How Craig Met Carter [AKA: "The Backpack Boys"]

Summary

How We Made Your Mother: Episode Summary - "How Craig Met Carter" (The Backpack Boys)

Release Date: March 20, 2025

In this captivating episode of "How We Made Your Mother," hosts Josh Radnor and Craig Thomas delve into the foundational friendship and creative partnership between Carter Bays and Craig Thomas—the masterminds behind the beloved sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" (HIMYM). Titled "How Craig Met Carter" and affectionately known as "The Backpack Boys," this episode offers an intimate look into the early days of Carter and Craig's collaboration, providing listeners with a rich tapestry of anecdotes, challenges, and triumphs that ultimately shaped one of television's most enduring comedies.

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1. Introduction: Setting the Stage

Josh Radnor opens the episode by highlighting the significance of uncovering the deeper narrative behind Carter Bays and Craig Thomas's friendship and creative synergy. He sets the tone for an engaging exploration of their journey from college acquaintances to co-creators of a cultural phenomenon.

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2. The Origin Story: Unlikely Beginnings

Carter Bays reminisces about their college days at Wesleyan University, where both were integral parts of the campus community long before their paths intersected meaningfully. He shares:

"We were sort of both part of the furniture at Wesleyan for, for a good year and a half… we just sort of eyeballed each other from across the conference table."
[02:36] Carter Bays

During this period, Carter was a budding singer and guitarist struggling to find a band, while Craig was a sought-after drummer involved in multiple musical groups. Their initial interactions were minimal, confined to shared classes in English and screenwriting, laying the groundwork for future collaboration.

Craig Thomas adds color to their musical endeavors:

"We were in a nine-piece soul band with four horns and I was behind a drum set."
[04:25] Craig Thomas

This shared passion for music, despite differing levels of familiarity, became the first pillar of their partnership.

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3. The MTV Internship: A Turning Point

The narrative shifts to a pivotal summer in 1996 when both Carter and Craig independently apply for internships at MTV's development department in New York City, unaware of each other's applications. Carter narrates the surreal experience:

"We walked out and we're so stunned that we got lost in the complex L-shaped floor plan of the Tolston."
[01:01] Carter Bays

Their serendipitous encounter with David Letterman adds a touch of humor and destiny to their story. Mistaken for being alone and facing the legendary host, their initial meeting would later earn them the nickname "The Backpack Boys."

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4. Crafting Their Creative Voices: From Music to Comedy

Following their internship, Carter and Craig dedicate the summer to writing, simultaneously honing their comedic skills and producing three distinct writing portfolios tailored for coveted comedy platforms like Conan O'Brien and David Letterman. Craig reflects on the arduous process:

"We spent the whole year working on our Conan packet because it was like, it's gotta be Conan or nothing."
[24:18] Craig Thomas

Despite limited resources—writing from Craig's mother’s basement—the duo’s commitment and collaborative spirit began to bear fruit, particularly when their material caught the attention of influential industry figures.

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5. Breaking Through: Landing at Letterman

Their perseverance culminates when they secure an internship with David Letterman's show. Carter humorously recounts their first day:

"It's high noon, and there at the other end is David Letterman standing alone… Do you know where the elevator is?"
[28:07] Carter Bays

This encounter not only marks their entry into the world of professional comedy writing but also serves as a testament to their relentless dedication and innate comedic timing.

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6. Lessons from Letterman: Building Resilience and Skill

Working under the demanding environment of Letterman's production, Carter and Craig absorb invaluable lessons that would later inform their approach to HIMYM. Craig emphasizes the comprehensive training received:

"Everything we needed to learn to be a showrunner, we learned at Letterman."
[29:27] Craig Thomas

Key takeaways include:

• Multifaceted Skill Development: Beyond writing, they engaged in production tasks like editing and sound mixing, fostering a holistic understanding of television production.

• Volume and Quality: The necessity to produce a high volume of content under tight deadlines taught them the importance of resilience and adaptability.

• Thick Skin and Persistence: Facing constant critiques and the unpredictability of audience reactions cultivated a robustness essential for long-term success.

