The 2024 TV schedule dealt a bit of a blow to fans of the long-running hit Young Sheldon, as The Big Bang Theory spinoff/prequel said goodbye after seven successful seasons and became one of the many series canceled and ending this year. Luckily, the family comedy was able to plan its finale and lead fans of its parent show to the two previously established storyline reasons why it needed to wrap now: Sheldon heading off to Cal Tech and his dad dying. But, with actor Lance Barber’s cameo at George Sr.’s funeral, we know how it winks at some TBBT discrepancies.
How Did Lance Barber’s Young Sheldon Cameo At George Sr.’s Funeral Wink At Discrepancies With The Big Bang Theory?
Lance Barber famously portrayed the patriarch of the Cooper household, George Sr., for all seven seasons of Young Sheldon. Though adult Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory didn’t speak that well of his dad, by the end of the series we saw that his opinion of his father was because of a major misunderstanding, and that George was an all-around solid husband and father. However, when Barber made a cameo as a female mourner at George’s funeral, it did wink at some of the show’s other inconsistencies with TBBT.
One thing that die hard Big Bang fans had noted since the beginning of YS (via Screen Rant) was the fact that Barber already had a canonical role in the BB/YS universe, because he appeared on the earlier hit as Jimmy Speckerman in Season 5 as an adult version of Leonard’s high school bully. As noted, fans did quickly get used to seeing Barber as Sheldon’s supportive father, who simply didn’t always understand where his genius kid was coming from when he reacted to the world around him.
Throughout the run of the spinoff, though, the sitcom continued to poke at potential discrepancies with the series that originally brought us several renditions of “Soft Kitty” by casting other actors who’d had noticeable parts on Big Bang, but in different (although sometimes similar) roles. For example, recognizable character actor Vernée Watson appeared on TBBT as a nurse who frequently cared for Sheldon, Leonard, Raj and Howard when they ran into harmful misadventures, and she also portrayed a nurse in the prequel. Oscar winner Octavia Spencer was seen as two different government officials on each series, along with other guest cast members who worked on both shows.
Basically, while Young Sheldon kept recasting actors from Chuck Lorre’s multi-cam sitcom (which he says are not dead) hit, the series also went even deeper by having Barber, who was already responsible for two noticeable characters in the universe of the two comedies, appear as a third character as the family was saying their final goodbyes to George Sr.
It’s almost like the writers said, “So you think Barber playing Sheldon’s dad and Leonard’s bully is a problem? We can take it further!” and created a whole new timeline and BB/YS universe where everyone we’ve already seen has yet another life. Maybe there’s a Mary Cooper out there who isn’t Sheldon’s mom, but one of his teachers. And somewhere there’s a Leonard (who may or may not be dead in the present day) who never moved in with Sheldon and never married Penny and…never had a TV show made about 12 years of his life?!?!
I just can’t imagine that, but I think all of these winks and nods to what some fans see as casting inconsistencies was a fun way to acknowledge the issue and play around with a world that’s supposed to be fun and not taken too seriously anyway, and everyone needs at least some of that in their lives.
