Q&A: Chuck Lorre on Young Sheldon, How Much He Hates Integrations and the Show He’d Like to Revive

When it debuted on Sept. 25, Young Sheldon became fall’s most-watched freshman show. The prequel to The Big Bang Theory, with Iain Armitage playing a 9-year-old version of Jim Parsons’ Sheldon Cooper, drew more than 22.5 million viewers in live-plus-7 numbers and a 5.5 rating in the 18-49 demo. But then, in what CBS Entertainment president Kelly Kahl admitted was an “unusual” scheduling move, the network opted to delay the second episode for five weeks—until Thursday, following the conclusion of CBS’ Thursday Night Football package. Assuming the strategy to build word of mouth through five weeks of delayed viewing, including posting the premiere episode on YouTube, pays off (“we hope to come back with an even greater core audience than we left with,” Kahl said), the series, which CBS quickly picked up for a whole season, is one of the most likely new fall shows to be renewed. That means another hit sitcom for co-creator Chuck Lorre, who is also behind The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Grace Under Fire, Dharma & Greg and Cybill. Lorre, joined by fellow Young Sheldon executive producer Steve Molaro, sat down with Adweek to talk about breaking his no-spinoff rule with Young Sheldon, why he hates integrations and which of his TV shows he would consider reviving. Adweek: What prompted you to consider a prequel? Chuck Lorre: Jim [Parsons, who also narrates and executive produces Young Sheldon] actually has a nephew in Texas who is brilliant, who is around the same age, 9 or 10 years old, and is an astonishingly intelligent little boy. Jim was really touched by his nephew and was talking about his nephew, and it led to the discussion of whether it was the right time to take a look at dramatizing the backstory of Sheldon. Had there been previous discussions about turning Big Bang into a franchise? Lorre: No, I don’t like that stuff. I’m fundamentally opposed to taking something that’s working and cannibalizing it to make something else. If you have a successful show, I think the only thing you should do is cherish it, protect it, nurture it and grow it. But don’t tear it apart to make something else. That was very common a long time ago, and I don’t think it’s really a thing anymore. Steve Molaro: And as a prequel, it isn’t quite the same situation. It’s an offshoot. You haven’t taken Sheldon off Big Bang. Did something like Better Call Saul, which is a prequel that has been able to thrive outside the shadow of the beloved series it was spun off from, give you faith that this approach could work? Lorre: First of all, I love that show. The genius of taking what was essentially a tertiary character on Breaking Bad and building a series around him was unbelievably great. And [star Bob] Odenkirk—big fan. No, I don’t think we ever talked about Saul. When we talked about precedents, we talked about The Wonder Years; we talked about Malcolm in the Middle; we talked about shows we loved. Molaro: Anytime you’re doing a single-camera show circling around a kid, it’s hard not to think about Wonder Years. I grew up with it. Lorre: Especially if you’re going to talk about those kinds of shows, you want to talk about the ones that are great, and that was a great show. It holds up. Molaro: Boy, does it hold up. Lorre: You can watch it now, and it is timeless. Did you make Young Sheldon a single-camera show because of your concern about cannibalizing the mothership? Because it feels very different tonally than Big Bang. Molaro: I think going single cam provided a lot of benefits. It allowed us to see the world from Sheldon’s point of view a little more easily, and it allowed us to not have to take these younger actors and put them in front of a live audience and hope that went well. Lorre: With a new show every week! That’s asking a lot of an adult, much less a 9-year-old. Molaro: Who was 8 years old at the time we made the pilot. And it also allowed us tonally to take a step away from Big Bang Theory and not feel like we were trying to chase after it and recreate something. Because Young Sheldon is a period show, it takes you out of the running for potential integrations, right? Lorre: We’ve never done any integrations or product placement on any of the shows. The audience watches nine minutes of commercials to watch your show. That’s enough. I think it’s not fair at a certain point to say, "Here’s another commercial inside the show." You’re riding through nine minutes of advertising to watch the show. That’s the price of admission. There shouldn’t be another price. That’s just my opinion. [kickout id="1"] A decade or two ago, Big Bang would have been one of many hit sitcoms on the air with massive audiences. Now, it’s essentially the last one standing. How has it been able to connect with audiences, in both original episodes and reruns, in a way that no other sitcom still does? Lorre: We were relentless for 10 years, trying to make each episode the best possible episode we could make. We killed ourselves on every episode. Every minute of every episode had to be the best we could make it. We didn’t always succeed, but that was the goal. Molaro: We’re blessed with an unbelievably watchable cast. That is more than half the battle out of the gate. Lorre: And something happened on this show, that transcends the show I think, in that they became a family. You watch them sitting in the living room, eating Chinese takeout. It’s a family event, having dinner together and talking and making each other miserable or laughing. And that’s what families do. These characters, who are otherwise outcasts and are socially awkward have found their own world in which they’re comfortable. That’s really attractive. I first noticed it watching Cheers. You couldn’t watch Cheers and not want to sit at the bar with Cliff and Norm. There was an impulse to want to be part of that, because even though they’re all variations of loser, they had each other. They took care of one another, and that was very attractive. Long-running sitcoms also tend to run out of fumes. For example, even some Friends fans admit that entire seasons of that show weren’t great. But Big Bang has never really had those hills and valleys. Why not? Molaro: To some degree, as shows go on for a while, there can be a tendency to go for bigger, crazier, sillier stories, and that’s an impulse that Chuck has certainly led the charge on resisting and keeping it character based. And even though we’re 10 years in, keeping these stories small and real and having things that actually matter to the characters that we know and love and keep learning about them, as opposed to floating away and doing crazier and crazier stuff, that’s at least a small part of the puzzle. Lorre: Everybody involved in this show, in the writing staff and on the crew and the cast, loves the show. There’s nobody who isn’t proud to be on the show, and I think that shows up on camera. Nobody takes it for granted that it’s just another episode of The Big Bang Theory. That episode has got to be as good as the other episodes, or better. Why can’t a show grow? Entropy doesn’t have to happen. You can decide that Year 11, which is where we are, can be the best year of the show. It’s just a decision. There’s no rule somewhere that says we have to go out and fade away. Chuck, you wrote on Roseanne, which is one of several shows that have been revived over the past couple years. Do you think that any shows you created might be interesting to revisit? Lorre: Sometimes I think about Dharma & Greg. Where are they 20-some odd years later? It would be almost 20. The show ended [15] years ago. Those two characters and their families intrigue me. [laughs] You’re the first person I’ve mentioned it to!