Actors steal stuff from set all the time, honestly. Emmy winner Sarah Snook admitted that she snagged some “family photos” of her character, Siobhan “Shiv” Roy, after “Succession” came to a close, and Christopher Walken once revealed that most of his wardrobe is comprised of purloined outfits from his various projects. Simon Helberg, who spent 12 years and seasons playing Howard Wolowitz on “The Big Bang Theory,” is no exception — so what did he steal?
In a Reddit post that features a photo of one specific page from Jessica Radloff’s book “The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series,” Helberg finds himself reflecting on the fact that the series came to a close at the right time, largely because he thinks he would have looked way too old to wear Howard’s pop-culture tees and signature turtlenecks. Still, he said he kept one part of Howard’s eclectic wardrobe.
“I get the love of the show and people not wanting it to go away, but I find it kind of funny to be part of the longest-running multicam show ever, and people still probably though, How selfish you would end after almost three hundred episodes!” Helberg joked. “But you can’t have a head full of gray hair and be wearing ‘The Flash’ t-shirts and putting on fluorescent skinny jeans. At a certain point, wearing a Nintendo belt buckle becomes just creepy. Now, with that said, I have that Nintendo belt. You bet I took it! I’m no fool! I don’t wear it. It’s just in a box.”
At the beginning of The Big Bang Theory, Howard is honestly pretty awful
Sartorial choices aside, Howard Wolowitz isn’t exactly the best dude at the beginning of “The Big Bang Theory” — and it has nothing to do with his giant belt buckles, although those don’t really help his image (nor does his odd decision to constantly pair loudly patterned button-down shirts with high-necked undershirts, frankly). Howard is just wholly off-putting, especially when it comes to Penny (Kaley Cuoco), who causes a stir amongst Howard and his friends Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar), Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) when she moves in across the hall from Sheldon and Leonard’s shared apartment.
Howard spends his time giving Penny teddy bears with cameras inside, attaching cameras to remote-controlled cars to look up her skirt, flying drones (yes, with cameras) over the “America’s Next Top Model” house, and just generally being a big creep. He also lives with his unseen mother, and he’s not even that nice to her, all things considered. Thankfully, he evolves … but I should note that his fashion sense definitely doesn’t.
Throughout the series, Howard grows up — but he keeps his unique sense of style
Thankfully, as “The Big Bang Theory” continues, Howard definitely improves as a character. When the show introduces Melissa Rauch’s waitress-turned-microbiologist Bernadette Rostenkowski, she’s only supposed to stick around for one episode as a girl Howard meets on a double date with Penny and Leonard; the show’s decision to keep Bernadette around as a romantic partner for Howard is an extremely welcome development. Sure, Howard can still be irritating even with Bernadette around — he often shirks responsibility at their shared home, for example — but Bernadette softens his rough edges and ensures that Howard grows as a person, particularly when they have two kids together.
Though Howard’s fashion sense gets slightly more mainstream as he’s with Bernadette — in that his patterns aren’t quite as loud, and his colorways don’t clash quite as much — he still loves tight pants, splashly patterns, turtlenecks and mocknecks, and of course, his giant belt buckles. Simon Helberg is right, though, to say that wearing a Nintendo belt buckle out in the wild might be perceived as weird, so it’s probably for the best that he has his major “Big Bang Theory” memento hidden safely away.