Carter further elaborates on the personal growth experienced:

"There's nothing more humbling… you develop that ability to bounce back."
[33:16] Carter Bays

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7. The Birth of a Dynamic Duo: Transitioning to HIMYM

Armed with their robust foundation, Carter and Craig transitioned from the fast-paced environment of late-night television to creating a show that emphasized friendship and community—key themes in HIMYM. Josh Radnor draws a parallel between their personal journey and the show's essence:

"You guys ended up creating a show that was about people finding community and a hedge against loneliness."
[15:43] Josh Radnor

Their experiences navigating the complexities of the entertainment industry directly influenced the relatable and heartfelt narratives that HIMYM is celebrated for.

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8. Reflection: The Unrepeatable Journey

In a poignant moment, producer Alec Lev interjects to highlight the unique and seemingly serendipitous nature of Carter and Craig's success:

"It's exactly the way it works. You do the best that you can… and then on the other side of the line is a whole series of luck."
[23:38] Alec Lev

This underscores the episode’s theme that while hard work and talent are indispensable, the unpredictable element of luck plays a significant role in creative achievements.

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9. Conclusion: The Legacy of "The Backpack Boys"

As the episode wraps up, Josh Radnor and Craig Thomas reflect on the enduring legacy of Carter and Craig's partnership. Their journey from "The Backpack Boys" to creators of HIMYM serves as both inspiration and a blueprint for aspiring writers and showrunners.

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Notable Quotes

• Carter Bays:
  "We were sort of sort of eyeballed each other from across the conference table."
  [02:36]

• Craig Thomas:
  "We started writing together that summer… playing in a band."
  [04:16]

• Josh Radnor:
  "You have to have an idea, and even if it's not great, you have to produce it and make it and hope that it gets on and does okay."
  [32:05]

• Carter Bays:
  "Every part of it was you. Every part of it you were responsible for producing."
  [30:39]

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Final Thoughts

This episode masterfully intertwines personal anecdotes with professional milestones, painting a vivid picture of how Carter and Craig's early collaboration laid the groundwork for HIMYM's success. Their story is not just one of creative genius but also of friendship, perseverance, and the transformative power of shared passion. For fans of HIMYM and aspiring creatives alike, "How Craig Met Carter" offers a compelling narrative on the intricate dance between fate and effort in the realm of artistic creation.

Transcript

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[Carter Bays]

Then he turned to us and was like, come in on Monday and you're hired. And we walked out and we're so stunned that we got lost in the complex L shaped floor plan of the Tolston.

[Craig Thomas]

There's no way to get lost, but.

[Carter Bays]

We got lost all the way down the hall. We turned the only corner. We turned the corner, the only corner of the whole hallway. And we turn the corner and you can film this in your mind. It's high noon, and there at the other end is David Letterman standing alone. I think he was tossing a football, just standing there like he's maybe gonna kick our ass or something. And we say to him, do you know where the elevator is?

[Josh Radnor]

Hey, it's Josh. Welcome to a bonus episode of How We Made youe Mother. We heard the tale of how Craig and Carter came to write How I Met yout Mother. But there's an even deeper, richer backstory, How Craig met Carter. And we're gonna, we're gonna get into this twisty, windy mystery right now. I want to get first the origin story of how you two met. Carter and Craig or Craig and Carter. It's really Carter and Craig. Tell us how you guys met and what were your first impressions of each other? I'm just curious if you remember the moment you met each other.

[Carter Bays]

I don't remember. I don't remember us meeting. I, I, we were sort of both part of the, part of the furniture at Wesleyan for, for a good year and a half, I think before we actually, like, had a conversation. I Remember, Craig played drums. That made him a very, like, very in demand commodity in the. In the music world. I was like a singer and guitarist and not very good at either. So like, I wanted to be in a band really bad. And no one was taking. And Craig was in like seven bands, I think just because he had a drum set and he could play and he was really good. And yeah, that was so that we sort of like. But like English classes, I think. I think we were in some like, English, like short story writing classes and some screenwriting classes and just sort of, sort of eyeballed each other from across the. Across the conference table.

