How I Met Your Mother encyclopedia topics

Production

Inspired by "our friends and the stupid stuff we did in New York," How I Met Your Mother is Bays and Thomas' idea. The duo's first concept about "an Enron executive who gets sentenced by the judge to go teach at an inner-city high school" was discarded because neither writer wanted to research the subject.

Episodes generally start with the opening credit screen. However, a cold opening has been used more often recently, especially in season three. Viewers then occasionally see Ted's children on a couch and hear him talking to them, telling the story of how he met their mother. Alternatively we can just see scenes from previous shows or shots of New York City with Ted narrating over the top. Thomas has explicitly said that Future Ted is an unreliable narrator.

The show explores the concepts of stories and storytelling usually with multiple flashbacks occurring each episode, a technique similar to that often employed in the earlier UK sitcom Coupling. This effect has been dubbed "deep frying" the story, a reference to the show's director, Pamela Fryman. This structure necessitates many more scenes than the average sitcom; therefore the show is not filmed before a live studio audience despite being shot in the traditional sitcom format. Laughter is not recorded until the episode is shown to an audience after it has been completely edited together. Sometimes, scenes would incorporate a studio audience depending on the set structures.

The theme tune to the show is from the song Hey Beautiful by The Solids, of which Bays and Thomas are members.

The bar "MacLaren's" in which some of the show is set is based on a bar in New York called McGees. It has a mural that Carter Bays and Craig Thomas both liked and wanted to incorporate into the show.

A scene directly relating to the identity of the mother, involving Ted's future children, was filmed near the beginning of season two for the show's eventual series finale.

Cast

Main characters

Josh Radnor as Ted Mosby
Jason Segel as Marshall Eriksen
Cobie Smulders as Robin Scherbatsky
Neil Patrick Harris as Barney Stinson
Alyson Hannigan as Lily Aldrin
Bob Saget (uncredited) as Future Ted Mosby (voice only)

Main Crew

Carter Bays
Pamela Fryman
Craig Thomas
Chris Harris
Suzy Mamann-Greenberg
Rob Greenberg
Stephen Lloyd
Greg Malins
Sam Johnson
Chris Marcil
Eileen Heisler
DeAnn Heline
Jonathan Groff
David Hemingson
Ira Ungerleider
Gloria Calderon Kellett

Season synopsis

Season One

In the year 2030, Ted Mosby (voiced by Bob Saget) gathers his daughter and son to tell them the story of how he met their mother.

The story begins in 2005 with Ted (Josh Radnor) as a single, 27-year-old architect living with his two best friends from Wesleyan University, Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel), a law student, and Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan), a kindergarten teacher, who have been dating for almost nine years when Marshall proposes. Their engagement causes Ted to think about marriage and finding his soul mate, much to the disgust of his friend Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris), a womanizer with an unnamed corporate job. Ted begins his search for his perfect mate. He is introduced to the ambitious young reporter Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders), when Barney plays the game he invented to introduce Ted to women: "Hi, have you met Ted?" Ted quickly falls for Robin, though she doesn't feel the same as he does.

As the series progresses, Ted begins dating a baker, Victoria, whom he meets at a wedding, causing Robin to become jealous and realize she does have feelings for him. When Victoria moves to Germany for a fellowship, Ted almost cheats on her with Robin. The two then break up, and after a rough patch, he begins to date Robin at last. Meanwhile, Lily begins to wonder if she's missed any opportunities because of her relationship with Marshall, and decides to pursue an art fellowship in San Francisco, breaking up with Marshall in the process.

Season Two

Ted and Robin are finally a couple. The heartbroken Marshall must now go on and try to continue his life without Lily, and begins dating other people. Realizing she is not an artist, Lily returns to New York. She's reunited with Marshall, and the season culminates in their marriage. Barney loses a "slap bet," which permits Marshall to slap him in the face five times at any given time in the future, whenever Marshall chooses, which he has done two times through the course of this season. Ted and Robin decide to just be friends when they realize that they both want different things. It is revealed that Barney has a gay, black brother. They eventually find out that Robin was a Canadian teen pop star in the early 90s.

Season Three

Robin returns from a trip to Argentina, and Ted must adjust to life as just her friend. Marshall and Lily decide to move out on their own, falling in love with a place they can't afford. Marshall learns of Lily's bad credit rating due to her compulsive shopping. They are able to finally score their dream apartment despite this, only to discover the neighborhood is next to a sewage treatment plant. Coming to terms with this, they later also realize that the apartment is crooked. Barney is slapped for the third time on Thanksgiving, which Marshall dubs "Slapsgiving."

