Howard Joel Wolowitz, is a fictional character on the CBS television series The Big Bang Theory, portrayed by actor Simon Helberg. Among the four main male characters in the show, Howard is distinctive for being an engineer—rather than a physicist—and lacking a PhD.
Howard is named after and based on a computer programmer known by the show's co-creator; Bill Prady. Howard is the only starring character who has been to the International Space Station. Along with Sheldon Cooper, Leonard Hofstadter, and Raj Koothrappali, Howard is part of the central cast of the show.
Biography
In the universe of The Big Bang Theory, Howard is an aerospace engineer at Caltech's Department of Applied Physics and an ex-astronaut for NASA who, in the show, is often seen at the apartment of Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons). He is best friends with Rajesh Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar). He was born in 1981, as specified in the season one episode, "The Pancake Batter Anomaly" and is a native of Pasadena (although his mother has an East Coast accent). Howard received his degree in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Howard sports a bowl/mod haircut and tends to wear loud 1960s-era outfits, such as a V-neck T-shirt or flashy button-down shirt over a turtleneck or dickey which sport a variety of pins (which have been gradually phased out with the exception of a gray alien pin on the collar) with slim-fit pants and vintage Vans sneakers with a leather windbreaker. He is also fond of (and collects) decorator belt buckles, though he jokingly claims to own only one belt; his collection includes a NES controller, a silver Batman logo, a 45 RPM record insert, a Klingon communicator, and a buckle featuring the superhero the Flash. Although he is Jewish, he is secular and often rebels against the religion, even going so far as mocking Judaism. He is also a sign language interpreter.
Personality
Like his friends, Howard is an avid fan of comic books and superheroes. He lived with his mother for several seasons before eventually moving in with his wife Bernadette Rostenkowski. Until he returned from space in season six, his personal transportation was a Vespa motor scooter, which he eventually traded for a Mini Countryman.
Howard is a polyglot. Besides English, Howard can speak nine languages including French, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, Latin, Persian, Japanese, American Sign Language, and the constructed language Klingon from the Star Trek franchise. He also knows some words in Sindarin, one of the elvish dialects invented by J.R.R. Tolkien for The Lord of the Rings. The episode "The Hawking Excitation" reveals that he also understands the computer language Binary ASCII. As in "The Love Spell Potential" (Season 6, ep 23), Howard frequently does impersonations of Nicolas Cage, and is capable of impersonating Al Pacino and Christopher Walken.
Until his marriage, Howard fancied himself as a "ladies' man" and he provided outrageous and often sexist pick-up lines whenever there was a woman present, resulting in humiliating rejections. Howard describes himself as a romantic, although he usually comes across as overtly sexual, and in the words of Penny, disgusting. However, Penny's dislike of Howard mellowed since Howard started dating Penny's colleague Bernadette, to whom he later got married. When Howard found an ALF doll and revealed that it filled a void for him when his father left, Penny felt sympathy for him and began to empathize more when she understood his behavior a little bit better.
Like the rest of the group, Howard dislikes many of Sheldon's antics; he has grown accustomed to them, but he is the quickest to get frustrated with Sheldon. Once Penny asked how Sheldon had ever got any friends, and Howard simply replied "We liked Leonard."