Howard Joel Wolowitz, M.Eng.The Big Bang Theory. "The Apology Insufficiency". Season 4, Episode 7. November 4, 2010. is a fictional character and one of the protagonists on the CBS television series The Big Bang Theory (2007–2019) 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.
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.
Although Jewish, Howard is not very serious about his religion and does not keep kosher. For instance, he eats pork, and when the price of pork went up at the group's favorite Chinese restaurant, he remarked "It's getting tougher and tougher to be a bad Jew". On another occasion, when Howard tried to date Sheldon's sister, Missy, he said he would kill his rabbi with a pork chop if his religion was an impediment, and one of the reasons he was happy to continue dating Bernadette (who is Catholic) was that it gave him the chance to annoy his mother. Despite this, Howard has shown some belief in his faith. When he and Raj posed as goths to pick up women, he wore fake-tattoo sleeves and refused to get real ones (although he attempted to get one but was too scared of the needle). It is noted in "The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis" that he observes Hanukkah. He also apparently attends High Holy Day services, as Sheldon once critically commented that he was not available to compete in Halo during those times. However, in "The Financial Permeability" he made the sign of the cross—a Catholic practice—during an encounter with Kurt, Penny's former boyfriend.
In the episode "The Herb Garden Germination", he became engaged to Bernadette when she accepted his marriage proposal. They eventually married in the season 5 finale, "The Countdown Reflection", which featured a small reception. They had planned to have a bigger, "official" reception after Howard returned from space (although this was not featured).
Like most of the characters in the series, Howard is musically inclined and plays the piano well. He has used this talent to romantically impress Bernadette a number of times. He has also formed a filk band with Raj (and later Bert) named "Footprints on the Moon" and has written songs about popular heroes such as Thor and Indiana Jones.
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".
Howard likely has the most hands-on and mechanical aptitude of the four: being the engineer among his physicist friends, he assumes the role of leader for small hands-on projects. He was the primary force behind "M.O.N.T.E"., a killer robot designed to enter a robot fighting competition. The robot was destroyed by Barry Kripke's own robot, the "Kripke Krippler", in an unofficial match before the start of the competition.
In the season 4 premiere, Howard developed a robotic arm for the International Space Station. Realizing how much it felt like an actual arm, he used the arm for masturbation, only to get the arm stuck on his penis. He called Leonard and Raj, but neither was willing to get too "hands-on" and help free him from the arm's grip. He was afraid to use the computer controlling the arm as it thought it was holding a screwdriver and would start twisting if he restarted the program. Eventually, Leonard and Raj took Howard to the hospital, where the attending nurse went against Howard's fears and turned off the computer, freeing Howard. The episode's tag scene implied that Howard tried to use the arm to pleasure himself again and ended up in the same predicament.
Howard visited the International Space Station as a Payload Specialist on Expedition 31. He has the unwanted astronaut nickname "Froot Loops" (he had wanted the nickname "Rocket Man" and to that end installed the ringtone for Elton John's song "Rocket Man", but astronaut Mike Massimino overheard Howard's mother telling Howard that his Froot Loops were getting soggy during a NASA Skype conversation and pinned that nickname on him). At first, NASA cancelled his flight, to Howard's great relief, but then the mission was moved up, causing Howard and Bernadette to move up their wedding. A very nervous Howard is launched into space. His sixth-season experience is not great since his fellow astronauts play tricks on him and he starts to experience panic attacks. Upon his return to Earth, he gets an underwhelming response from his friends, and his only consolation is a free slice of cheesecake at a restaurant. He spends the remainder of the season boasting about his trip, to the irritation of everyone. Sheldon eventually sets him straight by denying being envious of him going to space, since "monkeys went to space"; by season 12, Bernadette has, with Stuart's help, written a children's book called The Frightened Little Astronaut based on Howard's experiences in space, much to his chagrin.
In Season 10, Howard along with Leonard and Sheldon are recruited by the US Air Force to develop a Quantum Guidance System which is based on the Superfluid Vacuum theory Leonard and Sheldon published earlier during Season 8. Although not without complications or delays, the three were able to complete their prototype only for the US Air Force to confiscate their project for further development.