Prior to her roles as the FBI’s chief investigator in “The Flight Attendant” and as Batman’s antagonist in “Harley Quinn,” Kaley Cuoco gained recognition for her role as Penny on the CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.” Cuoco’s character in the series premiere is Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) and Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), two physicists who are unfamiliar with each other’s fandom, scientific world, and social awkwardness.
Cuoco performed in the part from 2007 to the end of the show’s run in 2019. Her Penny character developed a relationship with Leonard during that time, and she also got to know Sheldon and other characters who came on later, like Melissa Rauch’s Bernadette Rostenkowski and Mayim Bialik’s Amy Farrah Fowler.
In all 12 seasons of “The Big Bang Theory,” Cuoco frequently took on the role of the straight man in her neighbors’ geeky misadventures. Throughout the show, the actress has had a lot of high points for both her career as an actress and her character’s personal encounters with this diverse group of geeks. These are a few of the most recognizable scenes from “The Big Bang Theory,” in which Kaley Cuoco played Penny.
The Pancake Batter Anomaly
Many iconic moments for the character were swiftly established by Cuoco in her early seasons as Penny, especially in her connection with Parsons’ breakout character. In the eleventh episode of Season 1, “The Pancake Batter Anomaly,” Penny and Sheldon get to spend some alone time together. Sheldon gets a bug, though, and becomes very frightened. Leonard, Raj, and Howard know better than to approach Sheldon when he’s ill, so they flee to watch a marathon of “Planet of the Apes” movies, leaving Penny to tend to Sheldon for the duration of the episode.
With Penny grudgingly caving in to Sheldon’s numerous demands—including rubbing VapoRub on his chest and, most importantly, singing a song his mother used to serenade him with when he was sick as a child—it’s a great way to establish the dynamic between these characters.
In “The Big Bang Theory,” that song, “Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty,” eventually turned into a running joke where Penny would sing it to Sheldon or Sheldon would sing it to other people in need of consolation. But it all started with this episode, where Cuoco plays Penny’s gradual realization of why Leonard, Howard, and Raj left Sheldon so quickly after he became ill. Cuoco nails it.
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The Tangerine Factor
The majority of the first season revolves around Penny and Leonard’s game of will-they-won’t-they as Leonard’s crush on his neighbor intensifies. In “The Tangerine Factor,” which doubles as “The Big Bang Theory’s” first season finale, things finally come to a head. After a recent breakup, Penny is upset in the beginning of the episode, and Leonard is unsure of whether to go over to her apartment and offer assistance.
Finally making his move, Leonard asks Penny to go out with him when she gets frustrated and wonders why she can’t ever go out with a nice guy. Sheldon’s hilarious and memorable response to Penny’s anxiety about the date is when she asks for advice, and he compares their potential relationship to the Schrödinger’s Cat paradox, which Penny finds difficult to comprehend.
When Leonard shows up at Penny’s apartment for their date and the two share their first kiss, their respective uneasiness finally reaches a climax. When the kiss ends and Penny finally realizes the paradox, she says, “the cat’s alive,” in one of Cuoco’s funniest scenes from the first season of the show, and the couple heads out on their first date.
The Barbarian Sublimation
The characters and their relationships with one another had developed to the point where it was acceptable to turn them into comedy by the time the second season of “The Big Bang Theory” aired. The idea behind “The Barbarian Sublimation,” in which Penny is introduced to the massively multiplayer online role-playing game “Age of Conan,” was this.
Penny’s obsession with the video game develops very quickly, and she starts pestering Sheldon with questions. The dynamic between Penny and Sheldon is amusingly reversed, considering that Sheldon frequently disturbs Penny’s life by persistently knocking on her door. Penny responds to Leonard’s attempt to reason with her by chopping off the head of his video game character, but Leonard is persuaded to try and finds that the only way he can reach her is through the video game.
But one of Kaley Cuoco’s funniest scenes in the episode comes at the end. She accepts an invitation to go out for a drink with Howard’s in-game persona despite being covered in food stains and wearing sweatpants from playing “Age of Conan” for hours on end. This is the only thing that will convince her that playing this game for extended periods of time is unhealthy.
The Panty Piñata Polarization
Some episodes of “The Big Bang Theory” portray Sheldon and Penny as mortal enemies destined to destroy each other, while many earlier episodes show how they become unlikely friends. The tension between them in “The Panty Piñata Polarization” escalates when Penny eats his onion rings and occupies his favorite spot on the couch, leading to Sheldon’s ban from their apartment. The two neighbors declare war on one another at The Cheesecake Factory after Penny declines to follow Sheldon’s instructions.
Penny responds to Sheldon’s initial denial of access to their apartment’s Wi-Fi in a big way by taking over all of the washing machines on Sheldon’s “Laundry Day.” In response, Sheldon takes Penny’s laundry out of the laundry room and hangs it up to dry on phone wires.
