Trivia for
"How I Met Your Mother" (2005) More at IMDbPro »

• Writers/producers/co-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas are members of the band "The Solids," which performs the show's theme song "Hey Beautiful".
  
  
• Barney and Ted meet at the urinal for the first time.
  
  
• Marshall is from Minnesota.
  
  
• Lily's nickname for Marshall is "Marshmallow". Marshall's nickname for Lily is "Lily Pad".
  
  
• From season 2, there are scenes shown before the opening credits
  
  
• Ted's favorite music artist is Otis Redding.
  
  
• Ted is from Ohio, just like Josh Radnor.
  
  
• Ted's middle name is Evelyn.
  
  
• Alyson Hannigan's character on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997), Willow Rosenberg, once mentioned that she wrote "Doogie Howser, M.D." (1989) fanfiction as a girl. Hannigan went on to star in "How I Met Your Mother" (2005) with Neil Patrick Harris, who as a boy played Doogie Howser.
  
  
• Alyson Hannigan, who plays Lily, is perhaps best known prior to starring in ‘How I Met Your Mother’ for her role on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997). The creators of both of these shows - Joss Whedon of the Buffy series and Carter Bays and Craig Thomas of HIMYM - all graduated from Wesleyan University, as well as did the characters Lily, Ted, and Marshall on HIMYM. Additionally, Hannigan's character from the Buffy series, Willow, got early acceptance to Wesleyan, along with many other schools.
  
  
• Ted's favorite movie is Star Wars (1977). His least favorite movie is The Goonies (1985).
  
  
• An on going joke in the show is that nobody ever finds out what Barney's job is. Every time the gang ask him he sarcastically replies, 'Please'!
  
  
• Several cast members have also worked with Joss Whedon, notably stars Alyson Hannigan (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Neil Patrick Harris (Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog). Also appearing have been guest stars Morena Baccarin (Firefly / Serenity), Alexis Denisof (Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel), Amy Acker (Angel / Dollhouse), Tom Lenk (Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel), and Harry Groener (Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
  
  
• During one episode, Robin freaks out in a restaurant when she mistakenly thinks Ted is proposing to her after she receives a champagne glass with an engagement ring at the bottom. When Ted tells her "That's not mine", another gentlemen at the table behind them says "It's mine", then proceeds to propose to the woman at his table. The proposal between the man and woman was real. The man set up the whole scheme with the show's producers, and told his girlfriend that they won a contest and got to be extras in a HIMYM episode. Instead, he proposed on camera, and the proposal will live on forever as part of the episode.
  
  
• Robin's full name is Robin Charles Scherbatsky Jr.
  
  
• Another of the show's recurring gags is, whenever somebody says a phrase or word that resembles a military rank (eg. "Major buzz-kill") both Ted and Robin (and in some instances Barney, Marshall and Lily join in) salute and repeat whatever is said as though addressing a military officer ("Major Buzzkill").
  
  
• Alyson Hannigan was pregnant while filming many season four episodes, but the show-runners were not interested in her character, Lily, also being shown as pregnant. Most episodes used time-honored TV tricks to hide Hannigan's pregnancy, including baggy tops and giant handbags, but the episode "The Possimpible" showed Hannigan's pregnancy bump in the context of a subplot in which Lily wins a hot dog-eating contest and has a comically distended stomach afterward. A similar visual gag was used in the sitcom "Titus" (2000) several years earlier. Actress Cynthia Watros was pregnant during the show's second season, although her character "Erin" was not meant to be pregnant. So, in addition to the "time-honored TV tricks" being used to hide Watros' pregnancy, a flashback scenario was used in one episode that showed her character Erin winning a pie-eating contest and her actual pregnant belly was shown after wards.
  
  
• After Alyson Hannigan told the showrunners that she was pregnant, Cobie Smulders discovered that she was also pregnant. Neither of the characters they play were pregnant on the show, so the costumers had the job of simultaneously hiding the pregnancies of the series' two main female actors.
  
  
• Before "How I Met Your Mother" (2005) started, Neil Patrick Harris and Josh Radnor had already acted together, as lovers in a Los Angeles production of the Jon Robin Baitz play "The Paris Letter".
  
  
• Barney Stinson was named after a heroin peddler in the James Ellroy book LA Confidential.
  
  
• The website www.tedmosbyisajerk.com is a real site.
  
  
• Hanging on the wall of Barney's apartment set is a framed poster of the cover art for the 2001 novel Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold. The novel is about a magician in 1920s San Francisco; Neil Patrick Harris, who plays Barney, is a talented magician.
  
  

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