Every first day at a new job is always thrilling, but for Melissa Rauch, day one on The Big Bang Theory was humiliating, not anything else. Rather than calling home to boast, she was humiliated by an in-studio mishap.
Rauch, who is best known probably for her role as the sweet Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz, started on the popular show in 2009 as a guest star.
Overnight sensation, she was immediately promoted to series regular. But laughing while taping with Late Night Conan O’Brien for an interview in 2013, she recounted a humorous and embarrassing anecdote about her pilot episode—one that left the cast, crew, and studio audience laughing at her expense.
Rauch’s initial episode contained a single scene where her character, Bernadette, was in bed with Howard Wolowitz, played by Simon Helberg. Since the studio was chilly, and she is cold-blooded in real life too, Rauch instinctively rubbed her hands together under the blankets to warm them.
Sad to say, she did not realize that in real life, it appeared she was doing something else entirely—something that does not belong on a sitcom which is being filmed.
The minute the scene had been completed, the crew could not help but burst out laughing, and someone grabbed her to inform her of just how awful it appeared.
“I did not know,” apologized Rauch. “I only wanted to get my fingers warmed up, and yet apparently, it came out a good lot more suggestive than that!”
She was outraged to realize her innocent action for warmth was turning into a mistake with a live studio audience inadvertently.
Just when Rauch may have had an opportunity to heal from the painful moment, audience member Nancy Nester incensed added salt and injury by throwing in another blow.
Later that night, she was chatting with some autograph hounds, when a kid in the crowd approached her and asked her something absolutely innocent but agony-inducingly funny:
“Did you re-shoot that scene with your hands extended? Because my dad told me that it really looked strange.”
When they told her this, Rauch’s face turned red again. Not only had the crew figured it out, but so had the parents in attendance—yes, parents and children. That even a father of a child had found it unusual only made the whole experience that much more embarrassing.
“At that point, I just wanted to fade away,” Rauch chuckled upon recalling the experience.
Even though it wasn’t the silky first-day experience she had envisioned; Rauch is able to laugh about it now. She went on to portray one of the top characters of the popular show The Big Bang Theory, famous for her side-splitting delivery, squeaky voice, and rapid-fire one-liners.
Although her first day on set was filled with humiliation, it was also an excellent behind-the-scenes tale—one that folks still laugh about just as much as she does to this day!
