The Peanut Reaction

"The Peanut Reaction" is the sixteenth and penultimate episode of the first season of the  sitcom The Big Bang Theory. This episode first aired on Monday, May 12, 2008.

Summary
When Penny finds out that Leonard has never had a she decides to throw him a surprise one.

Extended Plot
The boys are sitting at the Cheesecake Factory, and Sheldon and Raj are "Tressling", a combination of playing the while simultaneously. Penny asks the guys to knock it off, then leaves them to participate in a brief ritual at another customer's table. Raj is winning the Tetris portion, and Sheldon is winning the arm wrestling. Ultimately, they declare a tie and quit. When Penny returns, she asks if Leonard will be coming into the restaurant to claim a free of his own to celebrate his own birthday in a few days. Sheldon points out that Leonard is and can't have the cheesecake, or the  frosting on the. Leonard wants to know how Penny knew his birthday was coming up, and Penny reminds him that she had done his .She was going to do the whole gang, except that Sheldon threw a fit. Sheldon defends his position that horoscopes have been scientifically denounced as hokum. Penny rolls her and calls Sheldon "blah blah blah....a typical ". Leonard tells Penny that he probably won't come in because he doesn't celebrate his birthday; his mother taught him to celebrate personal achievements, and being expelled through a wasn't one. Leonard admits that he has never had a.

The next day, as Leonard leaves to pick up Thai food, Penny goes to talk to Sheldon and the boys to plan a for Leonard's birthday. Sheldon wants to nip this in the bud, noting that Leonard said he didn't WANT a party. Penny is convinced that this is because Leonard doesn't know what he's missing. Sheldon thinks that NOT having the party would be merciful, based on the emotional scars of his own birthday party experiences. Penny Sheldon, threatening to open his mint comic books and draw in them in ink if he doesn't participate. Sheldon agrees to throw Leonard a birthday party.



Howard and Raj shop for presents and they meet back at Penny's apartment. Sheldon berates them for getting the secret knock wrong. Sheldon hasn't secured a, making a big rant about why...until Howard has Penny inform Sheldon that gift giving is a non-optional. Sheldon relents, and Penny takes him to shop for a gift. Howard is sent to get Leonard out of the apartment for a couple of hours so they can set up the party.

Back at the apartment, Leonard is playing Halo. Howard invites Leonard to a special showing of Blade Runner with 8 extra seconds of footage, but Leonard is intent on beating a longtime rival from. As a last ditch effort, Howard fakes eating a with  in it and having an. Leonard drops his game and rushes him to the. Howard tries to ask the  to play along and keep him under observation for an hour or so, to which she replies "this hospital is not equipped to treat stupid". Howard calls Penny to tell her that he can't delay Leonard any longer. Penny puts the pressure on, promising Howard that if he succeeds in keeping Leonard out of the until they're done, she will clue him in to which of her friends are ...one with  issues, one who punishes her  by sleeping around, and one who is two shots away from letting him "wear her like a hat". Howard immediately eats the peanut-riddled granola bar, creating an actual medical crisis as he swells up.



At the, Penny tries to help Sheldon choose a gift. Sheldon is leaning towards something practical, Penny tries to encourage him to buy something "fun". Sheldon explains how when he was 12 he wanted a  centrifuge, but his parents got him a motorized, as if ANY 12 year old boy would want such a thing. Sheldon settles on a for Leonard's birthday gift. Overhearing Sheldon's explanation of the merits of the gift, several in the store ask Sheldon for advice on their own purchases. Eventually, Sheldon is servicing customers like an, even using the store's to place special orders for them. As Penny drags him from the store, he berates the store employees that "1 2 3 4" is not an adequate for their computer system.

Back at the hospital, Howard has swelled up like a. He is treated and released.

When they finally arrive back at the apartment, the party is already over. Raj is, shirtless, and in mid-, singing Cindi Lauper's "True Colors". Penny and Sheldon are asleep, crashed in the. Penny wakes up and shares videos taken during the party with Leonard and gives Leonard a birthday. Leonard chases after her, asking about her birthday date.

