23 surprising things you probably didn’t know about ‘How I Met Your Mother’

Josh Radnor played Ted on the CBS show, but the late Bob Saget was cast to do the “future Ted” voice-overs that narrated the series.

New York City may be a central character in the series, but the show was filmed on a studio lot in Los Angeles that was designed to look like the Big Apple.

Before Neil Patrick Harris landed the role, Jim Parsons auditioned for Barney on the show. But there are no hard feelings from the “The Big Bang Theory” star.

“Look, it all worked out fine … Neil’s better for the part, let’s be honest,” Parsons said on a 2015 episode of “Live With Kelly.”

Real-life Canadian Cobie Smulders eventually snagged the part of Robin, but only after Jennifer Love Hewitt turned it down.

Cocreator Craig Thomas wrote on Reddit that Love Hewitt decided to do CBS’ “The Ghost Whisperer” instead of “HIMYM.”

The pop singer guest-starred as Abby the receptionist on season three, episode 13. Cocreator Carter Bays told Reddit that she helped bring in new viewers and saved the show from low ratings.

“By golly she put our show on the map. It can’t be overstated,” Bays wrote. “Britney Spears rescued us from ever being on the [renewal] bubble again. Thanks Britney!”

The theme song of “HIMYM” is known for its infectiously catchy tune, and it turns out the show’s creators had a big hand in creating it.

The song, “Hey Beautiful,” is by the band The Solids, which Bays and Carter are both members of. Bays does vocals and guitar, and Thomas plays the drums. 

Jana Rugan and Timothy Russo really got engaged on the season-two finale.

Russo’s friend wrote for the series and arranged for the couple to stand in as extras since it was Rugan’s favorite show.

On the episode, Robin and Ted were on a date when the waiter mistakenly brought Robin a champagne glass with a ring at the bottom. She freaked out — and so did Ted since he wasn’t actually proposing — then Russo came over to claim the ring as his and proposed to Rugan for real.

“At first she thought I was messing up the scene, then it dawned on her and she started crying and everyone was clapping. It was awesome,” Russo told the Daily News.

In 2014, Bays and Thomas told Yahoo News that some of the show’s iconic props ended up going home with the stars after the series ended. 

Harris took Barney’s Playbook and the tabletop from their booth at McLaren’s, Smulders kept Robin Sparkles’ bedazzled jean jacket, Alyson Hannigan ended up with a little red British phone booth, and Radnor got to keep Ted’s coveted blue French horn. 

Bays also ended up decorating his own home with the two swords that were hanging up in Ted and Marshall’s apartment, and Thomas ended up taking a few set pieces from McLaren’s, including one of the gang’s red booths. 

Smulders was apprehensive when there were initial chats about the characters getting together, but Harris actively tried to make it happen throughout filming. 

“I’d try to do little things in our scenes together where I gave her an extra look and an extra glance or would stare only at her during a whole scene just to see if anyone was noticing,” Harris told The Fan Carpet of his own personal mission to get Barney and Robin together.

The theory speculated that Ted made Barney sound extra sleazy and womanizing in his story for his kids because he didn’t want them to judge him for falling for Barney’s ex-wife, Robin.

“I think that that’s very accurate,” Harris told Digital Spy in 2018. “Given the story structure, and with [Ted] telling the story to his kids, everything was able to be overdrawn.”

Lily’s high-school sweetheart Scooter was portrayed by Harris’ real-life husband David Burtka. 

Hannigan, who played Lily, also shared the screen with her husband, Alexis Denisof, who had a recurring role on the show as Robin’s coanchor Sandy Rivers. 

Smulders’ husband Taran Killam was another spouse who made it onto “HIMYM.” He actually played two characters on the show, a one-time appearance as Derrick and the recurring character Gary Blauman.

During season five, the actor who played Robin and the actor who played Lily were both pregnant, but their characters were not. So the props team just kept hiding their growing bellies behind large props and handbags.

“We have the biggest purses of any show on the air,” director Pamela Fryman told the Chicago Tribune.

When Lily did end up having a child on the show, Hannigan’s young daughter was set to play the role.

But, Hannigan told the HuffPost in 2017 that they decided she was too old for the part.

“They fired my kid from that role. She was gonna be the baby, but Carter Bays was like, ‘Nope. She’s too old,’ and she got replaced,” Hannigan said.

The actor has written a children’s book about magic, so it’s clear that Harris influenced Barney’s hobby.

You can buy the series-approved version of all of Barney’s rules, and it’s even “written” by Barney Stinson himself.

Most of the websites the characters shout out on the series are actually live on the internet.

See for yourself at tedmosbyisajerk.com, barneysvideoresume.com, and notafathersday.com, to name a few.

Bays told TV Squad that his assistant, Carl McLaren, lent his name to the bar, McLaren’s, and to its bartender, Carl.

McLaren’s is modeled after a pub in New York City called McGee’s.

Bays and Thomas reportedly spent a lot of time in the real-life establishment when they were both writing for “The Late Show With David Letterman” earlier in their careers.

The official “HIMYM” Facebook page posted a photo of the mother right after the episode that revealed her identity aired. 

But not every fan was able to watch the episode live, so they had the series-long plot point spoiled for them if they scrolled past the post on their feed. 

During his AMA, Bays told Reddit that a season-one cancellation would have resulted in them writing Victoria in as the mother.

Of course, the show actually went on for nine seasons, so that plan got scrapped.

The final scene of Ted’s kids learning that Ted still loved Robin was filmed in 2006 to ensure the actors playing the kids still looked the same.

That was only a year after the show premiered and eight years before the finale aired, so several precautions were taken to keep the ending a secret.

David Henrie and Lyndsy Fonseca, who played the kids, had to sign non-disclosure agreements, and only one camera operator was allowed in the room while they filmed the final scene.

“How I Met Your Dad” was in the works after the “HIMYM” series finale, but it was ultimately scrapped in 201. Many sources cited creative differences between the writers and CBS.

The unaired pilot starred Greta Gerwig as Sally, a recent divorcée on the hunt for new love. 

After the failed “How I Met Your Dad” spin-off, “How I Met Your Father” went into development in 2017. But it took a few years to get it off the ground.

The Hulu sequel series stars Hilary Duff as Sophie, the leading Ted-like role, who is telling her son the story of how she met his father. 

This story was originally published in September 2018 and most recently updated on September 4, 2024. 

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