When The Big Bang Theory introduced viewers to Young Sheldon, the original show also secretly justified the spinoff's many canon inconsistencies.
SUMMARY
- The crossover between The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon reveals that Sheldon's memory isn't perfect, explaining the inconsistencies in Young Sheldon's depiction of characters like his mother and grandmother.
- Sheldon's failure to remember a message he recorded for his future self questions his supposedly impressive memory and calls into doubt his ability to accurately recall events in both shows.
- The reason for the discrepancies between The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon lies in the different tones and styles of the two shows, as Young Sheldon aimed for a more family-friendly and light-hearted approach, retconning the darker aspects of Sheldon's childhood.
While The Big Bang Theory set up Young Sheldon via a clever cameo, this moment also secretly justified many of the spinoff’s mysterious canon revisions. Young Sheldon plays fast and loose with the canon of its predecessor, the popular sitcom The Big Bang Theory.
In The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon’s mother Mary is often portrayed as a bitter, mean person, whereas her counterpart in Young Sheldon is much more agreeable. Similarly, Sheldon’s grandmother Meemaw is depicted as an older version of his pious, traditional mother in The Big Bang Theory, but she is her daughter’s free-spirited opposite in Young Sheldon.
While the forthcoming Young Sheldon season 7 might offer more justification for these differences, the crossover between the two shows explained one reason for the inconsistencies.
In The Big Bang Theory season 12, episode 10, “The VCR Illumination,” Sheldon came face to face with Young Sheldon's hero when he watched an old videotape he recorded for his future self during his childhood. Sheldon hoped the tape would provide him with some inspiration, but was dismayed to discover his father taped over it with a high school football game. However, the tape did still answer a Young Sheldon plot hole.
The Big Bang Theory’s spinoff Young Sheldon was set up by the videotape that Sheldon viewed, with Iain Armitage appearing as his younger self. However, this scene also secretly explains one of the spinoff’s weirdest problems.
Sheldon was horrified to realize the tape had been recorded over because he didn’t remember the message he recited for himself despite the character’s almost eidetic memory in other areas. This moment proved that the spinoff’s narrator wasn't always reliable.
Sheldon's failure to remember the message that he recorded for himself could explain why so many of his recollections in Young Sheldon contradict claims about the past that he made earlier in The Big Bang Theory.
In that show, Sheldon complained that his father, George Sr, was a philandering drunk. In contrast, Young Sheldon depicted George Sr. as a pretty likable everyman. Similarly, Sheldon recounted a childhood defined by relentless bullying in The Big Bang Theory, but Young Sheldon proved that his early years only featured a few instances of bullying, none of which were particularly serious.
The Big Bang Theory’s Young Sheldon Tease Makes Sheldon’s Memory Confusing
The Big Bang Theory’s spinoff runs into a familiar problem when it comes to its narrator, as the older Sheldon is often recounting stories that he couldn’t have known about at the time.
He narrates the lives of Young Sheldon’s entire cast of characters, meaning the adult version of Sheldon can often be seen telling viewers about his grandmother’s love life, his brother sleeping with a romantic partner, and other stories that he wouldn’t have been privy to during his adolescence. However, this isn’t the biggest inconsistency in the spinoff. The state of Sheldon’s memory is also particularly unclear.
In “The VCR Illumination,” Sheldon remembers the phrase “Robot Monkey Butler,” a code designed to ensure that the tape’s viewer is Sheldon and not a replicant. It is strange that Sheldon would recall this random nonsense phrase but not the substance of the message itself.
This makes the idea of Sheldon having a particularly impressive memory even more dubious and calls into question just how he ended up learning about the events he narrates. In Young Sheldon’s season 6 finale, the adult Sheldon narrates the destruction of Meemaw’s gambling room, an event that happened when he was in another country.
The real reason that Young Sheldon often retcons The Big Bang Theory is tied to the divergent tones of the two shows. Since The Big Bang Theory was a multi-camera hang-out show with a laugh track and Young Sheldon is a single-camera family comedy without one, the two shows have markedly different styles.
The Big Bang Theory’s humor was broader and more over-the-top, with the characters facing zanier situations compared to Young Sheldon’s more grounded storylines. As such, The Big Bang Theory regularly made throwaway jokes about Sheldon’s traumatic childhood, but Young Sheldon avoided these dark topics.
While The Big Bang Theory could afford to make many casual references to Sheldon’s harsh childhood, Young Sheldon elected to retcon these details in the spinoff.
Sheldon made his father out to be an uncaring monster and described his childhood as a nightmare of perpetual bullying in The Big Bang Theory, neither of which would make for a fun family sitcom. Later Young Sheldon seasons even sidelined Sheldon since his life was uneventful in comparison to the dramatic stories of his family members, which is a major retcon of the traumatic youth that Sheldon recounted in the earlier show. While The Big Bang Theory could afford to make many casual references to Sheldon’s harsh childhood, Young Sheldon elected to retcon these details in the spinoff.
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