In an interview on the red carpet of 2012 Producers Guild Awards, co-creator Bill Prady told TVLine that the director gave positive response when they asked for his approval. “We got a message back immediately from Zach [Quinto] and J.J. saying they loved the idea,” he said.

The scene, which contains the “Star Trek” reference, features Sheldon Cooper receiving the cardboard cutout of Zachary Quinto’s Mr. Spock, instead of that of Leonard Nimoy which he originally ordered. Getting upset with the mix-up, the geeky physicist told Spock to “suck it.”

Prady dished on the story behind the outing, “In order to use that prop, which is a cardboard cutout of Spock [as seen] in the new movie series, you needed three approvals. You needed Paramount [Pictures], and you had to get Zach to approve it and you had to get J.J. Abrams to approve it.”

The other thing they included in the approval request was the “suck it” line. He recalled, “I [told them], ‘We need to, at some point, let Sheldon begin accepting there is a new Spock in the world, and we’re going to have him start by not liking it at all. So if you’re game, and you let us use it, we will begin the process of him coming to grips with Zachary Quinto as Spock’.”