S02E04 - The Griffin Equivalency

No: 21  |  Season: 2   Episode: 4  |  Air Date: 2008-10-13  |  Runtime: mins

I'm not insane. My mother had me tested.

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Summary

The guys struggle to cope with Raj's arrogance after he is featured in a People magazine article.

Director and Writers

Director: Mark Cendrowski
Writers: Story by: Bill Prady & Chuck Lorre / Teleplay by: Stephen Engel & Tim Doyle

Script

Script: S02E04 - The Griffin Equivalency

Quotes

Dr. Gablehauser: Let me ask you something: what do you think the business of this place is?
Leonard: (confers with Sheldon and Howard for a few seconds) Science?
Dr. Gablehauser: Money.
Howard: Told ya.

Raj: Hey guys, I just got the most amazing
(sees Penny)
Raj: yiii.

Leonard: (handing out Chinese take-out food) Let's see: Raj was the Kung Pao chicken...
Penny: I'm the dumplings.
Howard: Yes, you are.
Penny: Creepy, Howard.
Howard: Creepy good or creepy bad?
Leonard: Who was the shrimp with lobster sauce?
Howard: That would be me. Come to papa, you un-kosher delight. And I'm not necessarily talking to the food.
Penny: (pointing to a chair) Sit over there.

Raj: (after Leonard, Sheldon and Howard leave in disgust, Raj turns to a man at another table) Hey, buddy, I'm going to be in People magazine.
Charlie Sheen: (Turning around so that Raj, and we, can see who he is) Call me when you're on the *cover*.

Leonard: If we do get a new friend he should be a guy you can trust. A guy who has your back.
Howard: And he should have a lot of money and live in a cool place down by the beach where we could throw parties.
Sheldon: He should share our love of technology.
Howard: And he should know a lot of women.
Leonard: Let's see: money, women, technology. Okay, we're agreed. Our new friend is going to be... Iron Man.

Raj: Of course I couldn't get you into the V.I.P. section, because, you know, that's for V.I.P.s and you guys are just, you know, P.s.

Sheldon: What makes accidentally noticing a hunk of rock that's been traipsing around the solar system for billions of years more noteworthy than any other scientific accomplishment made by someone under 30?

(Raj has been named one of People magazine's "30 Under 30 to Watch")
Howard: Do I get an honorable mention for designing the telescope camera mounting bracket you used?
Raj: Sorry; it's not part of my heart-warming and personal narrative, in which a humble boy from New Delhi overcame poverty and prejudice and journeyed to America to reach for the stars.
Howard: Poverty? Your father's a gynecologist. He drives a Bentley.
Raj: It's a lease!

Raj: Remember that little planetary object I spotted beyond the Kuiper Belt?
Leonard: Oh, yeah: 2008NQsub17.
Raj: Or, as I call it, "Planet Bollywood".

Leonard: (On Sheldon's smile) We're here to cheer up Koothrappali, not kill Batman.

Sheldon: Baby wipe?
Penny: Why do you have those?
Leonard, Howard: No, no! Don't! Don't!
Sheldon: I'll tell you why. I had to sanitize my hands because the university replaced the paper towels in the rest rooms, with hot air blowers.
Penny: Oh I thought the blowers were more sanitary.
Leonard, Howard: Why? Please, don't!
Sheldon: Hot air blowers are incubators and spewers of bacteria and pestilence. Frankly, it'd be more hygienic if they just had a plague-infested gibbon sneeze my hands dry.

Gablehauser: Have you been to the President's dining hall?
Raj: I didn't know there was one.
Gablehauser: It has the same food as the cafeteria, only fresh.

