"The Loobenfeld Decay" is an episode of The Big Bang Theory that first aired on March 24, 2008. Directed by Mark Cendrowski. Teleplay by Bill Prady and Lee Aronsohn based on a story by Chuck Lorre.
Going up the stairs in the apartment building, Leonard and Sheldon are horrified to hear Penny singing as she comes down the stairs, so they try to escape. But Penny sees them and asks them to come to her workshop production of RENT. Leonard lies about an upcoming symposium, which Leonard and Sheldon are indeed going to, but which Leonard says will take place at the same time as Penny's showcase.
Sheldon starts to worry that Penny will scrutinize the lie and it will fall apart.
, click on upcoming events, scroll down to seminars, download the PDF schedule, and look for the seminar on molecular positronium, well then, bippidy-boppidy-boo, our pants are metaphorically on fire.Sheldon's solution to this unlikely problem is to come up with a carefully backstopped cover for an elaborate lie: Sheldon's drug-addled cousin Leopold is holed up in a Long Beach motel having escaped from drug rehab. Leonard will drive Sheldon to Long Beach, where Leopold's family will hold an intervention to convince Leopold to go back to rehab.
Sheldon tells Penny that Leonard did not want to say all that to Penny. Instead of scrutinizing the new lie, Penny instead commends Leonard for being such a good friend, and hugs him. But then Howard and Raj find out about the "symposium" and feel left out, so Penny convinces Sheldon to tell Howard and Raj about Leopold.
Once Penny leaves, Leonard and Sheldon explain to Howard and Raj that the symposium and the intervention were both lies to avoid going to Penny's showcase. Since there's no symposium tonight, Howard decides that the four of them might as well go to Long Beach for the sake of supporting the second lie.
Coming back from Long Beach, Sheldon spots another problem with the second lie: somehow Penny won't believe that Leopold agreed to go back to rehab. So Sheldon hires Toby Loobenfeld (DJ Qualls), who studied physics and theater at MIT, to play the part of Leopold. The new lie is that Leopold refused to go to rehab, so Leonard and Sheldon brought Leopold to their apartment.
Tropes
- A Simple Plan: Leonard was just going to tell Penny that he was going to attend a symposium, but Sheldon finds that too transparent and comes up with something more elaborate.
- Consummate Liar: Sheldon tries to advance his abilities to lie in this episode.
- Dreadful Musician: Penny's singing is not pleasant sounding.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In previous episodes, Sheldon knocks just once on someone's door, which is strange to someone who has seen the later seasons of this show and is now watching these early episodes for the first time. In this early episode, the way Sheldon knocks on Leonard's door is more in line with his more familiar three-knock pattern, but not quite: in one instance, he knocks four times.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Penny's rendition of "Out Tonight." While her voice is passable, the part is beyond her singing ability.
- Insult to Rocks: "If cats could sing... they'd hate it too."
- Large Ham: "Leo"'s performance, as he tells his melodramatic life story."Leo": The Philippines. 1992. The Subic Bay Naval Station. A young boy on the cusp of manhood. His only companions are mongrel dogs and malarial mosquitos. Desperate and alone, he reached out to a man who promised to introduce him to a merciful, loving God, but who instead introduced him to a gin pickled tongue shoved down his adolescent throat. What choice did he have but to drink, shoot and snort his pain away?
- Logging onto the Fourth Wall: The website socalphysicsgroup.org exists in real life. As of 2022, it redirects to the Warner Bros. website.
- Low Count Gag: Penny's replacing a girl in a workshop production of RENT. It's a one night showcase, but they invite a lot of casting people and agents, so she hopes for a big break. She's not a good singer though, and there is a low count joke about the audience.Leonard: Why don’t you tell me about your showcase last night?
Penny: Oh, it was okay I guess, wasn’t a big turn out but they both really seemed to like it.
Leonard: There were only two people there?
Penny: By the end. Yeah. - Relatively Flimsy Excuse: Sheldon invents a drug-addicted cousin.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder:Penny: Do you have any idea what time it is ?
Sheldon: Of course I do. My watch is linked to the atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado. It's accurate to one-tenth of a second. But as I'm saying this, it occurs to me that once again your question may have been rhetorical. - Rule of Three: Leonard utters "I don't know what to say" three times when his lie of going to a symposium is eventually railroaded onto Sheldon's lie of visiting his cousin Leopold on Long Beach.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Leonard successfully avoids seeing (and hearing) Penny in RENT, but he ends up watching Penny's performance anyway because someone recorded it on the night, making everything he went through All for Nothing.
- Shout-Out: To Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The guys discuss why the robots would create a hot 17 year old Terminator.
- Snowball Lie: First, Sheldon changes their lie to tell Penny that Sheldon and Leonard are going to Long Beach to have a drug intervention with his cousin Leopold. The lie culminates in having one of the research assistants at the university (who is also a minor in acting) pretend to be Leopold and stay with Leonard and Sheldon for the next two weeks.
