Before ‘Silicon Valley’ and ‘The Big Bang Theory’, There Was ‘Dweebs’

[TMC]

http://splitsider.com/2015/11/before...re-was-dweebs/

Think for a moment, though, about that basic concept. Here we have a group of nerds, incredibly smart in their chosen field and incredibly dumb about everything else, and the “normal,” attractive woman who serves as their connection to the rest of the world. Sound like anything you know? Yes, since 2007, Chuck Lorre’s The Big Bang Theory has covered the same basic material with incredibly profitable results, ruling the prime time ratings and spawning a cottage industry of board games, bobbleheads, and Sheldon Cooper Halloween costumes. True, the series is essentially a “minstrel show” of geekdom put on for the benefit of non-nerds, but its across-the-board acceptance represents the normalization of nerds into the mainstream of American culture. Dweebs would have killed for that acceptance.

The similarities between Big Bang and Dweebs go down to the marrow. One of Dweebs’ favorite tropes, for example, is having its three main programmers spout technical jargon at a rapid pace as if it were normal, conversational English, leaving any non-dweebs in the vicinity (usually Carey) totally in the dust. This is also one of the core jokes of Big Bang, and it’s clear that the actors on both shows have had to learn huge chunks of dialogue phonetically. And on both of these series, it’s a given that the geeky heroes find mundane social interactions and customs totally baffling. Naturally, both Big Bang and Dweebs contain countless jokes about the nerds’ ineptitude at dating and utter lack of fashion sense.

Most of all, these two sitcoms are connected by the personality traits of their respective characters. Carey is Dweebs is very much analogous to Penny from The Big Bang Theory, right down her slovenliness and lack of organization. (Carey’s apartment is a mess where all the clocks blink 12:00.) These token female characters serve exactly the same purpose on their shows. Vic’s smutty innuendos and unctuous advances on Dweebs were inherited by Wolowitz on Big Bang. Warren’s inability to talk to women was likewise passed down to Big Bang’s Raj. Most striking, though, is the resemblance of Dweebs’ Karl and Big Bang‘s Sheldon Cooper. Both are played by lanky Texans — Stephen Tobolowsky and Jim Parsons — and both manage to seem like outcasts even among other outcasts, guys so isolated by their geekiness that they’ve lost perspective on themselves. If, by some miracle, Dweebs had been a hit, Karl could well have been the breakout character with the hit catchphrase.

[king of comedy]

Is Dweebs available on DVD?