The late Bob Newhart agreed to seem on “The Large Bang Concept” beneath two particular situations.
Talking with The Hollywood Reporter timed to his Season 6 debut, the sitcom legend revealed he was already a fan of the sequence, however agreed to affix solely after co-creator Chuck Lorre confirmed that his scenes can be filmed in entrance of a dwell studio viewers.
“There is a tendency to pre-tape a number of stuff and put fun monitor on it, and also you lose one thing,” Newhart mentioned. “With ‘Newhart,’ ‘Lucy,’ ‘Honeymooners,’ ‘Mary Tyler Moore,’ and ‘All within the Household,’ it was at all times performed in entrance of a dwell studio viewers. I at all times felt that the dwell viewers offers it adrenaline. That is the one method I perform.”
As a result of “The Large Bang Concept” was already filmed earlier than a dwell studio viewers, the request was simply accommodated. However Newhart additionally insisted that the position lengthen past a single look.
“I wished it to be a semi-recurring position,” he mentioned, a request Lorre in the end accommodated.
Newhart made his introduction as Arthur Jeffries — higher identified to followers as Professor Proton — in Season 6, Episode 22, “The Proton Resurgence.” The character served as a formative affect on Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter, inspiring their early curiosity in science.
He went on to reprise the position in 5 further episodes: “The Proton Displacement” (Season 7, Episode 7), “The Proton Transmogrification” (Season 7, Episode 22), “The Opening Evening Excitation” (Season 9, Episode 11), “The Proton Regeneration” (Season 11, Episode 6), and “The Planetarium Collision” (Season 12, Episode 5) — the final of which marked his closing on-screen credit score earlier than his dying in 2024.
Newhart additionally performed Professor Proton on “Younger Sheldon,” showing within the prequel sequence’ 2017 pilot episode, earlier than lending his voice twice extra — in “Teenager Soup and a Little Ball of Fib” (Season 3, Episode 10) and “A Child Tooth and the Egyptian God of Information” (Season 3, Episode 20).