[Josh Radnor]

I'm going to. I'm going to create a hit TV show with that guy one day. I just have a feeling.

[Carter Bays]

Yeah.

[Craig Thomas]

First of all, Carter's underselling his singing prowess. He was an intimate. Like once. Once you actually got on there and sang, everyone was like, wait a second, let's get that. Like then you were. Then the tables turned. No one gave a shit about the drummer anymore. So I just want to make that very clear.

[Carter Bays]

I tried. Someone heard me hollering in the showers and that was it. Your name scrolled across the overpass. As simple as that.

[Josh Radnor]

Was there a moment when you guys made each other laugh or you started thinking comedically?

[Carter Bays]

Carter.

[Craig Thomas]

I remember we were in a screenwriting class together. I feel like before we were really friends. What really made us friends is playing in a band together. We finally got in a band together junior year. Right, Carter?

[Carter Bays]

Yes.

[Craig Thomas]

And then we're in bands together the whole second half of college and to this day we still play in a band together. That was very much our first way we worked together was playing in a band. But we weren't close. Cause Carter was the lead singer. We were in a nine piece soul band with four horns and I was behind a drum set.

[Carter Bays]

Even in this band, we barely had a conversation. It was fun. It's really true. Like, seven is like. I feel like that's conservative. I think we got upwards of like 12. It was like the size of like a. Of like an early 2000s, the Polyphonic Spree.

[Josh Radnor]

It was a full, full choir.

[Carter Bays]

Yeah. I think we had like two rows of risers. But, you know, it was. It was a lot of people. So we didn't really. Yeah, we didn't. It was like the real moment, I feel like, was mtv. Craig and I got a. We played in this band together all junior year. And then I feel like the way I retell this story, maybe this is true or maybe this is Apocryphal. But I feel like maybe we didn't know. Each didn't know that the other was applying to this internship. But then we showed up in New York City. We went in on a weekday, sometime in the spring of, I guess it would be 1996, both to interview for an internship at MTV in their development department.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah.

[Carter Bays]

Which we didn't. I don't think we even knew what development meant. I thought, like, are we like, hanging photographs on paper?

[Craig Thomas]

We were like, plus, there's never going to be an era where MTV does anything but play music videos. So what kind of shows are they going to play?

[Josh Radnor]

So wait, so this was between your junior and senior year?

[Craig Thomas]

That's it.

[Carter Bays]

Yes.

[Josh Radnor]

So then I know that you guys, by the time you graduated, is it true you had like a comedy packet together, just the two of you?

[Craig Thomas]

Oh, yeah, yeah. We started writing together that summer. That summer, working at mtv. And again, that was after a year of being in a band at some point during which Carter was like, I think there's a drummer back there behind some of those horn players. And I was like. I said, I look like, is that a tracker?

[Josh Radnor]

Is that a person?

[Craig Thomas]

He looks like the guy that sings the songs. We were just like. We weren't close in the band because the band was 45 people. But we then we really bonded at MTV. But we'd also already had a screenwriting class. And I'll embarrass Carter again by saying, first of all, he was a great singer and he was very in demand to be a singer. And second, he was in a screenwriting class with me and he was the best fucking writer. He was the. Well, I wanted you. I wanted you. But Carter was like, his writing so stood out in this screenwriting class. It was just like a dinky little, like 10 or 12 people. We sort of volunteered scenes. And you were the only person cobbling together, using it to cobble together a feature length script. And I just remember going like, the balls on this fucking guy.

[Carter Bays]

Oh, right.

[Craig Thomas]

But with admiration. I was like, this guy, Right? You were putting. And I remember what the script was. I remember it was good. It was insane and like funny and violent. It was like. It was like really dark. It was like Heather's ish.

[Josh Radnor]

I feel like you told me that there was a lot of buzz about Carter before he even got to school because he had a play being produced off Broadway and he was late for school. Is that right?

