How I Met Your Mother is an
American sitcom that premiered on
CBS on September 19, 2005.
The show was created by
Craig Thomas and
Carter Bays. As a
framing device, the main character,
Ted Mosby (
Josh Radnor, with narration by
Bob Saget)
, in the year 2030 recounts to his son and daughter the events that led to his meeting their mother, which explains the title and allows for a narration in the past tense.
How I Met Your Mother's other main characters are
Marshall Eriksen (
Jason Segel),
Robin Scherbatsky (
Cobie Smulders),
Barney Stinson (
Neil Patrick Harris), and
Lily Aldrin (
Alyson Hannigan).
The show was recently renewed for a sixth season.
[tvbythenumbers.com/2010/01/25/how-i-met-your-mother-renewed-for-sixth-season/40110]
Production
Inspired by the idea "let's write about our friends and the stupid stuff we did in New York,"
is Bays' and Thomas' idea. The two drew from their friendship in creating the characters, with Ted based loosely on Bays, and Marshall and Lily based loosely on Thomas and his wife.
[www.whedon.info/Alyson-Hannigan-How-I-Met-Your,14745.html] The bar "MacLaren's", in which some of the show is set, is based on a bar in
New York called McGee's.
It has a
mural that Carter Bays and Craig Thomas both liked and wanted to incorporate into the show.
[How I Met Your Mother 1st Season DVD Commentary] The name for the bar is from Carter Bays' assistant Carl MacLaren; the bartender in the show is also called
Carl.
Usually each episode is shot over three days, where most other sitcoms are typically shot in a single day, and features upwards of 50 scenes an episode. The show uses a
laugh track, albeit out of necessity due to the large number of scenes filmed per episode, and
flashbacks frequently featured in the story. The laugh track is later created by recording an audience being shown the final edited episode. Due to the larger scope of the show, co-creator Thomas claims that shooting in front of a live audience would be impossible, and doing so "would blur the line between `audience’ and `hostage situation'".
