The Cooper-Hofstadter Coffee Table Proof

Leonard_and_Sheldons_Coffee_Table_by_Wil_Wheaton

(Image by me. Click to embiggen. Please link to this post if you reuse it.)

As I walked from the comic shop set down to the bowling alley set today, I passed the set for Leonard and Sheldon's apartment, which is in the center of the stage. I gawked at it the way you do when you're a fan of the show and can't believe you're actually close enough to actually walk through it, and my eyes fell on the coffee table. I saw a lot of things that could have been on my own coffee table, so I decided to grab a picture (those are my Chucks in the lower right corner.)

I took this picture because this is more than just a nifty glimpse behind the scenes. This is an example of the attention to detail that is everywhere on every set of The Big Bang Theory. It would be really easy to just toss a few random magazines and soda cans there, because it's very unlikely that they'll ever be seen in this much detail, but at every level of production, they make a concerted effort to ensure that everything is authentic. I mean, how many of you looked at this and thought, "Hey, that could be my coffee table!" I see a lot of hands going up, and that's why I took this snap.

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71 thoughts on “The Cooper-Hofstadter Coffee Table Proof”

  4. Well, not to get all "nerd glasses push-up-y" on you, but just about every nerd I know, including myself, has at least one – usually several – old computers that we don't use but can't bring ourselves to recycle. They end up sitting in a corner, against a wall, next to a desk, and eventually become part of the furniture.
    In fact, my old Debian box is currently sitting on the floor in my office, next to my desk, with several boxes of games and gaming accessories sitting atop it.
    So, yeah, I'd say this is even more authenticity.

  5. *Glances around…* (That’s for spares… Hell no, I’m not throwing that away, I myself painted the case on that.)
    Ok you got me, didn’t think of that =)

  6. There is a good chance when you clicked on the link the page was being BOMBARDED with Wil’s twitter followers all checking it out at the same time. I had to hit refresh over a dozen times to finally see the image.
    Wil easily has the power to possibly crash any site by saying “Hey, check this out….”

  12. I'm a serious gamer, and I can't stand card protectors.
    I understand why some people use them, but I hate them. They make cards hard to shuffle, and if the light is wrong, they can put annoying reflections across the surface.

  13. I was just thinking that considering how they treat their comic books.
    I used to think like you until some muppet spilled his drink all over the table ruining the majority of the Munchkin deck we were playing.

  14. I cant wait to see this ep for two reasons: Theres the obvious Evil Wil thing, and then theres the fact that I love bowling.
    Im really curious about the bowling set. Is it an actual working pair (or more) of lanes, or is it just the wells and the alleys where character interactions take place and we see you throw a few balls, but the actual shot of what you would have bowled (strike, gutter, split conversion, etc) is edited in later? Have always wondered this about bowling scenes in general.

  15. Yeah, I have to admit, when you first posted this on Twitter yesterday, my eyes automatically shifted to one of my end tables (I live with the ‘rents, so obviously I wouldn’t have a coffee table in my room, as much as I’d love to have one in here but can’t due to lack of space) and let out a hearty geeksnortlaugh. The attention to detail on that show amazes me now that it’s been pointed out, and it makes me appreciate how great it is in general even more. I’m counting the days, Wil. Gooooooo Team Sheldon! Hahahaha. Evil you is going to totally break my Moon Pie’s heart again, isn’t he? Bastard.

  16. Hehe. My basement was an old computer graveyard for the longest time. When my former place of work got a grant for new computers in the classrooms, they were just going to throw the ones we had away, so I asked my boss if I could take them for spare parts. I have no idea how long they were down there, but I did gut a few of them out to build a couple of computers for friends of mine who were still living in the Dark Ages or to replace fried sound cards/graphics cards/dead CD ROM drives, etc. for other people I knew. Then one day, I went down there and they were all mysteriously just gone! Turns out that one day when I was at work, my Stepdad got sick of tripping over them and loaded them onto his truck and drove them to a local recycling center. Man, was I pissed! They weren’t technically *my* computers and I didn’t have any sentimental value invested in them, but I just couldn’t fathom throwing them away like that. It just felt wrong to me, and it still does all these years later. So yeah, I’m guilty as sin in this department for sure.

  17. Yes dear, I know it’s a figure of speech. It’s also considered bad writing, which is why I was surprised Wil used it, he being a pretty damn fine writer most of the time.

  18. Well certainly the move to High Definition and the use of DVRs mean that alot more of this kind of thing gets seen by the audience than used to be the case. I was watching some of the blu-ray rereleases from ST:TOS and much of the set decoration /costuming doesn’t really make the cut anymore. Certainly there were many people working on details that would never have been seen on film, but “phoning it in” is much less of an option than it once was.

  19. Sorry if I’m late to the party but I’m curious. Are the actors who play Leonard, Sheldon, Raj, and Howard at all geeky? Or are they just being good actors and portraying the part well. Or are they somewhere in between. I hope so. Just to add more authenticity.

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