[Carter Bays]

That is true, yes. I had a play that I wrote. I was really into playwriting in High school, I just fell in love with theater and I wrote a few short plays and on a whim just sent one of them into the New York Young Playwrights Festival, which was like a big contest at the time. It was, it was a, it was a, it was a big, I mean this is before YouTube. It was back when like there was no like, you know, you had to like physically print something out and send it out to New York for any chance of anyone ever seeing it, you know. So it was, I just sent this thing in and it ended up winning. And the prize was a two month production of my show as part of a night of one acts at Young at Playwrights Horizons Theater in New York, which I later found out, like, oh, that's actually a really good theater. It was a big deal. And the play was directed by Michael Mayer.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah, I always find this amazing. At what age did you say I want to write things, I want to write plays, I want to write movies?

[Carter Bays]

I think it was like, I'm going to say I was 14, I was really into watching stuff. Like I just was a voracious consumer of, of television and, and movies and, and you know, it was, it was the golden age of video stores. And so I, I, I, you know, had a bunch of friends who were really into like zombie movies and stuff. And like I, I, but then it was actually, it was, I took a trip to the library, the public library, which, my first video shout out to libraries. I found a, There was a book called how to Write a movie in 21 days by, I'm gonna remember, I think it was Vicky King was maybe the name. I can't remember the person who wrote it, but it's the, it's the book that changed my life. It was like a little slim, little volume stuck between in like their film section of the Shaker Heights Public Library. But it like I was like, oh, write a film. You can do that, right? Like, I guess films get written. Someone has to like write down on paper what the actors are gonna say.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah.

[Carter Bays]

And that just like kicked the door down. And after that I was like, all right, I'm gonna write screenplays.

[Josh Radnor]

Do you ever find it astonishing? Like I always think a 15 year old teenager decided what I was gonna do for my life. Just like how astonishing that is. Like a 14 year old boy said, you're gonna be a writer.

[Carter Bays]

I feel like, do you know the show Passing Strange by Stu?

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Carter Bays]

He has a line like that. It's kind of the same thing. Yeah, it's like this ding dong who doesn't know anything about anything is.

[Josh Radnor]

But had some sort of visionary, almost prophetic sense of, like, this would be a good idea. We should do this impossible thing.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah. And it was absolutely right. In all of our cases. That is what we were supposed to be doing. You know what's funny about reminiscing about college? Because Alec Lev, our producer extraordinaire, went to Wesleyan with us, me and Carter. And I often feel like Josh went to Wesleyan because he played a guy who went to Wesleyan on How I Met yout Mother. I mean, sometimes I forget that you're X.

[Carter Bays]

We still don't know.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, he was just disguised as Dr. X the whole time. That's why we didn't know.

[Josh Radnor]

Well, a lot of Wesleyan grads think I went to Wesleyan.

[Craig Thomas]

It really feels like, you know, even to me, it feels like kind of.

[Josh Radnor]

I'd like to still petition for my honorary degree.

[Craig Thomas]

You should totally get one.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah.

[Alec Lev]

Josh feels like a New Yorker who went to Wesleyan. It very much feels that way about.

[Josh Radnor]

I would have been like Carter, an Ohioan who went to Wesleyan.

[Carter Bays]

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Just sort of wearing the costume of a New Yorker, like.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

[Carter Bays]

Did you read the Post today? Steinbrenner and I wrote you this little.

[Josh Radnor]

Ditty to sing to you in New York City.

[Craig Thomas]

At the dawn of the podcasting era, there was the Slate Culture Gabfest.

[Carter Bays]

I remember Steve, you're wild reading of Magic Mike. Yeah, it's a study in wounded American.

[Craig Thomas]

Masculine debating culture, from celebs to AI.

[Carter Bays]

It's very, very huge. Human, almost literary, from highbrow to pop, comparing the Kardashian sisters to Jane Austen characters. What have we been doing if not.

[Craig Thomas]

Watching them get married off Culture Gabfest. Every Wednesday.

