Simon Helberg & Melissa Rauch Both Worried About This Plotline On The Big Bang Theory

When a sitcom spends a long time on air, the show's writers end up adding in all sorts of plot devices to keep things interesting, whether they decide to break up a main couple or, say, make two main characters have a baby. As fans of "The Big Bang Theory" know, two of its leads — Howard Wolowitz and Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz, played by Simon Helberg and Melissa Rauch — have a baby in the show's ninth season, and apparently, both stars were really worried about this storyline.

In Jessica Radloff's 2022 book "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," Helberg details how he and Rauch pushed back a bit when writers revealed Howard and Bernadette were going to have a baby. "We rarely ever went to producers or writers with any kind of concerns, especially story concerns," Helberg recalled. "That might have been the only time. It wasn't even a deep concern. It was more to hear what [executive producer Steve] Molaro was thinking and to voice what we were slightly wary of, which was potentially upending the dynamic of what existed. How would we sit around and have Chinese food? What happens to our role in the group? Not from an Oh God, I'm going to be written off the show vein but from a place of loving what we had created on the show." (Helberg was also — pretty reasonably — concerned about performing with a baby actor, or as he phrased it, an "actor baby.")

"For me, it was twofold," Rauch says in the book. "It was the interpersonal concern of realizing that things weren't going to line up in my personal life for me to get pregnant at the same time as Bernadette. I was concerned, like, Oh, if we do it now, that ship has sailed for them to do it again when my timeline does line up. And then the other concern was how a baby would change the dynamic among all these characters." So, what happened? Did Molaro and others allay their fears?

Luckily for Simon Helberg and Melissa Rauch, Steve Molaro and the show's writing team were completely prepared — in that they knew, long before they decided Howard and Bernadette would start a family, they knew the "baby" would merely exist in the background. "They came to me and said, 'How is this going to change the fabric of the show?'" Molaro told Jessica Radloff. "Luckily, the answer was, 'It's not going to, because we're never going to see their kid.' The baby was just going to be an off-screen presence, like his mom." (Howard's mother, voiced by the late Carol Ann Susi, was always heard and not seen on the show; when Susi passed away in 2014, the show wrote Mrs. Wolowitz off.)

Ultimately, both Rauch and Helberg had a larger concern about the way Howard and Bernadette would behave as parents and whether they would still devote time to their friends — which, on television and in real life, is a dynamic that shifts after a baby is born. "He assured us that 'Big Bang' wasn't all of a sudden going to become a family sitcom where they're caring for a baby 24/7," Rauch said. "He assured us it wasn't going to take us out of the friendship circle with the other characters, which was important for us. Because even in real life, when you have a baby your friendships as you know it shift. You can't do the sort of things you normally do and have the hangouts you normally have."

"Molaro was like, 'We're not bringing babies on the set and it's going to be a gold mine of stories,'" Helberg added. "We weren't going to fight [the decision] anyway; it was really about how do you keep the 'Big Bang Theory' vibe going when two of the group now have a baby and most of the show exists with people who sit around playing games, eating food, and being kind of independent. How do we reconcile that? But it was great."

Actually, Bernadette and Howard having a baby was really great for "The Big Bang Theory" — partly because it paved the way for Bernadette to undergo a surprisingly emotional character arc. In the season 9 episode "The Dependence Transcendence," Bernadette admits something to Raj Koothrappali, played by Kunal Nayyar: she doesn't feel like she has strong maternal instincts and is scared that she won't be a good mom. Bernadette's concern over whether or not she'll be a good parent is entirely relatable, and the episode ends up being one of the most touching and raw in the series' history.

"It was so beautifully done and not in a way that was in your face; it wasn't preachy, it wasn't 'A Very Special Episode Of,'" Rauch said, praising the episode (which was written by Maria Ferrari, who tells Jessica Radloff in the book that she drew inspiration from her own life). "I'm very sensitive to the fact, having gone through it myself, especially as someone for whom pregnancy and birth didn't come easy," the actor continued. "I love that this allowed a conversation about all the different feelings and gray areas of this next chapter, whether it's how expensive it is to have a child, or how to raise a child, or anything. I felt very honored to get to say those words and to be the vessel for that messaging."

Not only that, but as executive producer and writer Steve Holland put it, the fact that "The Big Bang Theory" could even broach such a sensitive subject spoke to the show's evolution. "These are stories we couldn't have done in season 3 or season 4," Holland mused. "I mean, why wouldn't you want to tell the story of Howard finding the love of his life and becoming a father? So we latched on to those moments, like Bernadette not wanting to be pregnant or feeling like she didn't have a maternal instinct. Or Wolowitz feeling that since he didn't really have a father figure in his life, how would that affect him as a father? Those were real moments and a core we could build around."

"The Big Bang Theory" is streaming on Max now.