- Eric Kaplan of Flatbush, New York is an American producer and writer for television shows such as Futurama, The Simpsons, Malcolm in the Middle, The Big Bang Theory, Rick & Morty, and Zombie College. He wrote two direct-to-video Futurama films in 2008: The Beast with a Billion Backs and Bender's Game.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Christian Frates
- Grew up in Flatbush section of Brooklyn, NY, where his mother taught high school biology and his father was a "storefront" lawyer. Attended the competitive Hunter College High School in Manhattan.
- Is a Harvard graduate who later entered, but never completed a Ph.D program in analytic philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.
- When he submitted a sample sitcom script to the producer/creators of The Big Bang Theory (2007) it included two stories: one was about game theory and the other was about masturbation. It helped win him a writing job.
- [re reaction to The Big Bang Theory (2007)] We don't just get mail. Scientists will come to the show and sit in the audience. We'll often use them as extras in the background during cafeteria scenes. Stephen Hawking came once. He was happy to portray a version of himself who was petty and childish and enjoyed humiliating Sheldon at a game of online Scrabble. He played himself as a big baby. He didn't feel like he had to portray himself as a hero of science. That made me respect him even more, because he doesn't feel the need to pretend to be anything.
- Once we went to the control station for the Mars rover. That was the source of a number of stories for Howard.
[re The Big Bang Theory (2007) story ideas] We talked with a NASA astronaut, Mike Massimino. He told us about his Italian relatives who were unimpressed that he'd gone into space. There was one relative who was, "We usually make the new guy clean the garbage truck. You shouldn't have to go out to the space station if you're the senior guy." So that became the story line for Howard. He goes into space, and no one in his daily life is impressed. - [Scientists] sometimes say that there will be a new generation of scientists 10 years from now: kids who watched the show and decided to become scientists because they liked the characters. That would be great. I think there should be more scientists and fewer lawyers. It's better to invent a plastic airplane than to sue somebody.
- [High school in Manhattan]] was an awakening. I had friends from all over the city. During lunch hours, we'd go look at the arms and armor collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Like the characters in The Big Bang Theory (2007) we played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. I went to comic book conventions. I started reading philosophy pretty young.Then I got into Harvard. My uncle said, 'You should go to Harvard because they have a greater tolerance for weirdos than other schools.' And I said, 'I'm not aware that I'm a weirdo.' And he said, 'Uh-huh'...[At Harvard] you had people there who were sincerely and passionately interested in what they were doing. That world was about people so entrenched in whatever they were studying that they forget to put their pants on. Now, I don't think I ever did that. But I'm sure I knew people who did.
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