Here’s something most people never think about: television comedy is all about tension. Specifically, the tension between different types of characters as they bounce off each other. In order to have major tension, comedies need to have characters who are very different from each other, and no show exemplifies this more than The Big Bang Theory.
That show has great characters that make us laugh, but some of them are downright annoying. And when we say “annoying,” we mean that these are the kinds of fictional people that would drive you crazy in real life. Just who are the biggest offenders in America’s favorite sitcom? Keep reading to discover the most annoying characters on The Big Bang Theory!
Leonard Hofstadter
Many fans call Leonard Hofstadter the main character of The Big Bang Theory, but that’s not quite the right term. Since this is an ensemble comedy, there isn’t truly a “main” character. But Leonard fulfills another function: he’s the audience surrogate, the kind of character that most of us watching at home can relate to. In other words, he’s the character whose POV we mostly view this world with.
We’re supposed to see ourselves in Leonard, but that’s a double-edged sword: just as we tend to criticize ourselves the hardest, we hate the characters who remind us of ourselves. Every season has Leonard making boneheaded mistakes and saying the wrong thing. That does make him relatable, but the last thing we want to relate to is our own history of similar mistakes.
Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz
Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz is another example of a great character who is nonetheless very annoying. With her high voice and her aggressive personality, Bernadette often generated some of the show’s greatest punchlines. But the more that we watched The Big Bang Theory, the more we started asking a simple question: “why the heck do her friends put up with her?”
It might be mean to say, but Bernadette’s voice alone would be off-putting in almost any social setting. Assuming you could put up with how she sounds, though, you’d have to put up with something worse: her mean personality. There are entire episodes devoted to characters like Penny explaining to Bernadette how her awful behavior alienates those around her.
If we were in that world, we’d skip the middleman and just not be around her in the first place!
Howard Wolowitz
Part of what made The Big Bang Theory so fun is watching our characters grow over time. That was particularly true of characters like Leonard and Sheldon who go from being insular geeks to being happily married. One more of their trio gets married, and that’s Howard Wolowitz. However, this is sadly the only way that he really grows or matures in the show.
Howard begins the show as an annoying horndog of a character, someone who never hesitates to say the wrong thing to (or about) women and basically comes across as a general creep. None of this ever really goes away, and even if you can put up with the cringe jokes and sexist humor, Howard is just a really sad guy.
Think about it: he goes into space but still can’t escape the shadows of his mother’s influence and his friends’ professional success. At some point, you just feel sorry for the guy, making his many scenes that much more annoying.
Sheldon Cooper
While Leonard was always meant as the audience surrogate of the show, it didn’t take Sheldon Cooper long to become its breakout star. He was always the smartest of the gang, but that intelligence came at a cost: namely, that he would always be the geek among geeks, somebody who can’t even get the jokes cracked by dweebs like Howard.
Having a character that alternates between knowing everything about science and nothing about people makes for some funny scenes, but it also makes for a very annoying character. Plus, the prolonged gags about Sheldon’s ironclad Roommate Agreement with Leonard make us wonder how long we could really put up with this guy’s strange personality quirks.
Like Howard, Sheldon’s growth was little to nonexistent, and it was frustrating watching someone so allegedly smart refuse to grow at all, week after week and year after year. Real talk: if he was our roommate, the first episode would have ended with him finding a new place to live!
Stuart Bloom
Stuart Bloom is a character we are obviously meant to feel sorry for. He may own a comic store, but he seems to constantly struggle with both money and relationships. And the relationships he does have mostly boil down to him sponging off other people, like when he goes to live with Howard and Bernadette.
Maybe we’re just cruel, but it’s tough not to get annoyed by seeing Stuart struggling week to week. The sitcom nature of the show means he can’t change very much, but we keep waiting for him to get his life together. And the fact that he never really does retroactively makes all of his earlier appearances and arcs that much more annoying.