"The Big Bang Theory": Cooperisms from Season 3 Quiz

Answer: Chocolate

Penny and Leonard were in a relationship, which meant that she was spending a lot more time in Leonard and Sheldon's apartment. Sheldon used the increased access to Penny to implement tweaks to her personality, a process he termed as "sanding off the rough edges".

He began offering Penny chocolate each time she exhibited behavior that he wanted to encourage, like when she offered to clear his dinner plate for him, and moved from his spot on the couch without having to be asked. Sheldon even started throwing pieces of chocolate from across the room for Penny to catch in her mouth, as if she were a trained seal.

It didn't take long for Leonard to catch on to what Sheldon was up to. "You're using chocolate as positive reinforcement for what you consider correct behavior," Leonard said, visibly upset. "Sheldon, you can't train my girlfriend like a lab rat." Sheldon was quick to correct Leonard. "Actually," he replied, "it turns out I can."

Answer: Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

As a child, Sheldon idolized Wil Wheaton, the actor who portrayed Ensign Wesley Crusher on the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" television series, and one year he endured a ten-hour bus ride to attend a Dixie Trek convention in order to meet his hero.

When the actor failed to show up, Sheldon vowed eternal hatred for Wil Wheaton, and placed him on his list of all-time enemies. When Sheldon heard that Wheaton was playing in the "Mystic Warlords of Ka'a" tournament at the comic book store, he saw it as an opportunity to get his revenge. "From Hell's heart, I stab at thee!" declared Sheldon as he signed himself up for the tournament, quoting Khan from the second "Star Trek" movie.

Sheldon kept quoting from the movie throughout this episode, and even silenced Raj in a Khan-like manner when he pointed out that "Wrath of Khan" featured a completely different set of characters from "The Next Generation".

Sheldon eventually got his showdown with Wil Wheaton, but was tricked into letting him win the tournament when the actor played on Sheldon's affection towards his grandmother.

The episode ended with Sheldon screaming out Wheaton's name, and the camera pulling back from Pasadena until it was a tiny speck on the image of a globe, in yet another reference to "Wrath of Khan".

Answer: American football

Leonard began to feel inadequate when he thought that Penny was embarrassed to introduce him to her friends. When Penny assured him that her friends just had different interests, Leonard agreed to spend a Saturday watching football with them. He started reading up on the game so that he would make a good first impression with Penny's friends, but encountered some difficulty understanding the terminology, like a player's sack statistics. Help came from a most surprising source, when Sheldon suddenly offered explanations for the terms that Leonard was struggling with. "It's football nomenclature for when a quarterback is tackled behind the line of scrimmage," Sheldon informed Leonard, explaining the concept of a "sack". When Leonard started looking up the meaning of "scrimmage", Sheldon volunteered, "The line of scrimmage is the imaginary transverse line separating the offense from the defense."

When he was asked how he knew so much about football, Sheldon explained that it was a way of life where he came from. "I grew up in Texas. Football's ubiquitous in Texas. Pro-football, college football, high-school football, pee wee football. In fact, every form of football except the original - European football - which most Texans believe to be a Commie-plot," he explained. "If you're interested, I also know all about frying meat that isn't chicken as if it were chicken."

Answer: Soft Kitty

In "The Adhesive Duck Deficiency", Leonard, Howard and Raj went off to the desert to observe the Leonid meteor shower, leaving Sheldon alone in the apartment, so he was the only one around to answer Penny's calls for help. What followed were Sheldon's comical attempts at helping Penny to get dressed, driving her to the emergency room, and helping her fill out the hospital forms. By the time they got back from the hospital, Penny was hopped-up on painkillers, and she asked Sheldon to sing "Soft Kitty" to her as he was helping her into bed. "'Soft Kitty' is for when you're sick. You're not sick," said Sheldon. "Injured and drugged is a kind of sick," Penny replied. In a rare reversal of roles for Sheldon, he reluctantly agreed to humor Penny by singing the song to her, and even went along with Penny's idea to sing the song as a round. Here are the full lyrics to "Soft Kitty":