When Penny involves Sheldon’s mother in the affair, it’s the last straw in Penny and Sheldon’s conflict. She calls Sheldon and demands that he tell Penny how much he has been failing her. He then gives back Penny’s laundry and retracts his decision to kick her out of their apartment. In this episode, Cuoco demonstrates that Penny is still more than capable of outwitting her neighbors at their own game, even though she may not possess their level of scientific intelligence.
The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis
As friends, Penny and Sheldon have also shared many cute moments. In one of the most famous episodes of the show, “The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis,” which aired in Season 2, Penny telling Sheldon that she got him a Christmas present puts him in a difficult situation. Determined to give her something equally valuable, Sheldon tries to cover all the bases by choosing gift baskets filled with various bath products at different price points.
Even the studio audience is taken aback by what Penny got for Sheldon by the end of the show. Sheldon is first not impressed by a Cheesecake Factory napkin, but he quickly finds out that Leonard Nimoy, who worked at the restaurant one of Penny’s shifts, used and signed it. Sheldon gives Penny every gift basket he purchased, overjoyed that he can now cultivate his own Leonard Nimoy. However, fearing that this is insufficient, Sheldon gives Penny a hug.
In the meantime, Penny spends the episode getting to know Michael Trucco’s character, fellow physicist David Underhill. Since Penny’s insecurity about feeling less intelligent than him caused them to break up, Leonard is sent into a spiral of his own over this. However, before the two of them find out that David is actually married, Cuoco gets to play Penny’s heartbreak alongside her meaningful moment with Sheldon.
The Work Song Nanocluster
Another chance for Penny and Sheldon to work together toward a common objective is presented by “The Work Song Nanocluster”. Penny is launching her own company, Sheldon learns at the beginning of the episode, selling personalized flower barrettes she calls “Penny Blossoms.” Sheldon chooses to assist Penny in organizing her work process and enlists the aid of the others.
After creating a website with the option for “One Day Rush,” Leonard unexpectedly receives an order for 1,000 Penny Blossoms with a tight deadline. This forces them all to get creative and finish the Penny Blossoms within the day. This also sets up a scene in which Sheldon has his first cup of coffee, which gives him the notion to dress like the Flash and rush to assist them in making the Penny Blossoms.
Despite being a basic bottle episode with just the five main cast members, it does a good job of demonstrating the friends’ willingness to support Penny. The AV Club praised the episode and said that Cuoco’s interactions with Parsons are “another of what’s become a string of smartly written, masterfully performed dialogue scenes on this show.” Cuoco also shines in these interactions once again.
The Jiminy Conjecture
Even though Leonard and Penny’s relationship has been revived by the beginning of season 3, things aren’t going well for them in the second episode, “The Jiminy Conjecture.” Following an argument in which Penny hears Leonard calling their sex “just fine,” the two decide to get drunk before having sex to see if things get better. While Sheldon, Raj, and Howard go on their own independent adventures, Leonard and Penny get drunker and drunker throughout the episode.
Showing off the chemistry between Cuoco and Galecki after three seasons is a great idea, especially since the two actors were actually dating at the time this episode was filmed and broadcast. Sadly, Leonard and Penny’s plan backfires, and instead of having sex as planned, they wind up spending the night throwing up in Penny’s bathroom.
After a night of drinking and throwing up, the two characters are thankfully able to patch things up, and the episode ends with them agreeing to remain friends for a brief while before they start dating again. Cuoco’s charming on-screen romance with Galecki may be more intense in these kinds of episodes, but it’s still entertaining to watch develop.
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The Adhesive Duck Deficiency
Season 3’s “The Adhesive Duck Deficiency” reversals the events of Season 1’s “The Pancake Batter Anomaly,” assigning Sheldon the responsibility of looking after Penny. Penny unintentionally slips in the shower and dislocates her shoulder, requiring Sheldon to assist her while Leonard, Raj, and Howard are camping without Sheldon. The dynamic between Penny and Sheldon is once again brilliantly shown in this timeless episode, which also features flawless performances from Cuoco and Parsons.
There are some tense moments between Penny and Sheldon as a result of Penny’s dislocated shoulder, especially when Penny needs Sheldon to drive her to the emergency room even though Sheldon is unable to do so. Penny once jokes, “Warp speed ahead, Mr. Spock,” in response to Sheldon’s tardiness, demonstrating that even though she doesn’t care about the group’s nerdiness, Penny knows more about “Star Trek” than she’s willing to acknowledge.
The real plot twist at the end of the episode occurs when Sheldon brings Penny back to her apartment following their visit to the emergency room, where she asks him to sing “Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty” to her in order to soothe her. Sheldon sings the song instead of Penny for the first time in the show, and it’s one of the loveliest exchanges between the two frequently at odds characters.
The Gorilla Experiment
Throughout the majority of the initial seasons of “The Big Bang Theory,” Leonard was the one attempting to win Penny over. The tenth episode of Season 3, “The Gorilla Experiment,” offers an intriguing reversal of that, as Penny impresses Sheldon by telling Bernadette the reason behind Sheldon’s decision to sit in his designated spot on the couch. Later, hoping to win Leonard over, Penny accepts Sheldon’s offer to teach her more about physics.
