Fans of “The Big Bang Theory” definitely know that, in the penultimate episode of “The Big Bang Theory,” Mark Hamill cameos as himself in the episode “The Bow Tie Asymmetry” — where Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) and Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik) get married. What they probably don’t know, though, is that Hamill — whose first scene in the episode is actually with Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) — has known Helberg for many years.
Early in the episode, Hamill tracks down his dog, appropriately named Bark Hamill, whom Howard found, at which point the human Hamill offers Howard a favor, leading to Luke Skywalker himself officiating Sheldon and Amy’s wedding. What’s really wild here, though, is that Helberg’s relationship with Hamill isn’t really what got him onto the show in the first place.
“Simon Helberg and my son, Nathan, were close friends because they were in school from seventh grade to 12th grade together,” Hamill told Jessica Radloff in her book “The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series,” which came out in 2022. “We were always rooting for him, so when this show happened, we didn’t call it ‘Big Bang Theory’, we called it Simon’s show. ‘Oh, Simon’s show is on!’ And we watched it early on hoping it would be a success.”
“I tried to get the title changed to ‘Simon’s Show,’ but nobody would listen,” Helberg joked in the book. “But yeah, Nathan, who is Mark’s oldest son, was my best friend for most of junior high into high school.” After rhapsodizing about how often he and Nathan Hamill made prank phone calls when they were younger, Helberg continued, “So anyway, there were attempts to get him on ‘Big Bang’ many different times, and I think a couple of those I might’ve helped out; clearly, I didn’t do a good job because he didn’t end up coming on until the end of season 11! But it was a really cool thing to get to do that with my friend’s dad. Not to mention that he’s one of the most iconic actors ever. But yeah, there was something very cathartic about it, and the whole family was there that night.” Helberg knows something about iconic actors, as “The Big Bang Theory” even tried to cast an iconic musician as his character’s father.
