Trivia / How I Met Your Mother

• Acting for Two:
  • The five main lead actors also play their respective doppelgangers.
  • In "Bedtime Stories", Barney tells the story of how he once met all the "players" of New York City, all also played by Neil Patrick Harris.
• Acting in the Dark:
  • The episode "Bad News" was scripted to end with Lily telling Marshall she was pregnant. The producers secretly told Alyson Hannigan right before shooting the final scene that the episode was actually going to end with her telling Marshall that his father suddenly died of a heart attack. This was done to keep Alyson's and Jason Segel's stunned and tearful reactions as genuine as possible.
  • The actress who plays the Mother didn't even know she was auditioning for that role until after they cast her. Plus, she'd barely even seen the show before then.
  • The finale casually revealed the death of a recurring character. This revelation was as shocking to the audience as it was to the actor, who was not informed of the character's death until just before shooting. Significantly, the character in question was the titular Mother.
  • The core cast are frequently caught Corpsing, because they often didn't get told each other's lines in advance, so they're as surprised as the audience and their reactions are genuine.
• Actor Allusion: At the end of season 3 episode "The Bracket", Barney is shown writing on his blog, which looks remarkably like Doogie Howser's journal, and the theme tune even plays over the scene.
• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Like Ted, Josh Radnor is from Ohio.
  • For Robin:
    • Like Robin, Cobie Smulders is from Canada. She was originally meant to be from Toronto, but changed to Vancouver to match Cobie's hometown. One episode also features Robin trying to get dual citizenship, something Cobie already has to allow her to work in both America and Canada.
    • While her nationality isn't explicitly pinpointed, Robin's mother is played by British Tracey Ullman with her accent intact. Cobie Smulders's mother is also British.
• Ascended Fanon:
  • Most fans had decided that the Mother was Cindy's Closet Key, long before it was shown to be true.
  • Ted's kids were nicknamed "Luke and Leia" by some fans, based off Ted being told to swear on his future children and responding "I swear on Luke and Leia." Season 9's "Unpause" reveals that Ted's son is indeed named Luke, although the daughter is named Penny.
  • A fan theory emerged from a gag in "Belly Full of Turkey" that the Mother's name was Tracy, since Ted's kids believed his joke that the stripper named Tracy turned out to be their mother. In a 2022 AMA, show creator Carter Bays revealed that it wasn't intentional at the time, but they took the mother's name from that joke so it'd indeed make sense.
• …But I Play One on TV: Sarah Chalke endured years of fans getting mad at her for Stella leaving Ted at the altar in Season 4.
• Career Resurrection: For Neil Patrick Harris, who before this show could never escape the shadow of Doogie Howser, M.D.. During the show's run, Harris' stardom skyrocketed.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Samm Levine auditioned for Barney Stinson. He would eventually go on to portray Phil in "Okay Awesome".
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Jason Segel spends a lot of time singing and playing the piano. In an early episode, he also showed off some mad dance skills.
  • Neil Patrick Harris is a trained magician, and demonstrates a few tricks starting in Season 2.
  • Cristin Milioti's ukulele skills and her beautiful singing voice are showcased in the 200th episode with her captivating rendition of "La Vie En Rose".
• Creator Backlash:
  • Mild example, but Jason Segel had said in interviews that he was ready to leave the show after the eight season, both because he wanted to pursue other acting roles, and because he felt there wasn't much left to do with Marshall as a character. He then suggested it would be interesting if Marshall and Lily got divorced, but then acknowledged that such a dark plot wouldn't work within the standard sitcom conventions the show utilized.
  • Another mild example with Josh Radnor, who towards the end of the show expressed annoyance towards some of Ted's negative traits, such as his immaturity with relationships, propensity to Aesop Amnesia, and that his self-professed "Nice Guy" status at times was an Informed Attribute.
  • Alyson Hannigan wasn't happy at all with how the show ended, saying it was like slapping the fans in the face. She also said she was never happy with the Barney and Robin pairing, feeling it complicated the Ted and Robin relationship too much.
  • Carter Bays regrets discarding the possibility of revealing the origin of the pineapple right away in "The Pineapple Incident" with the line "We never found out where the pineapple came from".
• The Danza: Louis, the Mother's ex-boyfriend, is played by Louis Ferrigno Jr., son of Lou Ferrigno.
• Dawson Casting:
  • The gang frequently plays their younger selves in flashback sequences, even to when they're teenagers.
  • In a meta-example James Van Der Beek played his character as a teenager. Possibly the only example where Dawson himself participated in Dawson Casting outside of Dawson's Creek. James Van Der Beek guest starred as Robin's old boyfriend and played both his teenage self and his middle-aged self.
