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Howard Wolowitz

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Howard Wolowitz, M.Eng.
File:Howard Wolowitz.jpg
Simon Helberg as Howard Wolowitz
First appearance"Pilot"
Portrayed bySimon Helberg
In-universe information
NicknameWolowizard, Howie, Sir Howard of Wolowitz (online)
GenderMale
TitleMr. Howard Wolowitz, M.Eng.
OccupationAerospace Engineer
RelativesMrs. Wolowitz (mother)
ReligionJewish
NationalityAmerican

Howard Wolowitz is a fictional character on the CBS television series The Big Bang Theory, portrayed by actor Simon Helberg.

Among the main male characters in the show, Howard is distinguished for lacking a doctor's degree, for still living with his mother, and for believing himself to be a "ladies' man". He is named after a computer programmer known by the show's co-creator Bill Prady.[1]

Personality

Howard is a Jewish aerospace engineer[2] at Caltech's Department of Applied Physics who often hangs out at Leonard and Sheldon's apartment, and is best friends with Rajesh Koothrappali.

Howard sports a bowl-style haircut and tends to wear loud, vintage, 1960-era outfits, a V-neck or tee shirt over a turtleneck or dicky, and always has skinny pants. He is also fond of unusual belt buckles, which have included a Nintendo controller, a silver Batman logo, a 45 RPM record insert, a Klingon communicator and a buckle containing the superhero the Flash.[3] Like his friends, Howard is a big fan of comic books and superheros and will even wear super-hero underwear, such as "Aquaman briefs."[4]

Beside English, Howard considers himself fluent in 5 languages, these being French, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic and Persian,[5] and in the fictional Klingon from the Star Trek franchise.

Howard fancies himself a "ladies' man" and he provides outrageous pick-up lines whenever there is a female present.

Howard has stated that both he and his best friend Raj visit Leonard and Sheldon's place because they like Leonard, not Sheldon.

Howard is allergic to peanuts and has transient ideopathic arrhythmia.

Howard describes himself as a romantic,[6] although he usually comes across as overtly sexual and, in the words of Penny, disgusting.[7]

Non Kosher

Although Jewish, Howard does not keep kosher. For instance, he eats pork, and when the price of pork went up he remarked "it's getting harder and harder to be a bad Jew". When Howard got sick after eating shellfish, Raj criticized him for eating something non-kosher and quoted Leviticus 11:3.

Despite this, Howard has shown some belief in his faith. When he and Raj posed as goths to pick up women,[8] he wore fake-tattoo sleeves on his arms so he could still be buried in a Jewish cemetery, as Judaism finds body markings blasphemous.

Family

Howard is noted for still living with his overbearing mother, who is oblivious to his accomplishments as a grown-up and usually treats him like he was still a child.

Mrs. Wolowitz is not seen on-screen but her voice is heard when he is at their house or when he talks to her on the phone. She talks to Howard always by yelling at him, which results in awkward long-distance conversations with Howard yelling back at her. She makes Howard's life miserable at home which prompts him to call her a "crazy old lady".

Work

Unlike Leonard, Sheldon, and Raj, Howard does not have a Ph.D., and is sometimes mocked about it, specially by Sheldon. He defends himself by pointing out that he has a master's degree in Engineering from MIT.[9]

Howard is usually seen working on equipment to be used in NASA missions and the International Space Station, though many times he is careless about it.

In the first episode, Howard mentioned working on the design of a satellite that orbits a moon of Jupiter taking high-resolution photos.[5]

Having worked on the Mars rover project, he invited his date, Dr. Stephanie Barnett, to drive it at a secret facility. Instead, the rover became stuck in a Martian ditch and he spent the rest of the night with Sheldon and Raj trying to repair the damage. When this proved unsuccessful, he decided to erase the hard drives of the facility to cover up his doings.[3]

In another occasion, Howard worked on a zero-gravity human-waste disposal system, essentially a "space toilet", that was deployed in the International Space Station. He later realized that the equipment had a structural weakness, and again sought the help of his friends to correct it. The solution proved unsuccessful.[10]

Being the engineer among his physicist friends, he assumes the role of leader for small hands-on projects. He was the primary force behind "M.O.N.T.E.", a killer robot designed to enter a robot fighting competition. The robot was destroyed by Barry Kripke's own robot, the "Kripke Kripler", in a unofficial match.[11]

Relationships

Howard is consistently depicted as the most sex-crazed of the guys. When it comes to women, Howard doesn't discriminate and is not very concerned by a woman's age or physical attractiveness, and he is open to try new things.

One time he and Leonard went to a bar, he actively suggested they went for "the old and the lame".[12]

He developed a mathematical formula for the likelihood of him having sex by applying and modifying the Drake equation to include the "Wolowitz coefficient", which he defined as "neediness times dress size squared". He stated, "I'm a horny engineer,... I never joke about sex or math".[12]

Howard's techniques to approach women are varied, including magic and card tricks, ventriloquism, and techniques from the Mystery Method, such as peacocking and negging.[13][3]

Since the beginning of the series, Howard shows interest in Penny, but she always turned him down. After yet another approach by Howard, Penny finally confronted him about how he treats women. Howard became depressed and stayed in his house. When Penny later went to his house to apologize, she showed some sympathy for him, and Howard took the opportunity to try to kiss her, but she punched him. Penny believed they had come to an "understanding", but Howard thought he was "half-way to pity sex" with her.[11]

Howard engaged in a "friends with benefits" relationship with Leslie Winkle which brought him a few benefits beside sex. However, he realizes he

When the guys traveled by train to a symposium in San Francisco, Howard had a chance to talk to Summer Glau (portraying herself); eventually she got so annoyed by him, that she broke his cell phone.[14]

During a camping trip with Leonard and Raj, in which they all got stoned by eating cookies, Howard revealed he lost his virginity with his second cousin Jeanie, after his uncle's funeral.[15]


See also

References

  1. ^ Is the world ready for an Asperger's sitcom?
  2. ^ "The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary". The Big Bang Theory. Season 3. Episode 5. October 19, 2009. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ a b c "The Lizard-Spock Expansion". The Big Bang Theory. Season 2. Episode 8. November 17, 2008. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ "The Hofstadter Isotope". The Big Bang Theory. Season 2. Episode 20. April 13, 2009. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ a b "Pilot". The Big Bang Theory. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ "The Fuzzy Boots Corollary". The Big Bang Theory. Season 1. Episode 3. October 8, 2007. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ "The Tangerine Factor". The Big Bang Theory. Season 1. Episode 17. May 19, 2008. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  8. ^ "The Gothowitz Deviation". The Big Bang Theory. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ "The Classified Materials Turbulence". The Big Bang Theory. Season 2. Episode 22. May 4, 2009. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ "The Cooper-Nowitzki Theorem". The Big Bang Theory. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ a b "The Killer Robot Instability". The Big Bang Theory. Season 1. Episode 3. January 12, 2009. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  12. ^ a b "The Hofstadter Isotope". The Big Bang Theory. Season 2. Episode 20. April 13, 2009. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ "The Middle Earth Paradigm". The Big Bang Theory. Season 1. Episode 6. October 29, 2007. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ "The Terminator Decoupling". The Big Bang Theory. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  15. ^ "The Adhesive Duck Deficiency". The Big Bang Theory. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
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