S02E20 - The Hofstadter Isotope

No: 37  |  Season: 2   Episode: 20  |  Air Date: 2009-04-13  |  Runtime: mins

Blink twice if you're here against your will.

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Summary

Leonard is upset when the owner of the comic book store goes on a date with Penny, so he convinces Howard and Raj to take him to a bar so that he can pick up a woman of his own.

Director and Writers

Director: Mark Cendrowski
Writers: Dave Goetsch

Script

Script: S02E20 - The Hofstadter Isotope

Quotes

Stuart: You can throw all the French around you want, it doesn't make you right.
Sheldon: Au contraire.

(Sheldon moans)
Leonard: Problem?
Sheldon: This is Thai food.
Howard: Here we go.
Sheldon: We don't have Thai food on Thursday, we have pizza on Thursday.
Leonard: Yes, but we all agreed that the third Thursday of every month would be anything-can-happen Thursday.
Sheldon: Well, apparently the news didn't reach my digestive system, which, when startled, has its own version of anything-can-happen Thursday.

Sheldon: (Penny is asleep) Don't wake her. She'll maul you like a rabid wolverine.

Raj: Barkeep, Alexander me.

Howard: I'm a horny engineer, Leonard. I never joke about math or sex.

Penny: What would you recommend as a present for a 13-year old boy?
Stuart: Um, a 13-year old girl?

Howard: I'm a falcon who hunts better solo.
Leonard: Fine. I'll sit here; you take flight and hunt.
Howard: Don't be ridiculous; you can't just tell a falcon when to hunt.
Leonard: Actually you *can*! There's a whole sport built around it. Falconry.

Leonard: Hey, Howard?.. Take me to a bar with women.
Howard: Really?
Leonard: Yeah.
Howard: Okay. Let me just go inside and slip off my underwear.
Leonard: Why?
Howard: Well, if I get lucky, I don't wanna be caught in my Aquaman briefs.

Leonard: Hey Stuart, this is Penny. She's just looking for some comic books.
Stuart: Oh really, wow.
(to Penny)
Stuart: Blink twice if you're here against your will.

Penny: Oh, hey, could you pick me up a few comics for my nephew's birthday?
Sheldon: No, I think you mean comic books. Comics are feeble attempts at humor featuring talking babies and anthropomorphized pets found traditionally in the optimistically named "funny pages".
Penny: Leonard, pick me up comics for my nephew's birthday?
Leonard: Sure. What does he like?
Penny: I don't know, just pick out anything.
Sheldon: Just pick out anything? Maybe we can pick out a new suit for him without knowing his size? Or pick out his career without knowing his aptitude? Or pick out a new breakfast cereal without knowing his fiber requirements? Or his feelings about little marshmallows?

Howard: (introducing Leonard to a bar) First we let the lawyers and the jocks thin the herd, and then we go after the weak, the old and the lame.

Penny: You know, it's kind of early. Do you want to maybe come in for some coffee or something?
Stuart: Oh, gee. It's a little late for coffee, isn't it?
Penny: Oh... you think coffee means coffee. That is so sweet.

Stuart: Look Sheldon, it's late, I've gotta get some sleep.
Sheldon: So I win.
Stuart: No, I'm tired.
Sheldon: So I win.
Stuart: Fine, you win.
Sheldon: Darn tootin' I win.

Howard: In bars all across this great nation of ours Thursday night is Ladies' Night, which means as the evening progresses we will get better looking courtesy of ninety-nine cent margaritas and two-for-one Jello shots.

Leonard: Come on, Howard, the odds of us picking up girls in a bar are practically zero.
Howard: Really? Are you familiar with the Drake Equation?
Sheldon: The one that estimates the odds of making contact with extraterrestrials by calculating the product of an increasingly restrictive series of fractional values such as those stars with planets, and those planets likely to develop life? N equals R times FP times NE times FL times FI times FC times L?
Howard: Yeah, that one.

(Sheldon and Howard grab the same comic book)
Howard: Let it go, Sheldon.
Sheldon: Why should I let it go, I saw it first?
Howard: Yes, but I saw it from the front.
Sheldon: A far less impressive feat.

Sheldon: Did you just shut the TV off in the middle of the classic Deep Space Nine-Star Trek: The Original Series-Trouble With Tribbles crossover episode?
Leonard: Apparently so.
Sheldon: Are you ill?
Leonard: No.
Sheldon: All right. Then is it fair to say that you're experiencing some sort of emotional turmoil over the events involving Penny earlier this evening?
Leonard: When did you pick up on that!
Sheldon: A moment ago when you turned off the TV in the middle of the classic Deep Space Nine-Star Trek: The Original Series-Trouble With Tribbles crossover episode.