[Josh Radnor]

You don't wake up dreaming of McDonald's fries. You wake up dreaming of McDonald's hash browns. McDonald's breakfast comes first. But. So. So you have this internship. You guys connect comedically. Your whole senior year, did you. Did you start writing comedy together?

[Carter Bays]

Yeah, that was where we. We dove in. Like, it was. I think we were both sort of looking down the barrel of, like, you know, what are we going to do after we graduate? And this is in the golden age of like. Like Anderson Consulting. Like, everyone was going into consulting firms. There's all these consulting firms, and it was sort of like, is that. I guess it was sort of like the job for, like, if you have a bachelor's degree and you have no idea what you're going to do just go into consulting.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah.

[Carter Bays]

And other than that, it was like, I had no idea. And then Craig and I went to. Did this internship at MTV and saw how TV is made and realized like, oh, we love writing and here's a job. Because I. And I've psychoanalyzed myself about this a lot. My dad was a lawyer and he grew up sort of putting on a suit every day and going to work with his briefcase and coming home. And I never. No one ever modeled the bohemian life for me. La Viebohme. You know, there was no sense of like, oh, this is how to be an artist. This is like how to. So in my mind it was like, I want to be an artist, but like, when I'm a grown up, I'm going to have to have a job with an office, with a desk that I sit at where I do my job and then come home, like. And there's no come home exhausted and depleted. Yeah. Come home exhausted and depleted and quietly stare into the fire, drinking gin. And you know, which my dad did not do. That was. That's just me. I. I've.

[Craig Thomas]

Carter, why are you crying right now?

[Carter Bays]

No, but, but I, it. It. Seeing tv, it was like, oh, here's a. Here's a thing where, like, you're writing but like all the things that are bad about writing, like the uncertainty of where you're going to do it, well, that's. That's taken care of because you have an office. And the loneliness of like, writing is just sitting in a room doing that. And then you find out like, oh, TV shows are written by a bunch of idiots sitting around a table. Just like I sit around a table at a diner with my friends just goofing around. That's how TV is made. I'm in. And I think Craig felt the same way. And we were sort of like, all right, this is. If nothing else, like, this is one thing that we can do after June 1997, that I've never thought about it.

[Craig Thomas]

Exactly this way, but just because of exactly how you just said that. Carter. I did see love V bom in a way, because my dad was an advertising copywriter, like a Mad Men era advertising copywriter. And the funny thing is I watched him come home at night, be so stressed out by writing deadlines that he chain smoked and drank vodka tonics and was kind of miserable a great deal of the time. And I went, I want to do that. That is the key to longevity and happiness. I'm going down that path. So I had a little hint that people wrote things and got paid for it. So I had a little head start on knowing that was a thing. Although it was ads, it was commercial print ads and stuff, and my dad was brilliant at it. But, yeah, I'm the guy who watched Barton Fink, which is essentially a study in hell. It was through the lens of a writer being literally in development hell. And I went, that seems fun. I just kept the punishment of it. I want it or something. But I think the thing that sparked for me when you were saying that story, Carter, is you made it. I think the part I was scared about was the loneliness, because it was my dad alone in a room, really doing everything kind of for his agency. He was the creative director. He was the sole showrunner. And getting to make stuff up with you, like, really having a partner really helped me so much, I think, because I was scared of that part of it, the kind of loneliness and having my dad just seemed lonely in there writing every night. He was really good at it. But I. And there are ways in which writing, even in a partnership, we would divvy up our tasks. You and I, we would each go write, and you wanted that time. But having a partner to figure it out with at the beginning meant everything to me. And I think got me over the fear of, like, the part that seemed scariest for my dad, which was being alone.

[Josh Radnor]

And in a kind of meta way, I mean, you guys ended up creating a show that was about people finding community and a hedge against loneliness, you know, going through the tough times together. I have to say, Carter, when you described, you know, your dad and the suit and the lawyer, maybe it's an Ohio thing. Not that everyone in Ohio is a lawyer, but it was the exact same thing I thought there. I just don't want to wear a tie to my job. If I can just create a job where I don't have to wear a tie. I like ties, special occasions, but I don't want to wear one every day. So when I discovered the theater and I saw adults, you know, that made plays for a living, and I just thought, get me in there.