"Soft kitty, warm kitty
Little ball of fur
Happy kitty, sleepy kitty
Purr, purr, purr"

Answer: Howard

In "The Bozeman Reaction", Leonard and Sheldon's apartment was burgled, which left Sheldon feeling insecure about staying in Pasadena. He eventually settled on moving to Bozeman, Montana, as his research indicated that it met his requirements for safety and livability. He left behind a video farewell for his compatriots that contained the following message: "As you know, I'm not comfortable with prolonged goodbyes and maudlin displays of emotion, so I've prepared this short video. The four of you are three of my closest friends and one treasured acquaintance. Though I cannot state categorically that my life would be diminished by not having you in it, I am comfortable if you choose to believe that. Since you intend to remain in this lawless, metropolitan area, statistics suggest that you will succumb to tragic and gruesome ends before we meet again. Live long and prosper."

After his luggage was stolen just minutes after his arrival at the Bozeman train station, Sheldon immediately purchased a one-way ticket back to Pasadena, and received a warm welcome from Howard when he walked through the door of his apartment. "Interesting," observed Sheldon. "The acquaintance is the first to greet me."

Answer: He threatened to cut Leonard out of his will.

When Leonard was allowed to bring one person with him on a University-sponsored trip to the CERN Super Collider in Switzerland, Sheldon was appalled to learn that he intended to go with Penny, because the trip happened to coincide with Valentine's Day.

Naturally, Sheldon wasn't going to take this lying down. "I call your attention to the Friendship Rider in Appendix C, 'Future Commitments', No. 37," Sheldon said to Leonard, referring to their Roommate Agreement. "In the event that one friend is ever invited to visit the Large Hadron Collider, now under construction in Switzerland, he shall invite the other friend to accompany him." When Leonard reneged on the Roommate Agreement, Sheldon tried a different approach. "Morning, old chum," he announced one morning, as he presented Leonard with a tray of food. "I've made you breakfast - juice, coffee, and pancakes in the shape of some of your favorite fictional characters. See, there's Frodo." The royal treatment didn't last long - Sheldon removed the breakfast tray unceremoniously after Leonard told him that he still wasn't taking him to Switzerland.

Sheldon's next move was to convince Penny to intercede on his behalf, by showing her a PowerPoint presentation detailing the reasons why he should get to go on the trip instead of her. In the end, both Penny and Sheldon were put out of commission by the same flu bug, and Leonard ended up taking Raj to Switzerland.

Answer: Traffic Court

Sheldon's good deed in "The Adhesive Duck Deficiency" came back to haunt him in "The Excelsior Acquisition", as he received a summons for running a red light the night that he drove Penny to the hospital for her dislocated shoulder. So while the rest of the boys got to rub shoulders with their comic book idol, Sheldon was attending Traffic Court with Penny. Never one for half-measures, Sheldon prepared meticulously for his court date, but when his impassioned three-pronged defense failed to impress the judge, he resorted to insults. He told the judge, "I would point out that I am at the top of my profession, while you preside over the kiddie table of yours." Sheldon was jailed for contempt until he apologized to the judge, which he did when he realized that he only had access to a communal toilet in his prison cell. As he later explained, "I was forced to issue an undeserved apology, simply because I refused to urinate in a stainless steel bowl in front of criminals."

Penny felt responsible for Sheldon missing his chance to meet Stan Lee, so she obtained his address from Stuart at the comic book store and took Sheldon to meet him. The evening ended with Sheldon having another brush with the law, but this time he had no complaints about the experience. "You boys may have had gelato with Stan Lee and gotten autographed comics," Sheldon said upon his return, "but I saw the inside of his house and got an autographed application for a restraining order. ... Plus, I get to hang out with him again, at the hearing. This is going to look great hanging next to my restraining order from Leonard Nimoy."