Leonard: Should we talk to some of these women?
Howard: No, it's way too early in the night for that. See, first we let the lawyers and the jocks thin the herd, and then we go after the weak and the old and the lame.
Leonard: That's your system?
Howard: That's my system. Oh, and if you spot a chick with a Seeing Eye dog, she's mine.

Leonard: Sheldon, we agreed we'd do something different tonight.
Sheldon: All right. Let's go to the comic book store.
Raj: We went to the comic book store last night.
Sheldon: Last night was Wednesday; Wednesday *is* comic book night. Tonight we'll be going on Thursday because it's anything-can-happen Thursday.
Leonard: Way to think outside but pressed right up against the box, Sheldon.

Howard: (Raj is making out with a large lady) Lucky bastard. It's gotta be that stupid accent of his.
(to a lady in an Indian accent)
Howard: Hello, I'm Sumjay Wolowitz from Bombay.
(she walks away)
Howard: OK, I'm stumped.

Penny: (after entering a comic book store loudly) Everbody is staring at me.
Leonard: Don't worry. They're more scared of you than you are of them.
Penny: Unlikely.

Howard: (sitting in the bar) I'm not sitting here with a guy drinking a grasshopper with a little umbrella.
Raj: Fine. I'll have a Chocolate martini.
Howard: Wrong, again.
Raj: Come on, you know I can't talk to women unless I'm lit up like the Hindu festival of Devali.
Howard: Look, there are plenty of bars in Los Angeles where you can order grasshoppers and chocolate martinis but you wouldn't have to because there are no women in them.
Raj: Gotcha. I'll have a Brandy Alexander.

Stuart: Here, Sheldon. I pulled the new Hellboy for you. It's mind-blowing.
Sheldon: Excuse me, spoiler alert.
Stuart: But I didn't spoil anything.
Sheldon: You told me it's mind-blowing, so my mind is going into it pre-blown. And once a mind is pre-blown, it cannot be re-blown.

Sheldon: Well, I've spent the last three hours in an online debate in the DC Comics Batman chatroom, and I need your help.
Stuart: Oh yeah. Those guys can be very stubborn. What's the topic?
Sheldon: I am asserting, in the event that Batman's death proves permanent, that original Robin, Dick Grayson, is the logical successor to the Bat Cowl.
Stuart: Ooh, Sheldon, I'm afraid you couldn't be more wrong.
Sheldon: More wrong? Wrong is an absolute state and not subject to gradation.
Stuart: Of course it is. It's a little wrong to say a tomato is a vegetable, it's very wrong to say it's a suspension bridge. But returning to the original issue, Dick Grayson became Nightwing, a superhero in his own right. Batman 2 has to be the second Robin, Jason Todd.
Sheldon: Has to be? Has to be? I hope you're being deliberately provocative

Leonard: I just wannna know why Penny is more interested in Stuart than me. We're practically the same guy!
Sheldon: Oh, I disagree. Stuart is taller, artistic, self employed and most significantly, he gets 45% off comic books.

Notes and Trivia

Howard (Simon Helberg)'s calculations of potential women that they could pick up is based on the Drake Equation, which attempts to calculate odds of finding intelligent alien life in the Milky Way galaxy. Dr. Frank Drake came up with an equation to examine factors of: the rate of star formation (R), the number of stars with planets(fp), the number of planets per solar system suitable for life(ne), the number of those with ACTUAL life(fl), the number of those with INTELLIGENT life(fi), the number of those whose activities emit detectible signs of their life into space where we could find it (fc), and the length of time that those signals are emitted (L).

Sheldon (Jim Parsons)'s assertion that having Bruce Wayne know who murdered his parents destroys any motivation he has for continuing to be Batman comes directly from the works of Chuck Dixon. Dixon is one of the most prolific writers of the Batman comic books, and is the creator of the villainous character Bane (who appeared in Batman & Robin (1997) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012)). His work as a comic book writer has also been referenced in The Punisher (2004) and Batman: The Animated Series (1992).

The comic book over which Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Howard (Simon Helberg) are arguing is issue #8 of "All Star Batman and Robin" with a variant cover by Neal Adams, issued November 29, 2007.

The comic book Stuart recommends for Penny's nephew is Hellblazer, the basis for Constantine (2005).

This episode marks the first appearance of the comic book store, the first appearance of Kevin Sussman playing Stuart Bloom, and the first appearance of Captain Sweatpants. Kevin Sussman had previously worked in a comic book store in real life.

This is the first episode where the scene transition wipes of atoms also appear at the beginning of the episode. It stays for the rest of the series, only absent in the next episode.

True to Sheldon (Jim Parsons)'s prediction, Dick Grayson did in fact become Batman after Bruce Wayne's death. Specifically this happened in the twenty-one issue "Streets of Gotham" series written by Paul Dini and ran from 2009-2011.

Goofs

None

Cast

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