S03E06 - The Cornhusker Vortex

No: 46  |  Season: 3   Episode: 6  |  Air Date: 2009-11-02  |  Runtime: mins

Leonard: (watching football) What is this "sacks" statistic they put up there? Howard: All I know about Saks is my mother shops there.

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Summary

Leonard tries to learn about football to fit in with Penny's friends. Meanwhile, a loss in a kite war threatens to end Raj and Howard's friendship.

Director and Writers

Director: Mark Cendrowski
Writers: Story by: Bill Prady & Steven Molaro / Teleplay by: Dave Goetsch & Richard Rosenstock

Script

Script: S03E06 - The Cornhusker Vortex

Quotes

Howard: (about a girl he thought smiled at him) I totally had a shot!
Raj: With a woman you were chasing through a park. That's not a shot; that's a felony.

Sheldon: Is that what you're wearing to watch football at Penny's?
Leonard: What's wrong with a football jersey?
Sheldon: Nothing. That, however, appears to be a football cocktail dress.
Leonard: It was the smallest size they had. Except the one for dogs. I can't believe they have one for dogs.
Sheldon: Oh, yes. Canine football fans are a common sight in Texas. Cats, however, refuse to wear sporting apparel. My sister found that out the hard way.

Howard: Sheldon knows football?
Leonard: Apparently.
Howard: I mean Quidditch, sure. But football?
Leonard: Sheldon, how do you know this stuff?
Sheldon: I grew up in Texas. Football is ubiquitous in Texas. Pro football, college football, high school football, Pee-Wee football; in fact, every form of football except the original: European football, which most Texans believe to be a commie plot.
Leonard: Unbelievable.
Sheldon: If you're interested, I also know all about frying meat that isn't chicken as if it were chicken.
Leonard: So you could teach me?
Sheldon: Football or chicken fried meats?
Leonard: Football! I'm going to Penny's on Saturday to watch a game with her friends, and I don't want to look like an idiot. I want to blend in.
Sheldon: If you want to blend in with Penny's friends, I think looking like an idiot would be the perfect camouflage.

Penny: Sheldon, come in.
Sheldon: Thank you. I'd like to make a sandwich, but I'm out of bread.
Penny: There's some in the fridge.
Sheldon: You shouldn't keep your bread in the refrigerator. Staleness is caused by crystallization of the starch molecules, which occurs faster at cool temperatures.
Penny: On Earth, we say thank you.

Sheldon: All right, Poindexter, sit down, shut up and listen.
Leonard: I'm sorry?
Sheldon: Oh, that's how my father always began our football conversations. And if you'd like, after the game I'll take you outside and teach you how to shoot close enough to a raccoon that it craps itself.

Leonard: Why wouldn't Penny want her friends to meet me?
Sheldon: Focus, Leonard, focus. The heat of battle is upon us; the dogs of war unleashed.
Leonard: Maybe Koothrappali's right; maybe I embarrass her.
Sheldon: You're embarrassing me right now. A grown man worrying about such nonsense when in the middle of flying kites.

Raj: Sheldon, I don't suppose there's any chance you could give me kite back?
Sheldon: I'm sorry, Raj, but the rules of aerial warfare dictate that the fallen kite go to the victor, and without rules the competition has no meaning. And without meaning, the following would be an empty gesture: I have your kite! I have your kite!

Leonard: Well, this sucks.
Sheldon: I'm sorry, I got bored and drifted off. Where exactly in the interaction did the sucking lie?
Raj: Leonard just realized that Penny's been hiding him from her friends because he's a tiny little man who flies kites.
Sheldon: Oh, that certainly would suck.

Howard, Leonard, Raj: Kites ho! Kites ho! Kites ho!
Sheldon: Excuse me. You're misusing the word "ho". It's an interjection used to call attention to a destination, not an object. As in, uh, "land ho!" or, uh, "westward ho!"
Howard, Leonard, Raj: (after a beat) Kites ho!

Howard: (Howard and Raj are arguing) At least I can talk to women without being drunk!
Raj: Excuse me, I have selective mutism, a recognized medical disorder. You're just a douche!

Leonard: When are you going to stop making Cylon toast?
Sheldon: When I have enough to destroy all the human toast on the Battlestar known as Galactica.

