Kunal Nayyar is bringing his Big Bang Theory character of Raj onto the Night Court set.
As TVLine exclusively reported Wednesday, Nayyar will appear in the Feb. 6 episode of the NBC reboot, reuniting with his Big Bang Theory co-star Melissa Rauch. Hours after the news broke, the actor shared a video on Instagram that showed him channeling Raj on the sitcom’s courtroom set – as Rauch looked on.
In the clip, Nayyar-as-Raj coos, “Oh, Bernadette, please play my clarinet,” after which a smiling Rauch is seen slamming the down the gavel not once but twice. (Watch below.)
The line is, of course, pulled from Big Bang Theory Season 4, Episode 20, “The Herb Garden Germination,” which finds Raj’s sister Priya telling Leonard that her brother has an unrequited crush on Bernadette. “I found poems he wrote about her. Very disturbing,” she says, before referencing one line that stuck with her: “‘Oh, Bernadette, please play my clarinet.'”
In the Night Court episode, Nayyar will play world-renowned fashion designer Martini Toddwallis, who is facing a bad case of designer’s block. But “he finds inspiration and maybe even a new muse when he arrives at Night Court,” according to the official synopsis.
The Rauch-Nayyar reunion comes nearly a year after Warner Bros. Television announced that it was developing a new Big Bang spinoff, to air on Max. Details about the offshoot remain under wraps, but that didn’t stop us from speculating about which character(s) it could revolve around (including Raj).
The Big Bang Theory wrapped its 12-season, 279-episode run five years ago. At the time, series co-creator Chuck Lorre told TVLine that a solid spinoff conceit failed to materialize before the multi-cam completed production.
“Unless there was a creative reason to do it – a wonderfully, wonderfully creative reason to do it – than the only reason [to do it] is economics, and that’s not good enough,” he explained at the time. “This is hard work. And if you’re going to do it, you gotta love what you’re doing; you’ve gotta be passionate about it. And if you’re just chasing money, that’s not enough.”