Critics

 * "The show at its best. The characters are clear and the humor is consistent. A really enjoyable episode." - The TV Critic's Review
 * IMDb user reviews

Trivia

 * Until "The Intimacy Acceleration", this was the only episode in the entire series where a main character's birthday is celebrated.
 * Sheldon's statement about being hokum is based on the work of, a psychologist from UCLA. His classic 1948 experiment involved administering  tests to groups of subjects, and then giving each subject the same exact personality evaluation (copied from a newspaper astrology column) and asking them to evaluate the accuracy of the results on a scale of 1 to 5. The average accuracy was rated at an incredible 4.2, indicating that people are generally willing to accept generalized descriptions of themselves because they WANT them to be true. This experiment has been repeated hundreds of times by various ; always with almost exact results, giving us "The Forer Effect" or "subjective validation".
 * As Howard attempts to remove Leonard from the apartment, in several angles, you can see the back of the Xbox is clearly not plugged in.
 * When Howard attempts to bribe the ER nurse, Althea, with "the man who freed your people", the bill he's offering must be one with Abraham Lincoln on it, which would be $5. Her response to his bribe indicates she'd need to see six bills with Benjamin Franklin on them to be bribed. Benjamin Franklin is on the $100 bill, so Howard is about $595 short.
 * Penny kisses Leonard.
 * The ER nurse, Althea, is the same person (or at least the same actress) as the waiting room nurse in the sperm bank from the "Pilot".
 * She is seen again in "The Robotic Manipulation", again as the ER nurse, and is again called in aid of Howard, whose robotic arm has his penis in an unyielding grasp.
 * She also appears in "The Werewolf Transformation" when Sheldon is visiting the hospital.
 * Howard`s reaction is created with clever synthetics on the actor who plays him.
 * The secret knock Sheldon demonstrates to Howard and Raj has the same pattern as the secret knock Leon teaches Mathilda in the 1994 French thriller, "Leon: The Professional".
 * Sheldon says that if Leonard was deprived of Christmas, he would be better as an experimental physicist; however, it is shown "The Maternal Congruence" that Leonard never really had fond memories of Christmas as a child either. This statement is kinda excusable due to the fact that Sheldon thinks of Leonard's Christmas to actually be fun.
 * In the "Boompa Loved His Hookers" episode of Two and a Half Men, Alan Harper tried to bribe airline employee Karen played by Vernee Watson with five dollars (a ten with a request for five dollars in change) just like Howard did in this episode. Both shows are Chuck Lorre productions.

Quotes
Leonard : How did you know my birthday's Saturday?

Penny : I did your horoscope remember? I was going to do everybody's until Sheldon went on one of his typical psychotic rants.

Sheldon : For the record, that psychotic rant was a concise summation of the research of Bertram Forer, who, in 1948, proved conclusively through meticulously designed experiments, that astrology is nothing, but pseudo-scientific hokum.

Penny: Blah, blah, blah, a typical Taurus. So, seriously, we gonna see you Saturday?

Leonard: Uh, I don't think so.

Penny: Why not?

Leonard: I don't celebrate my birthday.

Penny: Shut up, yeah, you do.

Leonard: It's no big deal; it's just the way I was raised. My parents focused on celebrating achievements, and being expelled from a birth canal was not considered one of them.

Penny: Uh, that's so silly.

Sheldon: It's actually based on very sound theories; his mother published a paper on it.

Penny: Well what was it called, I Hate My Son and That's Why He Can't Have Cake?

Sheldon: It was obviously effective, Leonard grew up to be an experimental physicist, perhaps if she also denied him Christmas, he'd be a little better at it.

Leonard (sarcastically to Sheldon): Thank you.

Howard : Well, I love birthdays; waking up to Mom's special French Toast breakfast, wearing the birthday king crown, playing laser tag with all my friends...

Penny: Yeah! See? That's what kids should have!

Howard: Actually, that was last year.

Penny: Okay, here’s the deal, you either help me throw Leonard a birthday party or, so help me God, I will go into your bedroom and I will unbag all of your most valuable mint condition comic books. And on one of them, you won’t know which; I’ll draw a tiny happy face in ink.

Sheldon: You can’t do that, if you make a mark on a mint comic book it’s no longer mint.

Penny: Sheldon, do you understand the concept of blackmail?

Penny: Okay, how about this. You keep him there a little longer and when you get to the party I’ll point out which of my friends are easy.

Howard: Don’t toy with me, woman.

Penny: I’ve got a hot former fat girl with no self-esteem, I've got a girl who punishes her father by sleeping around and an alcoholic who’s two tequila shots away from letting you wear her like a hat.

Howard: Thy will be done. (Thinks. Reaches into back pocket, finds the half a granola bar from earlier. Looks down.) I’m doing this for you, little buddy. (Takes a bite.)

Nurse Althea: (sees Howard's peanut allergic face) Holy Crap! [Reaction]