‘That was the first time he and Carrie met’: James Earl Jones fans remember when he pranked Carrie Fisher, and she got ‘a little crazy’

The one and only James Earl Jones has died at the age of 93, and basically anyone who’s ever seen a film is in mourning. Jones’ buttery, bass voice drilled its way into the core memories of many a movie fan, predominantly from his roles as Darth Vader in the Star Wars saga and Mufasa in Disney’s The Lion King, so it’s no surprise that many are remembering the actor’s finest screen moments in the wake of his passing.

What’s often overlooked about Jones, however, is his comedic chops, but his comic timing is on full display in a clip that’s going viral from one of his more unlikely pop culture cameos. Say what you like about The Big Bang Theory, but the long-running Chuck Lorre sitcom always managed to bring in the biggest names in nerd-dom for memorable guest spots. Few are more memorable than Jones’ appearance, which managed to tick off a shocking Star Wars oversight in the process.

“I loved when James Earl Jones did a guest stint on the Big Bang theory,” shared one X user in a viral tweet, one of many that posted the moment as news of Jones’ death swept social media. “Still gets such a big laugh from me when he and Sheldon pranked Carrie Fisher.”

The Field of Dreams legend turned up in TBBT season 14 episode “The Convention Conundrum,” airing in 2014, which saw Jim Parsons’ Sheldon Cooper track down the legendary star to a sushi restaurant. A running gag in the show is that celebrities Sheldon meets tend to find him irritating, but Jones — humorously portrayed as a giddy big kid — immediately strikes up a friendship with the geeky scientist.

In the clip that’s going viral, Jones drags Sheldon to someone’s house where they play doorbell ditch on the person who lives there — it’s Carrie Fisher, who Jones describes as “a little crazy.” Sure enough, the Princess Leia actress emerges with a baseball bat in hand and yells at the hiding Jones, “It’s not funny anymore, James!” A cackling Jones then calls out, “Then why am I laughing?!”

As some note in the replies to the above tweet, this cameo wasn’t just the chance to see Jones getting to send himself up but also marked a major Star Wars milestone. Filming on this episode marked the very first time that Jones and Fischer ever met, despite the former playing the latter’s father in the franchise. As Star Wars lovers know, Jones only voiced Vader, while actor David Prowse was the one in the suit in the original trilogy.

According to TBBT producer Steven Molaro, Fisher had the perfect response to coming face to face with Jones for the first time. When they approached each other on set, the actress cried out “Dad!” Touchingly, Fisher’s on-screen twin Mark Hamill likewise referred to Jones that way when reacting to news of the star’s death. “RIP dad,” the Luke Skywalker actor — who later appeared in The Big Bang Theory himself, in its series finale — wrote on X.