Johnny Galecki’s 5 Favorite The Big Bang Theory Episodes

When you consider the fact that Johnny Galecki starred as experimental physicist Leonard Hofstadter for 12 seasons and the same number of years on “The Big Bang Theory,” it’s probably not a huge surprise that the guy prefers some episodes to others. (In fact, for a while, Galecki and his co-star Kaley Cuoco, who was also his real-life girlfriend for a short time, straight up thought showrunner and creator Chuck Lorre was pranking them; he was not.) So which episodes did Galecki particularly love? In an interview with TBS, which airs “The Big Bang Theory” in syndication — helping the main cast rake in a solid income even though the show ended in 2019 — he specifically mentioned five episodes that occupy a special place in his heart, in no particular order.

Galecki begins with the season 3 episode “The Wheaton Recurrence,” which features real-life “Star Trek” veteran Wil Wheaton (who almost turned down the opportunity to appear in the role as himself) as an antagonist to Leonard’s on-screen best friend and roommate Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons). While the whole gang, including Wheaton, is out bowling, Leonard tells his girlfriend Penny (Cuoco) that he loves her … and as Penny feels shy about saying it back, Wheaton eggs her on and ends up basically causing Leonard and Penny’s breakup. “It was the very personal moments, such as the character having his heart broken, that permitted us to mature him,” Galecki said of Leonard’s experience in the episode. “That was always exciting as I knew it would be a changed Leonard moving forward. Still Leonard, but that I’d need to consider that he would see things differently.”

So what other episodes created fond memories for Johnny Galecki? He also gave a shoutout to “The Benefactor Factor,” a season 4 episode where Leonard, Sheldon, and other employees at the California Institute of Technology need to woo potential benefactors to donate to the financially unstable institution. In the process, Leonard meets Mrs. Latham (the late, great Jessica Walter, known for “Arrested Development” and “Archer”), a wealthy older woman who takes a liking to Leonard and makes it quite clear that she’ll provide a hefty donation if he … acquiesces to her wishes, so to speak. (Whether or not Leonard actually does the deed is left sort of unclear, but he does end up taking a stereotypical “walk of shame” back to the apartment and is relentlessly teased by Penny and Sheldon.) “I loved working with Jessica Walter,” Galecki recalled. “And that Penny saw a side of Leonard she didn’t before know. Or consider.”

On the other end of the emotional spectrum, Galecki also mentioned “The Gorilla Dissolution,” an episode in the show’s seventh season where Penny gets fired from her ill-fated role in the terrible horror movie “Serial Ape-ist 2” alongside Wil Wheaton after she talks back to the director (Wheaton does the same and ultimately gets fired too). Why does Galecki love this episode? After a lot of back and forth over, of all things, Pop-Tarts and pastries, Leonard and Penny realize they want to get married … at which point Leonard reveals he’s had a ring for Penny hidden in his wallet for years. “I found it heartbreakingly sweet Leonard quietly carried a ring for God-knows-how-long,” Galecki said. “For all of his math and science, Leonard was a diehard romantic sentimentalist. It’s never more evident than in this episode.”

Johnny Galecki also loves episodes that feature big moments in Leonard’s personal evolution, like season 8’s episode “The Graduation Transmission.” In this installment, Leonard has been asked to give a commencement address at his old high school in New Jersey but faces an insurmountable obstacle in the process: specifically, a canceled flight due to bad weather. Penny, realizing how upset Leonard is that he can’t be there in person, tries to cheer him up by suggesting he deliver the speech to her, but that doesn’t help — and when she arranges for Leonard to deliver the address virtually, it turns out that the graduation cap and gown that Penny secretly purchases for Leonard is actually a revealing graduation-themed Halloween costume (for women). In the end, he gives a lovely speech, and Galecki said Chuck Lorre was indispensable for this episode. “I remember talking a lot with [Chuck] while we filmed this,” Galecki said. “He had the great note to play the speech in the tone of a future me giving myself advice.”

Finally, there’s “The 43 Peculiarity,” which isn’t surprising, considering that this is the episode where Penny finally tells Leonard that she loves him. The fact that Penny says that she loves Leonard so offhandedly — while she’s telling him that he need not worry about other men staring at her on the street — shows that she really means it, and the process of filming it was so emotional that it actually made Kaley Cuoco cry in real life. You can watch all of Galecki’s favorite episodes of “The Big Bang Theory” streaming on Max now.