S04E08 - The 21-Second Excitation

No: 71  |  Season: 4   Episode: 8  |  Air Date: 2010-11-11  |  Runtime: mins

Summary

The guys camp out all night waiting to see an extended cut of Indiana Jones, while Amy joins in on girls' night with Penny and Bernadette.

Director and Writers

Director: Mark Cendrowski
Writers: Story by: Chuck Lorre & Bill Prady & Jim Reynolds / Teleplay by: Lee Aronsohn & Steven Molaro & Steve Holland

Script

Script: S04E08 - The 21-Second Excitation

Quotes

Sheldon: Trouble is my middle name, Leonard. Actually, it's Lee, but I prefer Trouble.

Sheldon: No cuts, no butts, no coconuts.

Bernadette: You know what I really love about Howard? His chest hair.
Penny: Howard has a hairy chest?
Bernadette: No, just the one, but it's really long.

(Sheldon is upset that Wil Wheaton has been invited to circumvent the line into a showing of the remastered "Raiders of the Lost Ark")
Sheldon: This is "Indiana Jones", not "Star Trek". There should be no value to his pseudo-celebrity here.
(shouting at a departing Wil Wheaton)
Sheldon: And even at Star Trek conventions, they only let him in if he helps set up!

Howard: Are you sure you don't want to come with us to "Raiders"?
Bernadette: Oh, no. That movie has melting faces. It reminds me too much of the time I dropped that vial of flesh-eating bacteria into the Rhesus monkey lab.

Penny: You know, Amy, when we say girl talk, it doesn't just have to be about our lady parts.
Amy: Shame. Because I have a real zinger about my tilted uterus.

Penny: You know, I could totally rock a hat like that.
Sheldon: That's the work of noted Hollywood costume designer Deborah Nadoolman. She also designed the iconic red and black jacket in Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video, which I've never watched in its entirety, as I find zombies dancing in choreographed synchronicity implausible. And also, it's really scary.

Amy: (to Bernadette) What is the circumference of your areolas?

Penny: I think I'll pass, but you guys enjoy your extra 21 seconds.
Leonard: I bet if I could make you understand why this is such a cool thing, we'd still be together.
Penny: Hmm... yeah, no we wouldn't.
(Raj whispers something to Howard)
Howard: Uh-huh. I'm guessing 21 seconds had something to do with that, too.

Amy: The internet suggests that slumber party guests often engage in harmless experimentation with lesbianism.
Bernadette: Where exactly on the internet have you been looking?

Penny: How does an archeology professor get that good with a whip?
Howard: Maybe he took a class at the adult bookstore. That's how I learned.

Sheldon: This is nothing but a blatant abuse of power by a petty functionary. Explain to me why Wil Wheaton and his lackeys get in and we don't!
Joey: Because I'm the petty functionary with a clipboard, bitch.

Wil Wheaton: Hey, look who's here! Hey, buddies!
Sheldon: Well, if it isn't Wil Wheaton, the Jar-Jar Binks of the "Star Trek" universe.
Wil Wheaton: (imitating Jar-Jar Binks) Mee-sa think that very funny!

Amy: Oh good, a slumber party! We'll do makeovers, initiate phony phone calls, and have spirited pillow fights in our frilly nighties!

Leonard: Can we turn off the Sheldon Commentary ?

Bernadette: Penny and I are having a girls' night tonight.
Amy: Girls' night? What does that entail?
Bernadette: Oh, you know, girls get together, hang out, share girl talk.
Amy: I'm a girl.
Bernadette: Oh. Well, maybe you can join us. I'll ask Penny.
Amy: No need. Penny and I are very close... In fact, our menses are synchronized.

Notes and Trivia

Because of her broken leg Kaley Cuoco is shown working as The Cheesecake Factory's bartender again, instead of her normal job as a waitress. Also, a body double is used when Penny storms off near the end of the show.

First episode in which Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch's names are shown in the beginning of the episode with the rest of the main cast.

Penny tells Leonard she can't believe he's never read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Raj says the book changed his life and later tries to tell the guys about it. Eventually, Leonard can be seen reading it while the guys are waiting in line to get into the movie theater.

The ending of the episode where Sheldon runs from the theater is a spoof of the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).

The Miller's Tale from Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" really is filthy. At the denouement a wife is having sex with her lover when she sticks her rear out a window to trick a nerdy cleric into kissing her lower lips but he gets suspicious because he knows a woman has not a beard so he gets a red hot poker and shoves it up the ass of the wife's lover who yells for water causing the cuckolded husband to cut a rope suspending himself from the barn roof causing him to fall and break a few bones. Amy's recount, while properly using some Old English words, is clearly a condensed/unexpurgated version.

The quote that Sheldon uses against Wil Wheaton comes from Jean-Luc Picard fighting the Borg invasion in Star Trek: First Contact (1996). Wheaton played Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) where Picard was his captain, but was absent from First Contact.

The so-called "submarine controversy" from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) refers to the scene where Indiana Jones grabs hold to the outside of a Nazi submarine and rides it all the way to their hidden island base. The "controversy" is how Indy knew the sub wouldn't submerge and likely cause him to drown. In novelizations and comic adaptations of the film, the submarine does submerge, but Indy lashes himself to the periscope, which remains above water.

The yelp that Kaley Cuoco blurts out when Mayim Bialik hits her with a pillow was genuine, as she wasn't expecting to actually be hit with it.

This is the first episode the girls all share a scene together.

Two of the men accompanying Wil Wheaton to the movie are Captain Sweatpants and Lonely Larry, who are frequently seen in the Comic Book Store; the third man (Jesse Heiman) was first introduced in The Desperation Emanation (2010) as a Comic Book Store customer. He makes three more appearances in the show (at Wil Wheaton's party in The Russian Rocket Reaction (2011); at Howard's stag party in The Stag Convergence (2012), and during the Valentine party in The Tangible Affection Proof (2013)) but never received a nickname.

Goofs

None

Cast

Johnny GaleckiLeonard Hofstadter
Jim ParsonsSheldon Cooper
Kaley CuocoPenny
Simon HelbergHoward Wolowitz
Kunal NayyarRaj Koothrappali
Mayim BialikAmy Farrah Fowler
Melissa RauchBernadette Rostenkowski
Wil WheatonWil Wheaton
Eric AndreJoey