• Defictionalization:
  • Full versions of the music videos for "Let's Go to the Mall", "Sandcastles in the Sand", and "P.S. I Love You" have been created and the songs are up for purchase on iTunes. "Let's Go to the Mall" is also available to play in Just Dance 3.
  • The Bro Code and The Playbook were also made into actual books, plus Barney's suit-jamas are available online.
  • Almost all the websites mentioned on the show have been created by the show's production team. A partial list can be found on Barney's blog, which also counts as one.
• Deleted Scene: While the series creators never confirmed the canonicity of deleted scenes, two in particular are, in a way, half-canon: both feature characters remembering unseen past events, and while them remembering isn't officially canon, the remembered events themselves are by way of being mentioned in How I Met Your Father:
  • In a deleted scene from "Daisy" Ted sees a pineapple put out on The Captain's porch as a sign of hospitality and suddenly remembers stealing one from his other house back in "The Pineapple Incident"^note What makes the scene where Ted remembers about it officially non-canon is his narration from "The Pineapple Incident" in which he specifically mentions they never found out where the pineapple came from, a line Carter Bays would later regret . The Captain remembers someone stealing his pineapple in the HIMYF episode "Timing is Everything".
  • In "Symphony Of Illumination", Ted promised to tell his kids about the time Robin was a bullfighter, which only happened in a deleted scene from "Last Forever, Part Two", where Robin told Ted about the time she got gored by a bull. In the same HIMYF episode "Timing is Everything", Sophie meets Robin and brings up this story.
• Directed by Cast Member: "Jenkins" was Neil Patrick Harris' directorial debut.
• DVD Commentary: Season 2's "Arrivederci, Fiero" had its writer Chris Harris and star Jason Segel doing a commentary, which involved them stripping to their underwear. For season 3's "The Chain of Screaming", Segel demanded to do the commentary with Harris, who hadn't even written the episode. Before recording, Segel had done shots. During recording, he continued to drink vodka (with Harris) and also produced twelve condoms. For season 4, they went further and recorded a commentary in the personas of "David Ellis Duncan" and "Evan Rock".
• Fake American:
  • Robin's doppelganger, who's presumably American, is played by Canadian Cobie Smulders. In fact, all the gang's doppelgangers sans Barney are played with some Fake Nationality.
  • Tony, also presumably American, is played by Canadian Jason Jones.
• Fake Mixed Race: Dark-skinned Wayne Brady plays white Barney's half-brother.
• Fake Nationality:
  • People associated with Robin are all played by non-Canadian actors/actresses.
    • Jessica Glitter, Robin's co-star from her Canadian children's television show (although it's never stated directly that she's a Canadian citizen), is played by Nicole Scherzinger, an American who was born in Hawaii and raised in Kentucky.
    • Katie and Genevieve, Robin's sister and mother, are respectively played by American Lucy Hale and British Tracey Ullman.
    • Both actors to play her father Robin Sr., the first being German-American Eric Braeden and the second being American Ray Wise.
    • Her ex-boyfriend Simon is played by American James Van Der Beek.
  • All the gang's doppelgangers sans Barney's. For Robin's, see Fake American.
    • The implied Hispanic Mustache Marshall is played by American Jason Segel.
    • The implied Eastern European Stripper Lily is played by American Alyson Hannigan.
    • Mexican wrestler Ted is played by American Josh Radnor.
  • Bangladeshi Ranjit is played by Iranian Marshall Manesh.
  • German Klaus is played by American Thomas Lennon.
• Fandom Nod:
  • A popular theory online was that Ted would marry Barney's half-sister. In "Ring Up," Barney unknowingly encourages Ted to sleep with her and Ted unknowingly does, leading to Barney freaking out at the revelation, and then trying to get them to marry to justify it. They don't get married, but they do have fun teasing Barney… It goes a step further; the actresses who were contacted to audition for the role of The Mother were actually screentested under the guise of a casting call for an actress to play Barney's half-sister.
  • "How Your Mother Met Me" is the timeline of the series from the perspective of The Mother, filled with little winks to fan theories. One in particular was the St. Patrick's Day party from "No Tomorrow" being revisited with the Mother's friend Kelly saying she could bump into the love of her life, with a cut to the shot in the original episode of Ted bumping into a random girl, the "bump girl" was a popular theory that she was supposed to be the Mother.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: In "The Best Man" comments on Shmosby videos are actually intelligible Finnish, but obviously created with a translation software.
• Hide Your Pregnancy: In Season 4, both Cobie Smulders and Alyson Hannigan got pregnant, evident by the shots, baggier clothes and props.
• I Am Not Spock: After the show ended, Josh Radnor tries to distance himself from it because everybody sees him as Ted Mosby. It's also why he grew out his beard and never shaved it.
• Irony as She Is Cast:
  • Serial womanizer Barney Stinson played by openly gay Neil Patrick Harris.
