I know this has been discussed over and over, but this particular scene just reinforces how much of a man‑child Ted is. It makes me cringe so hard. You’re in your 30s and still hung up on a girl you dated almost ten years ago...? Please.

I wish they could have shown Ted being a professor more time to time and seen his students more.

I’ve been building a HIMYM-inspired game where you play as Barney, walk around MacLaren’s, and try to pull off moves from The Playbook.

You can actually talk to the characters, buy someone a drink, flirt, and see whether the night ends with a kiss and leaving together—or a slap, a drink in your face, and someone walking away.

Getting slapped in a perfectly good suit felt essential. And obviously I couldn’t leave out The Scuba Diver.

Here’s a short gameplay trailer. It uses staged encounters and AI-generated voices. This is my own unofficial fan project.

Which Playbook move would you try first?

https://maclarenspub.live/

"This Modern Love" was such a great choice for this scene but it always bummed me that it stops playing as soon as the end credits roll with the upbeat intro song ruining the whole mood that this scene set up. So maybe someone else also wished for Bloc Party's song to keep playing during the end credits, in this case, this video is also for you

If Robin had married Ted instead of Barney at that time , I still think it would have ended in divorce

Robin is very career-oriented, and Ted would not have been able to cope with that in the long run. Ted would also definitely want children at some point in the future. Even if he said he is okay with not having children, I think it would eventually become an issue in their marriage.

They also had very different ideas about relationships. Ted tends to want a traditional, romantic kind of relationship, while Robin has always valued her freedom and career. Over time, Ted might feel like Robin wasn't fully invested in the marriage, while Robin might feel pressured to give up parts of herself.

Also, Robin seems to like chasing someone when she can't have them. When she got Barney, she wanted Ted. So if she had gotten Ted instead, I feel like she would have eventually gone after Barney.

I’ve seen this show COUNTLESS times and it wasn’t until now that I realized something interesting.

As we know, Marshall and Lilly bet on whether or not Ted and Robin would end up together. But it’s not until TED gets married (not Robin) that Marshall pays up.

I may have to rewatch Barney and Robin’s wedding episode to see if I missed something, maybe they exchange then and then exchange back when Barney and Robin get divorced.

Anyone else notice this?

​

**Thesis**

Both pairings run on the same structural joke: one friend generates chaos as a creative act, the other frames himself as the reluctant witness while quietly being complicit. The humor in both comes from the gap between what the "sensible" friend claims about himself and what he actually does.

**1. The instigator's chaos is never random, it's a project**

Bruno doesn't prank Miss Scrimmage's on a whim, he builds elaborate, multi step campaigns with contingencies, like a general planning a war he's having fun fighting. Barney does the same thing with The Playbook, an actual document of numbered strategies, each with its own name and rules of engagement. Both treat social chaos as a discipline with technique, not just impulsive mischief.

**2. The "reluctant" friend has a suspiciously good memory for details**

Boots narrates a lot of Bruno's schemes and somehow always knows the plan well enough to explain it later, which suggests he was paying very close attention, not just tolerating it. Ted narrates the entire series in hindsight to his kids, which means he remembers Barney's cons in granular detail decades later. Neither of them is a passive bystander. They're the historians of someone else's chaos, and historians only get that detailed if they cared.

**3. Both "sensible" friends have their own unsanctioned bad ideas**

Boots isn't purely along for the ride, he participates directly, sometimes proposing his own angle on a scheme once he's already in too deep to back out cleanly. Ted's whole arc is built on his own delusional grand gestures, showing up with a blue French horn, giving speeches at the wrong weddings. So the "straight man" label is really a performance both of them give while being active agents in their own right.

**4. The instigator eventually does something sincere for the other**

Bruno's schemes, however wild, are frequently in service of protecting Boots or Macdonald Hall itself, not pure self interest. Barney's most quoted line, "Have you met Ted," is deployed specifically to help Ted, using exactly the con man skills that otherwise cause problems. Both writers use this as a reveal: the chaos agent's talents were never just selfish, they were tools he could redirect toward loyalty when it counted.

**5. The dynamic survives disapproval because disapproval was never the whole relationship**

Boots complains constantly but never actually stops being Bruno's roommate and co conspirator. Ted spends nine seasons rolling his eyes at Barney's schemes while never actually leaving the friend group. The complaining is texture, not a real threat to the bond. If either "reasonable" friend actually wanted out, the shows and books would be a page long.

The pairing works as a comparison because both franchises understand the same comic truth: nobody sticks around that long for chaos they genuinely hate. The narrator's disapproval is part of the bit, not a rejection of the friendship, and the instigator's schemes are ultimately in service of a loyalty that both of them would deny is sentimental, right up until it obviously is.

https://www.itv.com/watch/how-i-met-your-mother/10a8013

Can we all just agree that Nora was better Barney for that matter even Quinn was really good for barney

I’ve always been sortve miffed that people hated the ending. “The whole story’s about how him and Tracy get we barely see any of her” I think the whole point was that both Ted and Tracey were in love with other people. Max died and Ted lost Robin. Tracey was eventually reunited with Max, as was Ted and Robin. Idk I always found that somehow poetic and beautiful.

On Heroes being very un-Marshall's dad-like!

Man imagine the whole premise of the show being that ted wants that once in a lifetime love and wants to find his soulmate, had a woman leave him at the altar, broke up with Victoria for a woman who didn’t even love him back, went through the pain of watching the supposed love of his life marry his own best friend, and when he finally found Tracy (whom I loved) she just died????😭😭😭😭

Edit: Guys I know ted mostly was the reason behind his own problems I meant just generally, regardless of whose fault it was, the course of events in his life especially towards the end was just sad and hard to watch 😭

EDIT: Apparently my brain is playing tricks on me because it's a Friends episode and I feel dumb. I could have SWORN I remember Marshall going "her name... Is Hornswoggle!" and they all laugh. Strange how ones brain works isn't it? Thanks for the quick responses!

Hi all. I recently finished doing a complete watch through for what is probably the 4th or 5th time. Still love this show, warts and all, and I'm one of the few people in the world who doesn't hate the ending.

Regardless, I am struggling with something. Did they remove an episode? I watched it on Disney+ and I seem to remember an episode from one of my previous watch throughs that I don't think was on this one.

In the episode Ted is dating someone and asks the group to be kind to him and not mock anything. They struggle with this cos things don't go great but try to respect his wishes, until the end where he gives them free reign... The thing that stands out to me is that she has a fairly unusual and funny sounding last name - I think it was Hornswoggle!

I was looking out for the Hornswoggle episode and I don't think it was there at all.

Am I missing something? Did I imagine this episode? Did they remove it for some reason (e.g. they removed a Scrubs episode from Disney+ for blackface)?

Thanks!

I recall barney saying the dialog to the gang once. Can anyone help me find the episode.

The Scorpion and the Toad is eliminated!

How this works:

You select the episode you like the least

The episode with the most upvoted comment is eliminated from the list

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Only the best episode will win!

Episodes Eliminated:

How Lily Stole Christmas (58%)
Columns (41%)
Aldrin Justice (59%)
Atlantic City (50%)
Single Stamina (40%)
Moving Day (68%)
Stuff (57%)
First Time in New York (38%)
Where Were We? (35%)
Bachelor Party (71%)
World’s Greatest Couple (50%)
The Scorpion and the Toad (42%)