[Carter Bays]

Yeah, yeah. It's funny you say ties, because I feel like there's so much. There's so much of that in, like, especially, like, okay, so, like, Barney, we're jumping all over the place here. But, like, Barney's obsession with suits, like, I feel. I absolutely feel like that comes from some deep, dark place that we probably all connect with in our generation of going out, putting on suits. You know, a huge movie for me was The Commitments, which was like, you know, the movie about the Dublin soul band. The guys that started Soul band in Dublin and Craig and I started a soul band in Middletown Wesleyan, which was probably somewhat inspired by that. And part of the whole thing was, you know, they wear suits and like, they have a whole discussion in the movie about, like, oh, you got to put on a suit because. Because suit makes you play better. You play better in your suit. And like, the idea of a suit as something you wear recreationally, as something you put on because you want to. I feel like that was. That was the. I think that was the key to Barney. It was like, he's not like, you know, because he was like. I saw my. My dad, you know, he retired and was like, I'm never putting on a suit again. And like, I don't think I've seen.

[Josh Radnor]

My dad in a suit.

[Carter Bays]

Very rarely tired since then.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Carter Bays]

Same. Yeah. So, like, the idea. It's sort of like the finding the spirit of, like, I'm seizing control of this. I'm wearing this suit by choice. I think that's.

[Craig Thomas]

That's so interesting. There is a connection between us putting on those suits in the soul band and Wesleyan when we were 19 and 20. And Barney, there's a literal. There's a straight line between the idea of choosing your own suit. Destiny. Yeah. I've never thought of that before.

[Carter Bays]

Absolutely. A. Like, sort of. We did sort of the. The experimental anthropology of seeing what it's like to walk around in a suit, especially on a college campus, especially campus like Wesleyan. That's like, you know, just a bunch of hippies and stuff. But, like, walking around in a suit like, you. You do realize, like, oh, I have. I'm radiating this weird power that I think I have. I'm making each one of these kids think of their dad. They're all thinking of their dad who's disappointed that they didn't get into Harvard. And. And what do you. Women studies?

[Craig Thomas]

Like, come on, why are you crying again, Carl?

[Carter Bays]

And. But, like, there was a. Yeah, there's. There was a power in wearing. And I. It's kind of like how Barney ended up in a suit.

[Craig Thomas]

Oh, man, that's great.

[Josh Radnor]

Paul Feig says that you. They'll let you in anywhere if you're carrying a clipboard. Like, you can walk into any building.

[Carter Bays]

In the world and they'll just.

[Craig Thomas]

Laminated thing, a laminated necklace. You can walk right into the Oval Office. Just.

[Josh Radnor]

It's also just funny where you're like, I'm not wearing this Unless it's semi ironic. Like, I have to be in control.

[Carter Bays]

Totally, yes.

[Josh Radnor]

Of when and how I'm putting on this suit.

[Craig Thomas]

And to be clear, our suits in that band were, like, from the Ladies Auxiliary Thrift store in Middletown, Connecticut. And my mind was red, except the red blazer didn't quite match the red pants. Two different reds. Like, Barney would have been like, what in the name of.

[Carter Bays]

Two red suits?

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, two red suits. They were somewhat similar. And I was like, sold. I've got $3, and I'm looking to spend it.

[Josh Radnor]

Okay, so you guys, your senior year, you. You create enough comedy that you have this comedy packet enough to write, send it out to agents and staffing.

[Craig Thomas]

This is a chance to give a shout out to somebody who. So you remember those people, and you've had them, too, Josh, where. The person that kind of changed your life, right, Carter, this executive at mtv, we were there getting him coffee and getting sushi and making photocopies, and we were writing our little comedy ideas. We were just like, we had been in a band, and we started writing comedy together. Because we clicked so much, we started writing our own ideas and submitting it to this executive, this guy, Jeremiah Bosgang, who'd been executive at NBC. He had worked on Seinfeld, and now he's in mtv. And he saw our little ideas and thought they were clever and interesting enough that he submitted. He. He. I think submitted them for us, Carter. And maybe give us permission or connected.