  • Pop idol and 2000s sex symbol Britney Spears played the geeky, socially awkward Abhorrent Admirer receptionist Abby.
• Money, Dear Boy: Neil Patrick Harris says that the prospect of a steady TV salary was what first got him thinking of joining the cast.
• One-Take Wonder: In the episode "Bad News", Lily steps out of a cab and tells Marshall that his father has died. This prompts an emotional reaction from Marshall, with him embracing Lily and crying "I'm not ready for this." Marshall's actor, Jason Segel, did not know about the twist before Lily said the the words, and the scene was done in only one take.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Despite being The Faceless in her first appearance, during her first full appearance it was clear that Barney's mother was played by a very different actress. The scene is flashbacked to with the new actress playing his mother, imitating the original's distinctive tone.
  • Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's Jai Rodriguez becomes the second actor to play James' life partner Tom. He was previously portrayed by a random actor for a picture.◊
  • Also Cheryl, Barney's biological father's wife is portrayed by two different actresses in her appearances. Nancy Travis (For Legendaddy) and Nancy Lenehan (in Season 9). This was due to Travis being busy with Last Man Standing (2011).
  • Robin's dad was played by Eric Braeden in the character's first appearance in season 4, then was recast with Ray Wise. The story goes that Braeden was offered to reprise the role but claimed that he had a schedule conflict with a surgery appointment (which was minor, and considered a cop-out by the production). Ray Wise played the role for the remainder of the series.
• Playing Against Type: Sarah Chalke was best known at the time for playing the shrill, neurotic Elliot Reid in Scrubs. While Stella is a doctor like Elliot, she's closer to the Only Sane Man.
• Playing with Character Type: Zoey is like many of Jennifer Morrison's tough independent characters. However, rather than being heroic, she's a smug Soapbox Sadie who torments Ted at every turn.
• The Producer Thinks of Everything: The final shot of the series was filmed in 2005, to ensure that the children would still be children whenever the show ended. What's more is that the first Thanksgiving episode shows that the mother's name was decided in advance. The children's shocked reactions when Ted leads them to believe the stripper is their mother happen because she is called Tracy.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • YouTube ukulele songwriter Tally Deushane, whose filk song about the saintlike patience of Ted's kids was played over the Season 5 series recap.
  • Becki Newton (Quinn) campaigned for a part.
  • Britney Spears also campaigned to be in this show.
• Prop Recycling: As Sarah Chalke was shooting Scrubs at the same time she was appearing as Stella, she just brought her lab coat and badge from the Scrubs set to wear again.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor:
  • Wayne Brady (pansexual, but wasn't out during the series) as James Stinson (gay).
  • James' husband Tom is played by gay actor Jai Rodriguez.
  • In the Failed Pilot Episode How I Met Your Dad, Danny's husband Todd is played by bisexual actor Drew Tarver.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Josh Radnor is very allergic to dogs, and didn't tell the show's creators this until after he'd been hired. They worked around it for awhile with, according to a blog post Radnor wrote, "some Claritin and some thorough vacuuming." Eventually Robin sent her dogs to live with her lesbian aunts on a farm since each dog was from previous boyfriends, and she had just made Ted get rid of things that belonged to his exes. The dogs were never to be seen again (though you can still see an affinity for dogs in decorations around her house, or occasionally on T shirts she wears). However she had gotten new ones by the end of the series in the year 2030.
  • Lily and Marshall rarely kiss on screen because Alyson Hannigan disliked Jason Segel's smoking habit, and was reluctant to kiss him too often.
  • The gag of Barney taking a magic trick through airport security and ending up in airport prison is something that happened to Neil Patrick Harris in real life.
• Real-Life Relative: Plenty.
  • Alexis Denisof (Sandy Rivers) is married to Alyson Hannigan (Lily).
  • Taran Killam (Gary Blauman) is married to Cobie Smulders (Robin).
  • David Burtka (Scooter) is married to Neil Patrick Harris (Barney).
  • Chris Elliott (Mickey Aldrin) is the father of Abby Elliott (Jeanette).
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Jennifer Morrison was cast as Zoey around the time she was doing House and preparing for the pilot of Once Upon a Time. She had brown hair for the former, and was getting fed up at having to get her roots touched up every three weeks, so she opted to go back to her natural blonde specifically for Once Upon A Time in case it got picked up. As a result, she was blonde for her guest stint as Zoey.
• Reality Subtext: The couple who get engaged in the second season finale were friends of the producers who arranged it so the man could actually propose on set. The woman didn't know what was coming, her "yes" and her tears were real (as were Cobie Smulders's tears), and so was the applause. If you listen, you can hear the significant change in audio for the "yes", because the woman was so emotional it came out garbled and had to be dubbed over.
• Romance on the Set: Josh Radnor dated Lindsay Price, who played Cathy, the girl who talks a lot in "Spoiler Alert".
