Believe it or not, The Big Bang Theory executive producer Steve Holland had
a rule that prevented viewers from seeing Howard and Bernadette's babies on the show.
But that's not the only reason they almost never appeared on screen!
While some sitcoms go to great lengths to keep characters from evolving for
the sake of maintaining the status quo, The Big Bang Theory let its characters
mature into well-rounded adults over the course of the series' 12 seasons.
That means something different for each member of the friend group. For Howard Wolowitz and
Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz in particular, family life is the name of the game — the two get
married and settle down to become parents to two children, Halley and Neil Michael.
Curiously, while their parental struggles are often spotlighted in the later seasons,
Howard and Bernie's kids aren't actually seen in the show. This isn't exactly without precedent,
since characters you never see on screen are a fine and time-honored TV tradition. However,
Halley and Neil Michael do appear in the flesh in the series finale. What reason prompted
the makers of The Big Bang Theory to take this novel approach to the "absent character" trope?
Keeping little Halley and Neil Michael off-camera accomplished several things at once.
As executive producer Steve Holland told Entertainment Tonight in 2018,
he's not a fan of having infants used in TV productions.
Keeping the Rostenkowski-Wolowitz offspring largely offscreen allowed for a baby-free set.
"I mean, it's possible to see the baby, but I'm not a fan of
actually having babies on set[...] It makes me feel terrible for them, so I'm not super
excited to have someone haul their newborn twins and shove them in front of a camera."
Apart from the show's apparent views about on-set children,
Halley's onscreen absence is an homage to another largely invisible Wolowitz.
"Howard, the medicine's not working!"
"You just took it, at least let it reach your first stomach!"
Showrunner Steve Molaro explained to TV Line:
"She is a loving tribute to her grandmother — this is a nice way for us to keep Mrs. Wolowitz alive."
The character of Mrs. Wolowitz – Howard's mother — is rarely glimpsed and never, ever properly seen.
Her distinctive voice and coddling of her adult son earned plenty of laughs in the early seasons,
and when the character left the show after voice actor Carol Ann Susi passed away in 2014,
her absence had a major impact on Howard.
When baby Halley came along in Season 10, The Big Bang Theory writers found a unique way
to pay homage to Howard's mom while also instituting the "no babies on set" rule.
Shortly after Howard and Bernadette's little girl is born, she lets out a cry
that sounds an awful lot like her grandmother's distinctive voice.
[Halley crying]
The juxtaposition of the emotional moment and the instantly recognizable sound
make this a rare scene that manages to be both touching and hilarious.
After keeping the kids away from the camera since their birth, The Big Bang Theory finally reveals
Halley and Neil Michael in a touching family scene in the series finale. While the moment
is a major payoff, the scene itself plays as a simple bedtime routine for Howard and Bernadette.
It speaks to the fact that even though their children are mostly unseen, the couple had
been parents all along, and this is just the audience seeing them as a unit for the first time.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly,
Holland revealed that the idea to finally show the kids came from series creator Chuck Lorre.
"When we got to the scene, Chuck said,
'Why don't we just do it? Why don't we put them in?' We didn't need to make a big deal
of it [...] It seemed like a fun little easter egg to put them in at the end."
Ultimately, the kids are only seen once. But even though their baby years play out off-camera,
little Halley and Neil Michael still manage to make their presence known on The Big Bang
Theory — in no small part thanks to Howard and Bernadette's daughter's unforgettable cry.
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