Sheldon’s lessons for Penny are, as expected, more complex than necessary; they begin in Ancient Greece and take her through the pivotal moments in the history of science. In a famous exchange between the two, Penny sobs over her incapacity to comprehend these ideas, and Sheldon consoles her by telling her that, although he occasionally cries over other people’s stupidity, being stupid is no excuse to cry.
Even though Penny gets a chance to show off her scientific expertise to the group at the end of the episode, they soon come to the conclusion that she is simply repeating what Sheldon has taught her. In Season 6, Penny is able to impress Leonard by just saying “Molecules” to him while wearing glasses, so thankfully she won’t have to worry too much about impressing him in later episodes.
The Rothman Disintegration
Before long, Kaley Cuoco wasn’t the only prominent female character on “The Big Bang Theory.” Before long, Melissa Rauch and Mayim Bialik appeared as Bernadette and Amy, respectively, entwining themselves romantically with Howard and Sheldon. In “The Rothman Disintegration,” which airs in Season 5, the relationships between the three women are the main focus.
Overly eager to befriend Penny, Amy arrives at her apartment bearing a large, awkward painting of the two of them. She brings Bernadette over, who validates Penny’s suspicions that the painting is hideous, but Penny is reluctant to discard it for fear of offending Amy. Penny starts removing the painting while Amy isn’t around, but their friendship is strained when Amy discovers her doing it.
The two stay friends after Penny makes amends by returning the painting to Amy’s. The episode, taken as a whole, is a fantastic representation of Penny’s friendship with Amy and Bernadette as well as Cuoco’s own chemistry with Rauch and Bialik, which will manifest itself in the upcoming seasons of “The Big Bang Theory.” But few scenes are more memorable than Cuoco’s portrayal of Penny discovering that they were naked in the original painting Amy had given her.
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The 43 Peculiarity
In addition to being the eighth episode of Season 6 of “The Big Bang Theory,” “The 43 Peculiarity” is also a favorite episode of Kaley Cuoco and fans of Leonard and Penny. The majority of the episode focuses on Penny’s college years, during which she befriends Cole, her classmate, and Leonard soon grows envious. Penny gets angrier and angrier at Leonard for telling Cole to back off.
Later, when Penny and Leonard cross paths in the hallway, she confronts Leonard about his feelings of insecurity and jealousy regarding their relationship. Leonard is shocked when Penny unintentionally tells him again how much she loves him because it’s the first time she’s ever done so. That’s when the conversation ends quickly so neither of them has to cry in front of the other.
Subsequently, Cuoco named this episode as one of her favorites, citing the pivotal final scene between Leonard and Penny in particular. “That was one take and done!!” Cuoco exclaimed as she narrated the scene on camera (via TBS). It makes sense that after six seasons, a cast member would have found it very simple to film a scene like that.
The Occupation Recalibration
At the onset of Season 7 of “The Big Bang Theory,” Leonard and Penny’s relationship was experiencing significant strain. Penny had drunkenly proposed to Leonard in the previous episode, which had been prompted by her sadness over her role in a television show being canceled. But in this episode, “The Occupation Recalibration,” Penny makes yet another bold decision—quitting her job at the Cheesecake Factory—to which Leonard finds it difficult to respond positively.
Penny ultimately spends the remainder of the day discussing whether or not to be concerned about quitting her job with Sheldon, who is being forced to take a vacation from his work. Sheldon agrees with Penny’s choice, so the two practice yoga together—despite Sheldon’s argument that he was persuaded to do so because he believed Penny had said “Yoda.”
It’s a sweet moment where Sheldon and Penny’s friendship over seven seasons has blossomed to the point where he’s supportive of her decisions, as risky as they may be, even though Penny and Leonard do end up making up at the end of the show.
The Celebration Experimentation
As the 200th episode of “The Big Bang Theory,” “The Celebration Experimentation” was a significant occasion. The majority of the story takes place during Sheldon’s 36th birthday celebration, which airs as the 17th episode of Season 9. Sheldon had a difficult birthday experience as a child because he shared it with his twin sister, Missy, so it causes a lot of emotions to surface. Amy, though, demands that they host a celebration for him.
Amy, Penny, and Bernadette organize it brilliantly in spite of Sheldon’s numerous demands—they even manage to get Adam West to make a cameo appearance. The characters argue about how to free Sheldon after he enters the bathroom in a panic and hides. At this point, the episode turns into a fantastic demonstration of Kaley Cuoco’s nine-season transformation of Penny.
Penny comes into the bathroom to console Sheldon, and she tells him in a very sweet way that everyone came because they love him, and she would be happy to celebrate his birthday in the bathroom with him. During her twelve seasons as Penny, Cuoco excelled in what this episode, and this particular moment, demonstrates: Despite lacking the intellect and nerdiness of the other characters, she possesses the emotional intelligence and heart that they all require in their lives.
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