but even Leonard recognizes how creepy it all is.
09:51 "God bless you Google Street View registered trademark."
09:56 "Okay, for the record, what you guys are doing is really creepy."
09:59 Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
10:03 Nerds and the Girls
10:05 Amy might enjoy it, but the way guys stare at them is definitely creepy.
10:09 "Why are they staring?"
10:11 "Who cares, just soak it in."
10:15 "Hello boys."
10:18 Regular People
10:20 A shockingly ugly thing for Raj to say.
10:22 "If you're so intimidated by talking to attractive girls, maybe you should practice by talking to regular people."
10:29 "You mean like fatties and uggos?"
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10:47 So Many Howard Moments
10:51 When it comes to laughs, Howard Wolowitz gets some of the biggest of the series.
10:55 However, there's also no character on the show that better represents the word creepy either.
11:01 Remember, this is the same guy who lost his virginity to his second cousin.
11:05 "It was my Uncle Murray's funeral. We were all back at my Aunt Barbara's house, our eyes locked over the pickled herring."
11:12 "We never meant for it to happen."
11:15 This is also the guy who awkwardly hit on Summer Glau and couldn't read her very uncomfortable and possibly slightly afraid body language.
11:22 "And did you know the word pumpernickel comes from the German words pumper and nickel, which loosely translates to fart goblin?"
11:30 "No, I didn't."
11:34 Possibly the most creepy thing he did, Howard is the guy who gave his friend Penny a teddy bear with a hidden webcam in it.
11:40 Crossing the line, don't you think?
11:42 "Would you have opened the door if you knew it was me?"
11:44 "Not since I found out the teddy bear you gave me had a webcam in it."
11:48 What is your most laugh track dependent scene of the series?
11:52 Leave us a comment that goes well with or without an audience lolling.
11:56 "I really miss this."
11:59 Do you agree with our picks?
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12:08 [Music]