Howard Joel Wolowitz, M.Eng. is a fictional character and one of the protagonists on the 2007–2019 CBS television series The Big Bang Theory created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady and portrayed by actor Simon Helberg. Among the four main male characters in the show, Howard is distinctive for being an engineer—rather than a physicist—and lacking a PhD. He is named after and based on a computer programmer known by the show's co-creator, Bill Prady. Howard is the only starring character who has been to the International Space Station. Along with Sheldon Cooper, Leonard Hofstadter, and Raj Koothrappali, Howard is part of the central cast of the show and appears in every episode.
Contents
Biography
In the universe of The Big Bang Theory, Howard is an aerospace engineer at Caltech's Department of Applied Physics and an ex-astronaut for NASA who, in the show, is often seen at the apartment of Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons). He was born in 1981, as specified in the season one episode, "The Pancake Batter Anomaly", and is a native of Pasadena (although his mother has an East Coast accent). Howard received his degree in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Howard is fond of (and collects) decorator belt buckles, though he jokingly claims to own only one belt; his collection includes a NES controller, a silver Batman logo, a 45 RPM record insert, a Klingon communicator, and a buckle featuring the superhero the Flash. He also typically wears a turtleneck or dickey with an Alienware lapel pin on the collar.
Personality
He lived with his mother for several seasons before eventually moving in with his wife Bernadette Rostenkowski. Until he returned from space in season six, his personal transportation was a Vespa motor scooter, which he eventually traded for a Mini Countryman.
Howard is a polyglot. Besides English, Howard can speak nine languages including French, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, Latin, Persian, Japanese, American Sign Language, and the constructed language Klingon from the Star Trek franchise. He also knows some words in Sindarin, one of the elvish dialects invented by J.R.R. Tolkien for The Lord of the Rings. The episode "The Hawking Excitation" reveals that he also understands the computer language Binary ASCII. As in "The Love Spell Potential" (Season 6, ep 23), Howard frequently does impersonations of Nicolas Cage, and is capable of impersonating Al Pacino and Christopher Walken.
Until his marriage, Howard fancied himself as a "ladies' man" and he provided outrageous and often sexist pick-up lines whenever there was a woman present, resulting in humiliating rejections. Howard describes himself as a romantic, although he usually comes across as overtly sexual, and in the words of Penny, disgusting. However, Penny's dislike of Howard mellowed since Howard started dating Penny's colleague Bernadette, whom he later married. When Howard found an ALF doll and revealed that it filled a void for him when his father left, Penny felt sympathy for him and began to empathize more when she understood his behavior a little bit better.
Like the rest of the group, Howard dislikes many of Sheldon's antics. He has grown accustomed to them, but he is the quickest to get frustrated with Sheldon. Once, Penny asked how Sheldon had ever gotten any friends, and Howard simply replied, 'We liked Leonard.'
Howard is allergic to nuts, particularly peanuts and pistachios; they can induce a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction in him, which has the side effect of disfiguring his face horribly. He once deliberately caused this reaction by eating a granola bar to keep Leonard busy at the hospital when they were planning a surprise birthday party for him, which was motivated by Penny's promise to introduce him to her "easy" friends, as shown in "The Peanut Reaction" (Season 1, Episode 16). Another time, when he was depressed about Leslie Winkle dumping him in season 2, and while he was in Las Vegas with Raj and Leonard, he tweeted that he was considering suicide by consuming a can of peanuts due to loneliness and not having his desires met. He has also mentioned having transient idiopathic arrhythmia. Howard is proud of having only three percent body fat, which Raj declares makes him look like a human chicken wing.
Work
Unlike Leonard, Sheldon, and Raj, Howard lacks a Ph.D. He has a Master's degree from MIT (he first studied in medical school but dropped out since he was terrified of blood). This often leads to mocking and derision from Sheldon, Amy and the Head of Department, Dr. Gablehauser, who usually refers to him as "mister" while referring to his friends as doctors. Additionally, Sheldon often says that he is the least smart of the four "nerd" characters, as shown in "The Bus Pants Utilization", where the guys develop an iPhone app and Sheldon refers to them as "three geniuses and their friend Howard". Howard defends himself, however, by pointing out that as an aerospace engineer, his work has actual real-world application, whereas his friends' work is largely theoretical. Howard has also been considered for a top-secret government project, a polar exploration mission, and a position on the International Space Station.
Howard is usually seen working on equipment to be used in NASA missions and the International Space Station, though many times he is careless about it, and has "access" to high-tech surveillance and NASA gear. In the first episode, Howard mentioned working on the design of a satellite that orbits a moon of Jupiter taking high-resolution photos.
Having worked on the Mars rover project, he invited his date, Stephanie Barnett, to drive it at a secret facility. Instead, the rover became stuck in a Martian ditch and he spent the rest of the night with Sheldon and Raj trying to undo the damage and get the rover out of the ditch. When this proved unsuccessful, he decided to erase the hard drives of the facility and destroy all the files connected to his treachery to cover up his meddling, only to later find out that the rover had discovered the first clear signs of life on Mars.
