Saturday, February 21, 2009

BIG BANG BY THE NUMB3RS

A computer hacker used the administrative password of "LeonardSheldon4A" in last week's episode of 'Numb3rs', the show whose title I hate to type.

The audience viewing at home - if they're loyal viewers of the Eye Network - would have recognized that password as the names of the two main characters in the sitcom 'The Big Bang Theory'. And "4A" was the number of their apartment.But that doesn't apply within the "reality" of the TV Universe. Maybe whoever created that administrative password actually knew Sheldon and Leonard, and figured their home address wouldn't be associated with him (or her). Or following Occam's Razor, maybe it was just totally at random; maybe it was the password for somebody named Sheldon Leonard (I mean, someone else besides the late actor/producer) who was too stupid to come up with something original.

Ergo, no Zonk.

However, I did not see the episode in question. And it seems to be some sort of Murphy's Law for me that when I try to splain away these Zonks, it always turns out that there was always more information provided in the scene than was relayed to me. So it could be that somebody in the show actually pointed out that the password was a reference to 'The Big Bang Theory'.

Wouldn't surprise me in the least. Most scriptwriters today don't trust their audience to understand their pop culture references and have to ram home the splainin for the in-joke. Which makes me wonder why they even bother using it if they had to splain it.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

3 comments:

  1. Ok, just a random google searcher tht stumbled upon this page...and I have to say, you hate typing "Numb3rs" but "splainin" is something you're OK WITH?!?!? What the HELL is wrong with you?!?! All I have to say just from that is that you're a huge IDIOT that for some reason recognizes the addition of numbers to words as a detramental to our language but dropping the first and last letters of a word isn't? What the hell is wrong with you!?

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  2. Sorry man9:12 AM

    Ok I feel bad now. I did mean it, I'm just having a bad morning and for some reason felt the need to take that out on the first random thing I found. Apologies.

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  3. I have no idea if you're ever going to return to the site, but if so......

    Yeah, it's not been a great week for me either, with my cat at the vet's for the last few days with a bad infection. But I wouldn't have lashed out at anybody like that even so.

    But fair enough, you apologized.

    You stumbled upon the site and so are not versed in the ways of Toobworld (cue the spooky music).

    Well, there are certain words used in this site which have been replaced by their counterparts as heard (rather than the usual "as seen") on TV. "Splainin" is one, culled from 'I Love Lucy'. "Pozz'ble" is another, from the 'Deputy Dawg' cartoons.

    With Inner Toob, I try to create an alternate reality and such words can help with that illusion. But 'Numb3rs' just feels unnatural, like many name combinations foisted upon us by the 'shippers.

    Anyway, whatever was bothering you, I hope you're free of it soon.

    As they say in 'Lost', Namaste!

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