Stephen Hawking to 'Big Bang Theory', says CBS

Stephen Hawking? "The Big Bang Theory?"

  Does one perhaps smell the most novel and potentially the very best cameo casting gambit of the entire 2012 season? One most certainly does. CBS just confirmed, although it's been all over web - or at least all over the web in the U.K. which reports that the cameo has been shot, and is now locked and loaded, for an April episode. Per the BBC.co.uk: 

Producers had asked Professor Hawking, best known for his best-selling book, "A Brief History of Time," to appear on the show before, but he had been too ill to take part.

Hawking is more than familiar with the entertainment trifles of American TV, having voiced "The Simpsons" and "Futurama," and appearing on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and even in an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." 

“When people would ask us who a ‘dream guest star’ for the show would be, we would always joke and say Stephen Hawking – knowing that it was a long shot of astronomical proportions,” said executive producer Bill Prady. “In fact, we’re not exactly sure how we got him. It’s the kind of mystery that could only be understood by, say, a Stephen Hawking.”

Hawking, 70 - who suffers from ALS and speaks with the aid of a voice synthesizer - was formerly Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge (yup, same as Isaac Newton) and is widely considered one of the world's leading cosmologists, who established that black holes could, contrary to prevailing theories, actually emit radiation. Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) will be very excited. The episode airs April 5.