The rover incident was kept a close secret, until the season 4 episode "The Apology Insufficiency", when he made it onto a new team for the Defense Department's laser-equipped surveillance satellite but was not granted a security clearance and was taken out of the team after Sheldon revealed the rover incident to an investigating FBI agent.
On another occasion, Howard worked on a "zero-gravity human-waste disposal system" (essentially a space toilet), that was deployed in the International Space Station. He later realized the equipment had a structural weakness (the toilet would backfire after 10 flushes) and again sought the help of his friends to correct it. The solution proved unsuccessful and an incident on the station ensued (Raj referred to this as the "zero-gravity human-waste distribution system"). The end of the episode showed the ISS astronauts leaving the station for an "unscheduled" space walk. This leads to Sheldon describing his work as being a "space plumber".
Family
Until his marriage, Howard was noted for still living with his overbearing mother (Debbie/Mrs Wolowitz), who is selectively oblivious to his accomplishments as an adult and usually treats him like he is still a child, filling the cliché of a Jewish mother. Once, Leonard stated that Howard "was in a pretty serious relationship – with his mom". Howard is the only member of the original group to be an only child. Howard's wife is Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz.
Mrs. Wolowitz (voiced by Carol Ann Susi) is not shown on screen until season 5, the final episode "The Countdown Reflection" and later in season 6 episode "The Spoiler Alert Segmentation". But her voice is heard when he is at their house or when he talks to her on the phone. She only communicates with Howard by yelling at him in an obnoxious manner, which results in awkward long-distance conversations, with Howard yelling back at her in a frustrated manner. Her nosy nature and her barrage of questions make Howard's life tense at home, which prompts him to call her a "crazy old lady". It is revealed in "The Cohabitation Formulation", however, when Howard briefly moves in with Bernadette, that he is accustomed to being "mothered" to some extent. In "The Apology Insufficiency", Sheldon observes that Howard seems to have "an unresolved Oedipus complex". Following the death of Carol Ann Susi, it was decided Mrs. Wolowitz would die in the season 8 episode "The Comic Book Store Regeneration". Howard receives a phone call while in the comic book store from his aunt Gladys in Florida, whom Mrs. Wolowitz had gone to visit. She says that she laid down for a nap and never woke up.
In "The Precious Fragmentation", Howard reveals that his father left his family when Howard was eleven years old. His mother bought him an ALF doll to help Howard try to get over it. When Howard finds a similar doll at a garage sale, he starts talking to it as if he were eleven again, asking him to find his father and bring him home. This causes Penny (who usually avoids Howard and is disgusted by him) to be pitiful and (reluctantly) sympathetic. In "The Shiny Trinket Maneuver", it is mentioned that the birthday party where he did his magic show was his cousin's party but it is unknown who his cousin was in the group of children that were present. In "The Closet Reconfiguration", Howard gets a letter from his father which is the first contact that he gets from his father in the series. Rick Moranis and Martin Short were considered to portray Howard's father, but the producers wanted Ringo Starr for the role. Starr's team declined and it was decided not to have him appear physically in the show.
Relationships
In the early seasons, Howard was consistently depicted as the most perverted of the guys. For example, he develops a mathematical formula for the likelihood of his having relations by applying and modifying the Drake equation to include the "Wolowitz coefficient", which he defines as "neediness times dress size squared". When questioned if he is serious, he states, "I'm a horny engineer...I never joke about math or sex".
Howard's techniques in approaching women are varied, including magic and card tricks.
Along with Leonard and Raj, Howard also attempts to woo Missy, Sheldon's twin sister. His offer is not accepted, although it was clear she was waiting for Raj. Katee Sackhoff appears as herself in "The Vengeance Formulation", where she is fantasized as Howard's dream girl. She appears again in season 4, in the same role.
In the beginning of the series, Howard shows an interest in Penny, but the interest is primarily sexual and she always rejects him. After yet another approach by Howard, Penny finally confronts him about the way he treats women, giving a brutal assessment of him from the woman's point of view. This greatly affects Howard and he falls into a depression, missing work and staying home. When Penny apologizes, Howard tells her about his past relationships and Penny shows some sympathy for him; after her comforting words, Howard tries to kiss her, but she reacts by breaking his nose. With the situation resolved, Penny believes they have come to an "understanding", but Howard instead thinks he was merely "half-way to pity sex" with her.
In the first season, he forms a sexual relationship with Christy, a friend of Penny's from Omaha but it quickly becomes apparent that Christy is materialistic and using Howard, ultimately resulting in her leaving after getting into an argument with Howard's mother.
During the second season, he goes on a date with Stephanie Barnett but fails to form a relationship with her as she chooses to date Leonard instead. While they did fall out, they quickly made up when Stephanie promised to introduce Howard to an attractive friend.