Leonard: (watching football) What is this "sacks" statistic they put up there?
Howard: All I know about Saks is my mother shops there.
Leonard: (searching the index of "Football for Dummies") Sacks, sacks.
Sheldon: It's football nomenclature for when a quarterback is tackled behind the line of scrimmage.
Leonard: Huh.
(looking through his book again)
Leonard: Scrimmage...
Sheldon: The line of scrimmage is the imaginary transverse line separating the offense from the defense.

Raj: What a douche!

Leonard: (Leonard is trying to learn about football) Okay, a completed pass: first down, New England. I think I'm starting to get this.
Raj: Really? The only thing I've learned in the last two hours is that American men love drinking beer, pee too often, and have trouble getting erections.
Leonard: Focus on the game, not the commercials, Raj.
Raj: I'm just saying maybe if you people cut back on the beer, you could get out of the bathroom and satisfy your women without pharmaceutical help.

Sheldon: Am I correct in assuming that your attempt to be accepted by Penny's peers is based on your desire to ensure your continuing mating privileges with her?
Leonard: Well, I wouldn't put it exactly that way.
Sheldon: How would you put it?
Leonard: (pause) Yeah, okay, like you said.
Sheldon: Huh. Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for intercourse. Don't you have access to women who will do it for money? By the way, another accepted usage for the term "ho."

Howard: I would've caught up to her if I hadn't pulled a hammy.
Raj: Oh, please. You weigh 80 pounds. You don't have a hammy.

Penny: I wouldn't mind if you wanted to go fly kites with Sheldon.
Leonard: No, I'll watch the end of the game. Besides, there's three minutes left.
Penny: Until halftime.
Leonard: This is just half? We've been here for hours!
Penny: You're gonna be here for a couple more.
Leonard: Oh, you're kidding me.
Penny: No.
Leonard: (getting up and leaving) Nice meeting all of you!

Leonard: What the hell are you talking about?
Sheldon: I'm attempting to communicate with you without my meaning becoming apparent to those around you. Let me try again. Have the indigenous fauna accepted you as one of their own? Nudge nudge wink wink.

Leonard: Sheldon, please teach me football. It'll be fun!
Sheldon: That's exactly what my father said. "Come to the games! Watch the games!" Week in and week out, from the time I was five until I went off to college. Longest seven years of my life.

Leonard: Go! Go! Go! Go-Go-Go-Go! Yes! Are you people watching this? Is this amazing or what?
Penny: Sweetie, that's a highlight from the '98 championship game.

Howard: I brought you a little gift. New kite!
Raj: (scoffs) The kite you made me lose was an authentic Patang. An Indian fighting kite that my brother sent to me from New Delhi. It took me a day to put together and two days to paint. This is Hello Kitty.
Howard: Yeah, but it comes with a little coin purse. Does a Patang?

Notes and Trivia

At 17:59 in, Kaley Cuoco looks right at the camera for a split second.

Sheldon demonstrates a profound knowledge of football, which came from his father persuading him to watch football games for seven years. Apparently, that ploy stopped working at one point, because in episode 7.9, The Thanksgiving Decoupling (2013), when Sheldon bonds with Howard's father-in-law, he reveals that his knowledge of football comes from his father making him watch before he was allowed to do his homework.

The Battlestar Galactica (2004) Cylon toaster Sheldon is shown using is a real product.

Title Reference: The football team (Nebraska Cornhuskers) Penny and her friends watch and root for and the fact that Leonard gets caught up in trying to understand the sport of football to fit in with Penny's friends.

When Howard and Raj are sitting on a bench after visiting the La Brea Tar Pits, Howard suggests that they go to Marie Callendar's for pie. There actually was a Callendar's restaurant right across the street from (east of) the La Brea Tar Pits, at 5773 Wilshire Blvd. The restaurant closed in 2018, about nine years after this episode aired (and a year before the show ended).

When Raj is watching television in his apartment, the song "Mere Mehboob Mere Sanam" from the film Duplicate (1998) is heard.

When Sheldon asks Penny for bread, he asks, "Have the indigenous fauna accepted you as one of their own? Nudge~nudge~wink~wink." "Nudge~nudge~wink~wink" is a nod to a bit from Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969).

Goofs

None

Cast

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