Answer: Fear of public speaking

"Problem," Sheldon said, when he was informed of the conditions of accepting the award. "They expect me to give a speech at the banquet. I can't give a speech." Howard was quick to vocalize what everyone was probably thinking. "No, you're mistaken," he volunteered. "You give speeches all the time. What you can't do is shut up." Sheldon explained that while he was "perfectly comfortable speaking to small groups", he had problems speaking to large crowds. When Leonard asked him to clarify what he meant by a large crowd, Sheldon replied, "Any group big enough to trample me to death."

The rest of the group held an intervention to help Sheldon get over his stage fright. Raj led Sheldon through a guided meditation exercise, Penny brought him shopping for a new suit to boost his confidence, and Leonard tried to get to the root of the problem through psychoanalysis. Sheldon eventually made it to the banquet, but started to feel dizzy and faint at the thought of going through with his speech, so Penny gave him a glass of wine. "I don't feel any different - this alcohol's defective," said Sheldon, after downing a glass. Penny passed him another glass, and said, "Here, see if this one works." Sheldon was so drunk when the time came for him to make his speech that he made a complete fool of himself - he cracked bad jokes, sang "The Elements", and removed his pants in an attempt to illustrate higher-dimensional thinking, before mooning the guests at the banquet.

Answer: Hot dogs

Sheldon yearned for what his mother called "a real I-talian treat" - apparently Mrs. Cooper liked to cook Italian cuisine because "that's what the Romans made Jesus eat". Penny was happy to oblige Sheldon, but had to deal with one special request: "Will you cut up hot dogs into little chunks and mix them in with the sauce?" She didn't have any hot dogs, so Sheldon agreed to bring some over from his apartment.

What followed was a comedy of errors, as Sheldon attempted to maneuver his way to Penny's apartment for dinner without letting Leonard in on his plans. Leonard and Penny had recently broken up, and Sheldon was led to believe that he owed his allegiance to his roommate. When Leonard brought back Chinese food for dinner, Sheldon consumed his share "with the appropriate gusto" so as not to hurt Leonard's feelings. "It's not like I have to moderate my food intake because I'm planning on eating again very shortly," announced Sheldon, as he agreed to take the last dumpling in order to not arouse any suspicion. After dinner #1, Sheldon managed to surreptitiously stuff a packet of hot dogs down the front of his pants, and tried to leave the apartment for an after-dinner walk, but was confronted with Howard, who was leaving at the same time. Sheldon had no choice but to walk down to the ground floor and out of the building with Howard, where he was confronted by a huge dog who was attracted by the smell of the hot dogs. Sheldon eventually ended up at Penny's apartment with one solitary hot dog, having traded the others for his life minutes earlier.

Answer: Go on a blind date

In "The Lunar Excitation", Howard and Raj decided to sign Sheldon up on an Internet dating site for a laugh, but they were surprised when the site matched Sheldon with "an actual woman". They tried to get Sheldon excited about meeting the person "scientifically chosen to be [his] perfect mate", but their attempt was dismissed by Sheldon as "hokum", so Raj had to resort to blackmail to convince him to go ahead with the date.

The appointment went ahead as planned, and seemed to produce promising results, if first impressions were anything to go by. Sheldon and his intended, Amy Farrah Fowler (special guest star Mayim Bialik), appeared to have many things in common with one another. Both shared an "aversion to soiled hosiery", and both had overbearing mothers who dictated the frequency of their child's church-going (in the case of Sheldon) and social activities (in the case of Amy). After breaking the ice, Amy laid down some basic ground rules for their date. "Now, before this goes any further you should know that all forms of physical contact, up to and including coitus, are off the table," she stated matter-of-factly. Sheldon was agreeable to Amy's terms, and responded by asking if he could buy her a beverage. The episode ended with a stunned Howard turning to Raj and asking, "Good God, what have we done?"