Ted attempts to woo Stella (Sarah Chalke), a dermatologist he sees to remove an embarrassing tattoo. This culminates in a memorable "two-minute date," which incorporates small talk, dinner, a movie, coffee, and a goodnight kiss, all within two minutes. Meanwhile, an unknown woman begins to sabotage Barney's attempts to hook up. Robin sleeps with Barney after he comforts her following a break-up, which is followed by Ted's disapproval due to the breaking of the "Bro Code." After that, Ted decides not to be friends with Barney anymore. Barney's saboteur is revealed to be Abby (Britney Spears), Stella's receptionist, with a vengeance against Barney for not calling her after they had sex. She still wields a pseudo-psychotic fixation on Ted and does all she can to pursue him with the help of Barney who also still holds a grudge against Ted. In the last episode, "Miracles'" Ted and Barney renew their friendship after both Ted and Barney are involved in accidents (Ted is in a cab accident and comes out of it without a scratch. Barney is run over by a bus while rushing to find out if Ted's all right). At the end of the episode, Ted proposed to Stella. It has not been revealed whether Stella is the woman Ted marries. However, in the Episode "10 sessions," Stella reveals that she attended and left a party on St. Patrick's Day, which may have been the same one Ted attended. Old Ted, while talking to his children, said he found out 'years later' that their mother attended the same party he did on St. Patrick's Day, while Stella told him not too much later.

It is also heavily implied that Barney has feelings for Robin. And in the episode "The Goat", we find out that, in the following year (when Ted turns 31), Robin will be living in Ted's apartment.

Catch phrases

A feature of the show is the use of recurring Catch phrases, with the most notable being.

Barney

Awesome
Daddy's Home
Have... you met Ted?
High Five (variations on this theme)
Legendary (often with "Wait for It" or other phrases interposed between "Legen..." and "...dary")
Wait for it (also very often used 'between' other words, for example: "porn... wait for it... ography")
Suit Up (often with various versions, such as snow-suit up in the winter, etc)
True Story
What up!?

Marshall

You've been Lawyered (mostly just said as "lawyered!")

Episodes

Season	Ep total	First airdate	Last airdate
Season 1	22	September 19 2005	May 15 2006
Season 2	22	September 18 2006	May 14 2007
Season 3	20	September 24 2007	May 19 2008

Cultural References

To How I Met Your Mother

In the episode "No Chris Left Behind" of the FOX animated series Family Guy, a short clip from a pastiche TV show "How I Met Your Father" is seen. Josh Radnor and Neil Patrick Harris make cameo appearances voicing their characters Ted and Barney, with the name of the show and the gay kiss a reference to Harris's then-recent outing. The clip also introduces a rather different meaning to Barney's "Suit up!" catchphrase.

Used in How I Met Your Mother

In the Moving Day, the episode closes with a scene in "MacLaren's" where Barney reads out a Top Ten list, in the style of David Letterman's Late Show.

In episode 19 of season one, Barney says "I said good day!" (Originally a quote from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.)

In Season 2, Episode 7 (Swarley), Barney gains the unfortunate nickname Swarley. The end of the episode features all of McLaren's Bar calling him Swarley, to which his friends respond "Sometimes you want to go, where everybody knows your name," a reference to the "Cheers" theme song. This episode ends with "Cheers"-esque theme while the credits are rolling. In that same episode the men are in a coffee shop and comment on how it is cooler to hang out in a bar than a coffee shop. In a refernce that compares Friends' Central Perks coffee shop to How I met your Mother's MacLaren's bar .

The Season 3 Episode "The Bracket" closes with an allusion to Doogie Howser, M.D., which starred Neil Patrick Harris. It also used the CBS Sports NCAA Final Four basketball anthem One Shining Moment in a montage that parodied the regular post-game montage.

Nielsen Ratings

Based on average total viewers per episode of CBS sitcom, How I Met Your Mother:

Season	Timeslot (EDT)	Season premiere	Season finale	TV season	Rank	Viewers (in millions)
1	Monday 8:30 P.M. (September 19, 2005 - May 15, 2006)	September 19, 2005	May 15, 2006	2005–2006	#43	10.5
2	Monday 8:30 P.M. (September 18, 2006 - October 2, 2006) Monday 8:00 P.M. (October 9, 2006 - May 14, 2007)	September 18, 2006	May 14, 2007	2006–2007	#51	9.5
3	Monday 8:00 P.M. (September 24, 2007 - March 10, 2008) Monday 8:30 P.M. (March 17, 2008 - May 19, 2008)	September 24, 2007	May 19, 2008	2007–2008	#60	9.2

Awards

Emmy Award: Outstanding Art Direction for a Multi-Camera Series (2006).
Emmy Award: Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Series (2006).
Emmy Award: Nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (Neil Patrick Harris).

DVD release

Season releases

DVD name	Release date	Ep #	Additional information
Season One	November 21, 2006	22	This three-disc box set includes all 22 episodes of Season 1. Bonus features include commentaries on select episodes, gag reel, and video yearbook. The episodes on the DVD have been cropped from the originally broadcast widescreen to a full frame 4:3 format though. At present there is no widescreen version.
Season Two	October 2, 2007	22	This three-disc box set includes all 22 episodes of Season 2. Bonus features include commentaries on select episodes, gag reel, and several featurettes.
Season Three	October 14, 2008	20	This three-disc box set includes all 20 episodes of Season 3. Bonus features include commentaries on select episodes, gag reel, and several featurettes.

References

External links