Big Bang characters decoded L-R: Howard is dressed as an evil member of the Borg, Raj as the Klingon security chief Lt Worf, Leonard as the intrepid Capt Jean-Luc Picard, and Sheldon as the android Lt Commander Data. (© Monty Brinton/CBS © 2012 CBS Broadcasting, Inc)
➢ Big Bang Theory guys boldly go out in Star Trek costumes – from Entertainment Weekly – Supremely awesome photo from this week’s episode of The Big Bang Theory (aired in the USA). Click on for further explanation
Hero and uber-geek: Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper is clearly dead chuffed to meet Stephen Hawking as guest star on The Big Bang Theory
❚ “POSSIBLY, THE BEST EPISODE. EVER.” Let’s hope TVfanatic’s Carla Day isn’t overselling this week’s Series 5 episode 21 of the US’s highest rated comedy show. The States saw it last month, and Carla reported “non-stop laughs”. The Big Bang Theory is the cult comedy series that has come to define the age of Geek Chic. The sitcom revolves round four nerdy friends who all have impressive jobs and degrees in science. They play video games, collect comic memorabilia, discuss complex scientific topics.
Now TBBT can claim the ultimate accolade: the world’s most famous scientist steps up to guest star in The Hawking Excitation, which airs in the UK on Thursday (E4, 8pm). Yes, Britain’s 70-year-old cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, visits California to lecture at Caltech university (renowned as much for its practical jokers as its Nobel prizewinners). There, engineer Howard Wolowitz is given the job of maintaining his wheelchair. This makes theoretical physicist and uber-geek Dr Sheldon Cooper (played by Golden Globe and Emmy winner Jim Parsons) green with envy.
As the Prof’s most ardent admirer, Sheldon stops at nothing for the chance to share his hero’s “beautiful mind”, so his put-upon rival Howard sets Sheldon various tasks to earn a meeting with Hawking, and one is to walk into the cafeteria in a French maid’s costume. “What are you all staring at?” quips Sheldon. “You ever seen a man try to get a meeting with Stephen Hawking before?” The encounter itself produces a pretty ripe exchange between the pair of geniuses.
Let’s not forget Big Bang is an ensemble show: superstar Stephen Hawking is circled by satellites Leonard, Raj, Sheldon and Howard
Executive producer Bill Prady said: “When people would ask us who a dream guest star for the show would be, we would always joke and say Stephen Hawking — knowing that it was a long shot of astronomical proportions. In fact, we’re not exactly sure how we got him. It’s the kind of mystery that could only be understood by, say, a Stephen Hawking.”
Fact is however that Hawking has guested on Futurama and appeared more than once as himself in The Simpsons.
This week’s episode isn’t the only dream come true for Sheldon. In March the world’s most famous Vulcan actor, Leonard Nimoy, was heard when Star Trek’s Spock spoke to Sheldon in his sleep and deployed some snappy logic, as ever. And in 2010 Apple’s Steve Wozniak had a cameo in which he interacted with a virtual Sheldon who tells Wozniak he’s his “15th favourite technological visionary”. Only 15th, note.
Vulcan brothers: Jim Parsons brought some method acting to his role when Leonard Nimoy appeared on The Big Bang Theory this year
➢ Catch up online at 4OD with The Hawking Excitation until June 15
➢ David Hockney paints Stephen Hawking — watch a glittering new portrait emerge as a movie
Posted in North America, TV
Tagged Big Bang Theory, Caltech, geek chic, Jim Parsons, Leonard Nimoy, Sheldon Cooper, Stephen Hawking
David Hockney at work on his iPad portrait of Stephen Hawking, showing from today at London’s Science Museum. Photograph © Judith Croasdell
Britain’s best-known painter meets the world’s best-known scientist. The outcome is a dazzlingly intimate birthday portrait of the wheelchair- bound Prof Stephen Hawking, captured in February at his office in Cambridge looking serene and fascinating with strangely luminous violet eyes. Today’s Science Museum blog reports:
“ IMAGINE BEING ABLE TO SEE the British artist David Hockney create a new work, stroke by stroke, before your very eyes. Now imagine this work is a portrait, providing an insight into the way Hockney composes his famous likenesses. Even better, the subject is none other than the distinguished Cambridge University cosmologist, Stephen Hawking.
For the next three weeks the Science Museum will display an animated version of Hockney’s portrait, running on the artist’s own iPad for more than three minutes and showing exactly how it was created. Visitors can see how his skill has evolved since he was first introduced to the Apple iPhone in late 2008 and then the iPad. Hockney draws with an app called Brushes which removes the need to cart around supplies, easel and palette… It is exhibited alongside a rarely seen Hockney line-drawing, dating from 1978, owned by Hawking’s first wife, Jane… ” / continued online
➢ Stephen Hawking: A 70th birthday celebration display at London’s Science Museum until April 9 … The book that made a celebrity of cosmologist Hawking in 1988, A Brief History of Time, broke records by staying on the Sunday Times best-sellers list for 237 weeks.
Ubermensch 1995, by Jake and Dinos Chapman: Hawking as Fiberglass “Superman”
➢ Thin line between art and hate: is this the most repellent work of modern art? “The Chapman brothers’ sneering sculpture of Stephen Hawking sickened me in 1995, and still does now. What do you think is the most hateful work of modern art?” — Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones writing in January … and Jones again today: “Hockney’s portraits of Hawking are important documents of what really mattered in the culture of our time. Like Epstein’s Einstein, they will still be looked at when much art that makes headlines is utterly forgotten.”
➢ Professor Stephen Hawking has filmed a cameo for TV sitcom The Big Bang Theory, due to be aired next month in the US (May in the UK) — BBC News reports: “ The famous physicist will appear in a scene with socially awkward scientist Sheldon Cooper, played by Jim Parsons. He previously recorded voice-overs for animations The Simpsons and Futurama. Last year, he fronted his own TV series Brave New World for Channel 4, which looked at new developments in science and how they might benefit mankind ”… / continued online
Posted in art, Culture, London, Media, science, Technology
Tagged Big Bang Theory, Brushes, David Hockney, Dinos Chapman, exhibitions, iPad, Jake and Dinos Chapman, portrait, Science Museum, Stephen Hawking
✱ Deejay legend Robbie Vincent returned to JazzFM on Sundays 1-3pm in 2021… Catch Robbie’s JazzFM August Bank Holiday 2020 session thanks to AhhhhhSoul with four hours of “nothing but essential rhythms of soul, jazz and funk”.
◆ Who was who in Spandau’s break-out year of 1980? The Invisible Hand of Shapersofthe80s draws a selective timeline for The unprecedented rise and rise of Spandau Ballet –– Turn to our inside page
✱ If you thought there was no more to know about the birth of Blitz culture in 1980 then get your hands on a sensational book by an obsessive music fan called David Barrat. It is gripping, original and epic – a spooky tale of coincidence and parallel lives as mind-tingling as a Sherlock Holmes yarn. Titled both New Romantics Who Never Were and The Untold Story of Spandau Ballet! Sample this initial taster here at Shapers of the 80s
✱ Jawing at Soho Radio on the 80s clubland revolution (from 32 mins) and on art (@55 mins) is probably the most influential shaper of the 80s, former Wag-club director Chris Sullivan (pictured) with editor of this website David Johnson
➢ Search for all on Bowie here
at Shapers of the 80s
✱ “I’m not a rock star” Bowie often said – No, David, you were a messiah – Obituaries and key videos on the godlike one
✱ Prince Rogers Nelson RIP: ‘A funny cat’ and ‘sole authentic genius’ of the 1980s
➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ 