Where to watch How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014)

Trivia & production notes

• The show was inspired by creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas wanting to write about their own experiences and friends in New York, where they had previously worked as writers for the Late Show with David Letterman.
• The main characters were based on the creators and their spouses: Ted on Bays, and Marshall and Lily on Thomas and his wife Rebecca, who initially hesitated to have a character based on her until learning Alyson Hannigan would play the role.
• Neil Patrick Harris was invited to audition for the role of Barney by casting director Megan Branman after the character was originally conceived as a John Belushi-type.
• Jennifer Love Hewitt turned down the role of Robin, leading the creators to cast unknown Cobie Smulders, a decision they later credited with helping the show succeed by having America discover the character alongside Ted.
• Bob Saget was invited by director Pamela Fryman to narrate the show as Future Ted by explaining it would be like The Wonder Years but set in the future, and he typically recorded the narration while watching each finished episode.
• The show's creators incorporated real personality traits from the main cast into their characters, including Neil Patrick Harris's magic skills, Jason Segel's songwriting ability, and Josh Radnor's intellectualism.
• MacLaren's bar, the show's primary setting, was inspired by four favorite bars frequented by Bays and Thomas, including McGee's near the Ed Sullivan Theater, and was named after Bays's assistant Carl MacLaren.
• The laugh track was created by recording a live audience watching the final edited episode rather than filming before a live audience, which Thomas said would have been impossible given the show's structure with numerous flashforwards.
• A scene involving Ted's future children and the identity of the mother was filmed in 2006 and held for the series finale because the young actors would be adults by the time the final season was shot.
• Cristin Milioti was secretly cast as the titular mother during season eight and bested at least two other contenders for the role, making her the first time the show expanded its core cast roster.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article How I Met Your Mother, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.