Years After Kaley Cuoco Recalled Being Sexualized In 'The Big Bang Theory,' The Show's Creator Reflected On Initially Making Her Character 'Clichéd' And 'One-Dimensional'

Buzz Feed

18-03-2025

If you're a fan of The Big Bang Theory, you might know that the show initially premiered with an entirely different pilot episode.
As far as most people are aware, the first episode of the series introduces main characters Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), as well as Penny (Kaley Cuoco), Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), and Rajesh 'Raj' Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar).
However, a year prior, TBBT debuted with an unaired original pilot that only featured Sheldon and Leonard's characters from those listed above. The episode also featured Amanda Walsh portraying a character named Katie, while Iris Bahr played a woman named Gilda.
Fast forward to today, and the masterminds behind Big Bang have shared a ton of details about the unaired 2006 pilot. Speaking on Jessica Radloff's new The Official Big Bang Theory Podcast this week, cocreator Chuck Lorre sat down with former chairman of Warner Bros. Television Group, Peter Roth, for a candid conversation about the sitcom's early days.
Describing the unaired pilot as '22 minutes of mistakes,' Chuck admitted that the episode — which opened with Sheldon and Leonard in a sperm bank — was largely influenced by the CBS sitcom Two and A Half Men, which he was also producing at the time.
'The first pilot was so heavily influenced by Two and A Half Men,' he said before later adding, ' The Big Bang, even the second pilot, had elements that were unnecessarily risqué…It took a while to learn that this wasn't this show, this wasn't these characters.'
'The sexual stuff had to go,' he said. 'I was late in understanding that this show [and these characters] didn't tolerate risqué humor.'
'It wasn't 'til the second season that I started to understand that Sheldon was asexual. I didn't understand that going in when we did the pilot,' Chuck continued.
The group went on to reveal that Sheldon had sex with Gilda in the unaired pilot and that he had a preference 'for women with big buttocks.' Peter shared, 'In the first pilot, we discover that Sheldon has a predilection for women with big buttocks. And we discover that he has had sexual exploits. He has had coitus. None of that exists in the second pilot. That shift and change into the more innocent quality of that character was extraordinarily wise.'
Elsewhere on the podcast, Chuck and Peter discussed how amazingly Kaley's character, Penny, complimented the guys. 'She was never judgmental about these characters. She was bemused by them. In fact, they brought more judgement to her than she did ever of them,' Peter shared. 'And I thought that was also an important difference between the character of what Penny brought versus the character of what Katie brought in the original unaired pilot.'
'There was a sweetness and endearment that she felt towards them. The audience wanted to protect these two boys,' he added.
However, it took the Big Bang producers a moment to realize Penny's worth. Chuck admitted that 'so many episodes' were shot before the team understood that there was 'a brilliance to Penny's character' that they hadn't explored.
'We did the very clichéd in the beginning, you know, goofy blonde who says foolish things. It's a clichéd character, right? The dumb blonde. And we missed it. We didn't have that right away that what she brought to this series, to these other characters, was an intelligence that they didn't have…that was alien to them, you know, intelligence about people and relationships and family,' he said. 'It was built in that the scientists of the show didn't understand how to be with people. She did. She brought a humanity to them that they were lacking, and that took a while to figure out. Certainly, in the beginning, she was sadly one-dimensional in many ways.'
Netflix
Interestingly, Penny's initial lack of development beyond her 'goofy' persona and sex appeal is something that has been discussed — and critiqued — by Big Bang viewers for years.
Back in 2021, Kaley opened up about how her character's outfits were super sexualized early on in the show during a chat with W Magazine. 'I started Big Bang at 21 years old,' she said, per Digital Spy. 'I was the cute girl next door to the nerds. It was all about booty shorts, Juicy Couture zip-ups.'
'And as the years went on, Penny grows up, Kaley grows up. All of a sudden, it's like, 'Can I have a long sleeve shirt? How about a slack? How about a loafer? I never wanna see that high heel again!'' she said.
Kaley, now 39, also said, 'That was so long ago. When I think about how many years ago that was... it was a different time,' before adding: 'Also, by the way, at 21, I was hot. I wanted to show that stuff off. You would not catch me dead in a sexy cat costume now!'