HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: The Cast and Creators Tease the All-Rhyme Episode

After nine seasons on the air, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER is pulling a stunt with tonight’s episode that it has never tried before: the entire thing will be in rhyme.

“[It’s] super fun, and I just thought it was such an imaginative episode,” Josh Radnor (Ted) told reporters on set last week. “It’s a great episode. Super weird. Never been done on television.”

And while it may seem like it would be a nightmare to try and make the logistics of the episode work out, HIMYM co-creator Carter Bays noted it was “so much easier [to write] than it seemed. To the point that what was difficult was writing the next episode and not being able to rhyme.”

“That’s why the rest of the season after that [episode] rhymes,” HIMYM co-creator Craig Thomas joked. “Once switch has been flipped, you can’t go backwards! [But a] good season 9 episode has to be one we’ve never done before, that we could only do this season. And that’s one of them. I think a lot of these season 9 episodes [have that feel]…it fits in. It’s a bedtime story to baby Marvin. And it was really fun. It was hard to get out of rhyme mode.”

For the actors, the biggest issue was how to best get the dialogue out without sounding like a cartoon.

“That was fun…but it was hard not to do it like Dr. Seuss,” Alyson Hannigan (Lily) noted. “I read a lot of children’s books…so it was really hard to not do it like I was reading to my kids; do it more conversational.”

But while this story may be told in rhyme, it seems the stories may not be super appropriate as a bedtime tale for a child.

“This is a flashback from before [Barney and Robin] were together,” Cobie Smulders (Robin) explained.

“The structure of the flashback is that Marshall is recounting crazy things that have happened to each one of us,” Neil Patrick Harris (Barney) added. “So there’s a great adventure that Robin tells about this crazy night where she had superhuman powers, and Barney recounts this great tale of how she is the ultimate player in New York City.”

Um, yeah, probably not the best thing to be sharing with a wee child.

And, as a bonus tease, this is the episode where James Van Der Beek pops up again. And since his presence has always been linked to Robin Sparkles, I asked the creators whether fans should expect to see a final (again) Robin Sparkles appearance.

“Robin Sparkles does make an appearance this season, but it’s not going to be the Robin Sparkles you expect,” Bays teased. “I’m going to put it cryptically like that.”

Hmm…

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER airs Mondays at 8 PM on CBS.

Related:

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: Photos From the 200th Episode Celebration
When is HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER’s Series Finale?
CBS Orders HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER Spinoff Pilot, HOW I MET YOUR DAD

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