• Star-Making Role: This show helped bolster the careers of Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris and Cristin Milioti. For NPH's case, it's more of a Career Resurrection since his first break was Doogie Howser, M.D..
• Technology Marches On: In "Where Were We?", Lily is the victim of credit card theft by a coffee shop clerk. In the scene building up to it she is digging through her purse for cash while an annoyed line of people is forming behind her, before finally giving up and asking if they take credit cards. Using your credit card as a last resort can seem a little strange these days in certain places in America, as cash and credit cards are slowly switching places, with electronic payments also used in terms of being the default payment method and some businesses completely excising cash altogether.
• Uncredited Role: The Narrator Bob Saget.
• Underage Casting: Robin (born 1980) is the youngest character of the main cast but she still actually a couple of years older than Cobie Smulders (born 1982) is in real life, presumably to shift her being a news anchor out of Improbable Age territory.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Scott Foley and Jason Biggs were approached for the role of Ted Mosby before Josh Radnor was cast. However, Foley turned down the offer due to scheduling conflicts with other projects while Biggs declined due to his reluctance to star on a television series. Biggs later regretted his decision when Alyson Hannigan was cast.
  • Jennifer Love Hewitt was offered the part of Robin Scherbatsky before the casting of Cobie Smulders. However, Hewitt turned it down in order to star in Ghost Whisperer.
    • Gillian Jacobs, Riki Lindhome and Kaitlin Olson auditioned for Robin Scherbatsky as well before the casting of Smulders.
  • Chris Hardwick and Jim Parsons read for the role of Barney Stinson before Neil Patrick Harris was cast.
  • Alicia Silverstone was originally cast as Stella Zinman, but dropped out of the project. Reports at the time indicated that upon learning that Britney Spears would be playing her receptionist Abby, Silverstone's reps had her withdraw from the role because they did not want her first appearance on the series to be overshadowed by Spears. The character was also intended to just appear in one episode, but they liked Sarah Chalke's chemistry with Josh Radnor and kept bringing Stella back.
  • Although the plot is the same, most of the dialogue and jokes in the first script for the pilot were rewritten. For example, some characters have slightly different quirks, like Marshall being portrayed as a bit of a hypochondriac who worries about having various diseases. The biggest divergence, however, is a missing scene when Barney, Lily and Marshall are waiting near Robin’s apartment: Marshall tries to prove that he is assertive and runs off to buy another champagne bottle. Once they start drinking they are caught by a police officer and Marshall is actually arrested when he tries to talk back. Lily has to bail him out and then they go to MacLaren's.
  • If the show hadn't gotten picked up for a second season, Victoria would have been the mother. Had it not been renewed for a fourth, then Stella would have been.
  • Nick, whose return was promised by Future Ted, was originally supposed to appear as Robin's love interest in season 7. When his actor was unavailable, Kevin was created to take his place and Nick returned in season 8 instead.
  • Season 8 was intended to be the final season, but when the show was unexpectedly renewed for a ninth season the planned ending (Robin and Barney get married and Ted meets the mother) had to be pushed back.
  • Within two weeks of the episode airing, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas still hadn't decided on the ending of the series, trying to choose between two endings. The alternate ending was on the season DVD release.
• Word of God:
  • It is never stated in the show, but the creators have confirmed that Carl's last name is MacLaren and that he owns the bar. This is a Shout-Out in and of itself—Carl MacLaren is a member of the HIMYM crew.
  • If the show wasn't picked up beyond the initial thirteen episode order, Victoria would have been The Mother.
  • In a Reddit AMA, Carter Bays confirmed that Marshall did indeed get robbed by a monkey.
• Word of St. Paul:
  • Prior to the series finale airing, Cristin Milioti was asked about the fan theories that the Mother has been dead the entire time Ted has been telling the story, and her response of "That's insane." was taken as a debunking of the theory. It did, however, turn out to be entirely accurate.
  • Neil Patrick Harris is a fan of the theory that Ted purposely exaggerates Barney's sexual escapades so that Ted's own decisions come off as more mild in comparison.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The series starts with a Driving Question of "How does Ted meet the future mother of his children?" and the creators were adamant that it would happen in the Grand Finale. The thing is they weren't sure how long they would get to tell this story and there were several admitted plans in place in case they were or were not renewed. Victoria of season one was outright confirmed to be the Mother in case the initial 13-episode order was all they had. Stella is theorized to also be a back-up Mother (given how they meet ties directly into the implied "Myth Arc") if season three was the end. Once ratings stabilized it seemed that the writers had a clear idea of how the show would end by introducing some more solid clues (the 100th episode has Ted meeting the Mother's roommate and getting a lot of, still vague, information on her) but still had to keep things flexible because now they weren't sure when they were ending.

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