(Raj was named one of People magazine's "30 Under 30 to Watch")
Leonard: We're going to go apologize to Raj and invite him out to dinner.
Sheldon: Apologize? For what?
Leonard: He came over last night with some pretty good news, and we weren't very supportive.
Sheldon: I sense you're trying to tell me something.
Howard: You were a colossal asshat.
Sheldon: Oh! No! I beg to differ. Of the three of us, I was by far the most supportive.
Leonard: Really. Do tell.
Sheldon: How will Raj ever reach true greatness if his friends lower the bar for him? When I was eleven, my sister bought our father a "World's Greatest Dad" coffee mug; and, frankly, the man coasted until the day he died.
Leonard: Okay, let's try it this way: what if this People magazine thing is the best Raj is ever going to achieve?
Sheldon: I had not considered that. I often forget other people have limitations. It's so sad.
Howard: He can feel sadness?
Leonard: Not really; it's what you and I would call condescension.

(Raj is acting arrogant as a result of being named one of People magazine's "30 Under 30 to Watch")
Sheldon: There's a tribe in Papua New Guinea where, when a hunter flaunts his success to the rest of the village, they kill him and drive away evil spirits with a drum made of his skin. Superstitious nonsense, of course - but one can see their point.

Gablehauser: (all in Raj's office when Dr. Gablehauser walks in) Hello, boys.
Raj: Dr. Gablehauser.
Gablehauser: Dr. Koothrappali.
Leonard: Dr. Gablehauser.
Gablehauser: Dr. Hofstadter.
Sheldon: Dr. Gablehauser.
Gablehauser: Dr. Cooper.
Howard: Dr. Gablehauser.
Gablehauser: *Mr.* Wolowitz.

Penny: I can't believe you. Raj is celebrating a tremendous accomplishment and you're not even gonna be there to support him?
Sheldon: A tremendous accomplishment would be if the planetary body he discovered were plummeting toward Earth and he exploded it with his mind.
Howard: That would be cool. I'd go to that reception.

Leonard: That may well be, but it wouldn't kill us to meet some new people.
Sheldon: For the record, it could kill us to meet new people. They could be murderers, or the carriers of unusual pathogens... And I'm not insane, my mother had me tested.

Sheldon: Look, I found my missing neutrino.
Howard: Oh, good. Now we can take his picture off the milk carton.

Leonard: Are you proud of yourself?
Sheldon: In general, yes.

Notes and Trivia

At The Cheesecake Factory, Raj is drinking his trademark Grasshopper.

Charlie Sheen was a guest star in this episode and at the time was starring in Chuck Lorre's other production Two and a Half Men (2003) as Charlie Harper. Sheen's appearance led to widespread speculation that Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory were set in the same continuity, but later episodes of Two and a Half Men proved otherwise.

Final appearance of Dr. Gablehouser, played by Mark Harelik.

Raj's planetary object, 2008-NQ17, is fictitious, though its designation implies that it was the 220th minor planet discovered during the first fifteen days of July 2008; although analysis of old photographs can result in late additions, considerably fewer than 220 discoveries have been made over that period and it is highly unlikely that number will ever be assigned.

The red t-shirt that Sheldon is wearing (while he's eating Chinese food with Leonard & Howard) bears the distinctive logo of The Greatest American Hero (1981), a comedy/adventure TV series from the early 1980s, about a young man who is given an alien suit that grants him superpowers.

This is the first time Sheldon (Jim Parsons) says his famous line "I'm not insane. My mother had me tested."

Title reference: Sheldon wanted to replace his childhood cat with a griffin, as he thought it would better suit his needs for a companion. He uses the story as a springboard to discuss a replacement for Raj.

When Leonard comments on Sheldon's forced smile, he says that they are there to "cheer up Koothrappali, not kill Batman". He refers to Batman's mortal enemy, The Joker, who always grimaces menacingly.

When Raj's apartment is shown, the viewing audience sees that he has at least two telescopes: a small refractor and a larger (perhaps 8") Schmidt-Cassegrain reflecting telescope on a computer-controlled mount. On a shelf, he also has an "L"-shaped military-style flashlight fitted with a red filter. Astronomers use red flashlights like this one in the field to avoid ruining their night vision. A refractor is a telescope in which the light passes through a series of lenses instead of being reflected in mirrors.

Goofs

None

Cast

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