From "iconic" to "I can't, ick"
Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) has a uniform on The Big Bang Theory: short-sleeved graphic t-shirt over long-sleeved t-shirt. It's remained constant throughout the run of the show. He's amassed a large collection of nerdy graphic tees over 12 seasons. Here are 50 of his signature t-shirts, ranked from best to worst.
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The red tee with the Flash logo is the most iconic Sheldon look. When you think of Sheldon, that's what you see. He has a couple different versions of the Flash tee, and this one is the best because the jersey-style stripes on the sleeves give it some differentiation.
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With its minimal rendering of the 20-sided die that's instantly recognizable to Dungeons & Dragons players, this tee walks the perfect line between geeky cool and cool cool.
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According to Sheldon, "The best number is 73... 73 is the twenty-first prime number. Its mirror, 37, is the twelfth and its mirror, 21, is the product of multiplying (hang on to your hats) 7 and 3... In binary, 73 is a palindrome: 1-0-0-1-0-0-1, which backwards is 1-0-0-1-0-0-1." This is the most uniquely Big Bang Theory of Sheldon's shirts, and probably the one most closely associated with the character outside of The Flash. He has it in multiple colors and wears it all the time. And you could wear it to mean 1973. Who's gonna stop you?
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All the Batman logos through the years printed to take up the entire shirt, for a look that says, "I'm not just a Bat-fan, I'm a Bat-storian."
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In early seasons, Sheldon wore shirts that didn't have any pop cultural or scientific significance. They just had prints. This is the best of those. If I saw this in J. Crew, I might think about buying it. I wouldn't, but I'd think about it.
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This one showing a monkey evolving into a man evolving into a robot is the funniest Sheldon shirt. It might even be the only funny shirt, because the writers don't want Sheldon's shirts outclassing their jokes. BAZINGA!
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This is one only Harry Potter fans will recognize. It's Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, aka the Marauders, aka Harry's father James and his school friends. It doesn't beat you over the head with the reference. It's for the true nernds.
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Sheldon really likes this Milky Way print, and I do too. It's the most-worn of his space shirts for good reason.
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This is another early season non-referential tee that's just kinda nice. One of Sheldon's few shirts that would look good on a non-nernd.
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Just a tasteful-ass DNA strand t-shirt.
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The man. The myth. The legend.
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I don't know enough about space to know exactly what this is, but I like the thin rectangular shape of the print.
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Does Sheldon realize this trippy melting Rubik's cube is the kind of thing a stoner would like? I can imagine seeing this on a shirt rack in a head shop between a Led Zeppelin tee and an alien demanding you take him to your dealer.
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This man really wore a Green Lantern shirt to propose to his wife. Smdh.
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This is a Batman shirt for Halloween!
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One part of the graphic looks the Cool S real '90s kids know and love. The other part looks like the outline of New Jersey. Together they look lit af.
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As far as I know, this "Star Wars Vehicles Organized Neatly" is the only Star Wars shirt Sheldon has ever worn. Honestly, it's surprising he's worn one at all, because usually Big Bang's pop culture shirts are from other Warner Bros. properties, which Star Wars is not.
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He's worn the Big Robot in various colors since 2009, so this one gets points for longevity.
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Wait, they don't love shirts like I love shirts.
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This is one of Sheldon's more obscure superhero shirts. That's the logo from The Greatest American Hero, a goofy parody from the '80s. New Girl's Hannah Simone tried to reboot it last year but it didn't pop. Sheldon's shirt pops, tho.
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This is a lovely shade of green that Sheldon should wear more often. It suits his pallor.
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Reminds me of Gucci Mane's ice cream cone face tattoo. BRRR!
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It's the Green Arrow, only it's blue! I like logos rendered outside of their usual colors. I have a monochrome gray New York Knicks hat.
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Another one of the early season no logo ones. I think this one is a pretty tasteful shade of Grimace.
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It's the directional pad on an old Nintendo controller. Sheldon loves nostalgia, and this is one of the most nostalgic.
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This one is printed with a thicker ink that gives it a more textured, shiny appearance than usual for Sheldon's shirts. If Sheldon wasn't wearing a long-sleeved shirt underneath he'd have a Batman-shaped sweat spot on his chest.
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Sheldon truthers think the wardrobe department is trying to tell them something with this train tee.
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In addition to the yellow choo-choo train shirt, Sheldon also has a yellow wooden ship shirt. He's the Coldplay of old-timey transportation.
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This is a cousin to the Star War. It's "Dinosaurs Organized Neatly." Are you familiar with Things Organized Neatly? I don't fetishize organization. I have no plans to watch that Netflix show about throwing away possessions that don't spark joy. Don't let your possessions cause you anxiety.
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I can't actually tell what's on this shirt. I think it's some kind of solar flare. But it kinda looks like a giant squid floating in space, which is very cool to me.
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When you look at this shirt you hear BEEEEEEEEEEEP.
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This is the symbol for the lesser DC Comics character Hawkman. I like the shade of the shirt itself. Sheldon doesn't usually wear muted shades like this.
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It's a Warholian take on another American icon. I don't recall Sheldon ever acknowledging fine art other than in this shirt, so it's pretty special.
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I like how big the T-Rex is.
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Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na SHELDMAN!
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The only reason this one isn't higher on the list is because I'm too dumb to know what a Fibonacci sequence is.
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"The difference between this Green Lantern shirt and the one he wore when he proposed to Amy is that this one has the Green Lantern oath in the DC Comics cipher language Interlac laid over the logo," he wrote as if he knew what he was talking about.
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I don't know what this design is, but Sheldon wears it all the time in various hues, so it must be important to him. But not to meeeee.
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When you already have a blue Green Arrow, the green Green Arrow doesn't pop as hard.
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In case you think I was exaggerating when I said Sheldon's Flash tee was his most iconic, I would like to point out that it's the one Howard (Simon Helberg) wore to imitate him.
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I prefer a subtler Batman.
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The theme of this shirt is SHAPES! It kinda looks like the tablecloth at a child's birthday party.
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This is Sheldon's only Martian Manhunter shirt.
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Sheldon wore this shirt bearing the Reddit logo once in 2011 when Reddit was still a niche geek website and not a part of the internet normies are afraid of.
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The least interesting of Sheldon's space shirts. And I don't like orange and yellow together.
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The red Flash on top of the orange shirt is not complementary. If Sheldon had read Harry Potter more closely and paid attention to Ron Weasley's Chudley Cannons hat he'd know that. (That's an extremely deep-cut Harry Potter reference, shoutout to me.)
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What's going on here? The graphic is clearly the shape of a tree when you look at it from afar, but the closer you look the less sense it makes. The components all seem unrelated. What does the recycling symbol have to do with a drum throne? I can't even make out a lot of these shapes. I have a headache.
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Sheldon wore a t-shirt over a collared shirt a few times in Season 1. They dropped that look real quick. Seeing it now is like seeing a drawing of Bart Simpson from 1987, familiar but wrong.
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When I was in high school in the mid-'00s the guys who wore this style of faded superhero graphic shirt were the type to crash a house party and start a fight. Seeing this shirt makes me think something bad is about to happen. This shirt has a lip packed full of dip.
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Too many grids. Plus the bright yellow base. Plus the queasy colors on the print. Plus the ugly brown pants. Plus the shoes. Just disgraceful. The Big Bang Theory should have been canceled for obscenity immediately after this episode aired.
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