Sunday, September 22, 2013

Big Bang Buzzcast Episode 30: Is this Zack Johnson? He's bitchin!

First - congratulations to Jim Parsons on his Emmy win! We recorded this week's podcast before the awards, but we were both watching tonight and cheering on the whole cast and crew!

And for our last podcast of the summer hiatus, we spend some time talking about Zack!
  • Last week Bob Newhart and the Big Bang Theory camera crew walked away with Creative Arts Emmys
  • The cast is currently involved in renegotiating their contracts and salaries
  • Kunal Nayyar, Melissa Rauch, and Kevin Sussman will all be live-tweeting the premiere
  • We've got the press release for 7x03 - The Scavenger Vortex
  • E! Online teases what's ahead for both Shamy and Howard/Bernadette
  • We gush over how awesome Zack is
Download here
Running time: 38:59, 17.9MB

9 comments:

  1. Hi Roxanne, thanks for your podcast :)
    This is the Jim's speech after receiving the emmy. I'm so happy for him =D

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    1. jaja i'm sorry, forgot the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7waWe7Yb7PI

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  2. I enjoyed the episode. The only thing I was hoping for was you would talk about how Zach affected the main guys. He caused them to change in Justice League. They saw their mistake in teasing him and wanted to fix it. Even though it was temporary, they expanded their group for him. In a way, I think he humanized and humbled them especially Sheldon opening up for him to have a relationship with others like Amy. Sheldon thought he was better than Amy. But I think he learned to cope with Zach, like Penny in the beginning, and learned from it to be with Amy. Zach also affected Leonard and Penny. Penny was able to see she wasn't able to go back to relationships like that anymore. It paved the way for her and Leonard to get back together. It also made her grow up some. I liked how you mentioned Raj and Zach together. I never considered them being close like you mentioned in the episode, but it would be great! Amy was willing to be with him too, but she realized she was better suited for Sheldon. It's sad Zach in so few episodes, but I do think he's a game changing character. He's affected most of the group minus probably Howard and Bernadette in one way or another. I would love to see him come back. If someone really smart picked on Zach, I could see the guys defending him. I was hoping for a bit more depth in how the character affected the others, but it was a great episode ladies!

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    1. I feel like the guys have always, at least in part, seen when they or someone else has gone too far in a conversation - like when Penny hurt Howard, Leonard went over to ask her to apologize, and played the "your ex took my pants" card to guilt her into doing it.
      In Justice League, it took Penny telling them what jerks they were, and that people who had been bullied could then in turn bully, for them to really realize they were wrong, and even then not all of them cared to apologize. Zack just happened to be the target in Justice League, I've never felt that he made the guys change. They had already expanded their group for people, long term for Penny, and short term for Bernadette, before Zack even showed up, so I also don't consider him revolutionary in that respect.
      In terms of him being a part in the L/P story, I don't know about Roxanne, but the reason I avoided that is we've gotten comments in the past about how much we talk about Leonard and Penny, and I wanted to focus on Zack as himself, and not how he was a partial foil for my OTP - when I think of Zack the first thing I think is how he was the one "typical" Penny boyfriend who genuinely liked the guys and would choose to hang out with them over being with Penny, so that's where I focused my discussion. We did allude to Zack’s role in the L/P storyline when we said that Kaley’s absence in The Desperation Emanation was certainly why Zack was written out of that episode and tied it into what Leonard was doing, but we probably could have been more concrete about it. Sometimes it’s hard to remember if we’ve discussed something in the episode we’re currently on, or if I’m remembering stuff we’ve talked about before!

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  3. Great episode. I would LOVE to see a spin-offs how for Zack! Here's my idea:

    Johnson & Johnson

    Follow the exploits of Zack Johnson, Vice President/Delivery Boy of Pasadena's 2nd largest restaurant menu design and printing company, during his previously unseen but hinted-at day to day life outside his previous relationships with the main cast of The Big Bang Theory.

    Meet Zack's family and coworkers at Johnson & Johnson, and learn how they cope with having to work with/for Zack, who is admittedly not the brains of the operation -- other than a rare good idea here and there, like inventing the word "Appeteasers."

    Possible guest/recurring appearances or cross-overs from TBBT include:
    -- Running into Penny at work while dropping of new menus at The Cheesecake Factory.
    -- Hanging out with Stuart and Barry after work, unwinding after a particular troubling day.
    -- Seeing any of the TBBT cast in the CalTech cafeteria while delivering menus
    -- Heading to Stuart's comic book store for the latest copy of Archie comics.

    Possible running gags include Zack (incorrectly) announcing that he invented "Appeteasers," and correcting people when they find out he's the Vice President of Johnson & Johnson.
    "You're the VP of Johnson & Johnson?!"
    "Yup."
    "Wow, I never met a millionaire before." (Flirtatious smile)
    "No, not that one. My Dad owns a menu design and printing company."
    (Girl, no longer interested, turn her back in a huff and walks away.)

    An added bonus to naming the show "Johnson & Johnson" is the obvious product placement deals that can be made with a much more successful company that shares your name -- not to mention a running gag where Zack is constantly asking his dad "When did we start making_____________?" (Dental floss, baby powder, band aids, etc)

    As long as the pitfalls of giving a dim-witted character his own show can be avoided, (Like suddenly being smarter a la Friends spin-off "Joey") this show could be a great insight into a beloved TBBT character in Zack, and even possibly provide some humorous insight into parts of TBBT we had never seen. However, relying heavily on its relation to TBBT would almost certainly be this show's downfall in that it didn't spread it's own wings and create a new view into Pasadena life along side TBBT. By no means would I wish to see Zack moved to another city like Frasier Crane, but the separation of "Frasier" from "Cheers" is partly responsible for the long-running success of that show.

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  4. The quality of the sound of Roxanne's voice doesn't sound too good in comparison with the sound quality of Nicole's. Is it the microphone or the hardware?

    Also, would be cool if there was a name to label Howard and Bernadette as a couple... how about "Howette" or "Boward"?

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    1. The name for them is "Howadette." And something was up with Roxanne's microphone that night - we can't tell how we sound until we're done, so unfortunately, she can't fix it.

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    2. Yeah, for some reason my microphone randomly records weird - other times it's perfectly fine. I'm looking into a better mike, and also a different way to record that will give me an earlier heads-up in case things do go wrong.

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