The Only Actor To Play 3 Different Characters In The Big Bang Theory Franchise

If you recognized one of the moms who commiserated with Emily Osment’s Mandy in the midseason premiere of “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” you’re not seeing things. The eighth episode of the latest “Big Bang Theory” spinoff featured a guest appearance from Melissa Tang, one of a handful of actors who has appeared in more than one role across the “Big Bang” universe.

Tang showed up in a recent episode of “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” as Jackie, a woman who made Mandy feel better after her attempt at taking on a sales job was overshadowed by her husband, Georgie (Montana Jordan). After hitting it off with the other moms at the pediatrician’s office, Mandy ends up on a hot streak, using banter about the annoyances of work and marriage as a gateway to selling more nutrition products. Before Tang played Jackie, though, she showed up in both “Young Sheldon” and “The Big Bang Theory,” making her the only actor we know of (a claim also reported by ScreenRant) to have played a different character across all three Sheldon Cooper-adjacent sitcoms.

Before her recent appearance as Jackie, Tang played music teacher Ms. Fenley in a couple episodes of “Young Sheldon,” including the show’s pilot. She’s responsible for a “Sliding Doors”-style moment in which Sheldon is offered encouragement to go down a totally different path — one that could lead to him becoming a musician instead of a theoretical physicist. On his first day of high school, Sheldon (Iain Armitage) hears Ms. Fenley playing Mozart’s “Piano Sonata No. 11” on cello and joins in on the piano without giving it much thought. When she questions him, Sheldon admits that he’s never played piano before, and a quick pitch test reveals he has an off-the-charts aptitude for music. Of course, Sheldon being Sheldon, he shuts down her encouragement to pursue it, saying simply: “No thank you. Musicians take drugs.”

Tang has played characters who ultimately help out the protagonists of their respective “Big Bang”-related series three times now, although her first appearance in the franchise was a lot more controversial. That time around, she played Mandy Chow, the coworker whom Leonard (Johnny Galecki) admitted he kissed before he and Penny (Kaley Cuoco) got married. Of course, Leonard being Leonard, he confessed to all of this on their honeymoon, leading to a major argument. He later works out his messy feelings and self-sabotage by using Mandy as a sounding board, and we never really hear from her again after the subplot wraps up. The episode addressing the kiss remains tied as the lowest-rated of the series on IMDb.

While most return franchise cameos would inspire theories that several characters are all actually one person, it’s clear here that Tang is playing three different roles. She’s an adult scientist in the ninth season of “The Big Bang Theory,” which takes place in the 2010s, and an adult music teacher in 1989. The actress also plays a mom in the 1994 episode of “Georgie and Mandy,” which doesn’t disqualify her from being Ms. Fenley a few years later, but the two seem nothing alike and have different names in the series’ credits.

Will Melissa Tang keep popping up during pivotal moments of characters’ lives for many Sheldon Cooper-related spinoffs to come? It’s possible! There’s yet another “Big Bang” spinoff in the works, and Tang seems to have a great working relationship with franchise co-creator Chuck Lorre. In addition to the Sheldonverse, she’s appeared in the long-running CBS show “Mom” and played a major role in his Netflix series “The Kominsky Method.”