[Carter Bays]

No, he. He gave us the. The. The. The. It was. It was. I mean, this is how I. I like people. I don't know, Craig. I'm sure people ask you, like, how. How do you get your start? And it's like, our start is so not connected with anything in 2025. Like, it's so, like, old school. He literally was like, send a packet of material with a cover letter that you print out and put in the mail. And in the COVID letter, mention my name in the first sentence. And that was like, all the, like. That was the little, like, just tight, gossamer, thin filament of, like, connection to, like, if he doesn't read that first sentence, then it goes on some. It goes in the. In the fire, and that's it.

[Craig Thomas]

There wasn't really email, right?

[Carter Bays]

There was like, yeah, there was.

[Craig Thomas]

We were still in the era where you went to the science center in college to send an email. I've got to go to the science center to send out this missive.

[Josh Radnor]

I have to try to hear snow.

[Craig Thomas]

We sound a thousand years old. In this entire. The theme of this whole episode is we're so fucking old. That's the theme of this entire thing so far. But somehow that worked out. And by that guy believing in us, it got to an agent, an agency. Who was one of the partners there? This guy, Elliot Webb was Broder Kurland, Webb Ufner, I think. And he was like, I'm a partner. I'm too big for this thing. But they seem clever, and they seem. I like this guy Jeremiah. So he gave it to, literally, the guy who became our agent and is our agent to this day, Matt Rice. So again, our story is useless to anyone because, number one, it sounds ancient, and also, number two, it's impossible. That should not have worked. We send out one thing. The guy actually gave it to a junior agent who became Rose through the ranks. Matt Rice is like a big, powerful agent, and well, deservedly so. He's amazing.

[Carter Bays]

Yeah, he had just started. I mean, he was just starting. He was a little bit older than at this point. Yeah, I think.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, he was like five or six.

[Josh Radnor]

Were you guys, like, kind of his first clients?

[Craig Thomas]

No, but, you know who was. Will Forte and Chris Miller and Phil Lord were among his first clients. It was like, we were a few in past them, so that's how good this guy is. And, like, being a good agent, really, there really is a, like, instinctual superpower, Spidey sense thing that happens, and he has it. And we were so. We were in great company right away. And Matt Rice helped us get to. Who was our manager at the time, David Minor. All kind of toward the end and coming out of college. And that somehow led to us getting it. Getting our Letterman material. We had written some Conan material. We'd written a Seinfeld. We'd written SNL ideas. But Letterman was hiring, like, Conan was like.

[Carter Bays]

We were obsessed with.

[Craig Thomas]

Our dream was Conan.

[Carter Bays]

That was the big part of it. Also was like, we want to live in New York. Neither of us had any interest in going to la. And so that really, at the time, it was snl, Conan Letterman, Daily show, did the Daily Show. I think maybe the Craig Kilborn Daily show may have. Exactly.

[Craig Thomas]

Kilbourne was on, but I don't think we were. Yeah, we weren't trying that, but.

[Carter Bays]

Yeah, but it was like, there's four jobs for comedy writers in New York in 1997. And we were obsessed with Conan. It was like the year of, like, where, like, Robert Smigel was running it, and it was just, like, going bananas and just like every. Like, it Was. It was definitely like, if. If I. If I'm gonna do anything for a living, I wanna. I wanna write this dumb stuff.

[Josh Radnor]

It was definitely the weirdest thing happening on tv.

[Carter Bays]

It was. It was. It was the.

[Josh Radnor]

It was like, very strange.

[Alec Lev]

Like, yeah, can I just push back on. On your. On your path to success a little bit as a thing that isn't repeatable. Another way I think of looking at it.

[Carter Bays]

Greg is Letterman's nephew. Okay, fine.

[Craig Thomas]

Alex, you swore.

[Alec Lev]

Well, is it exactly the way that you make it? You do the best that you can up until this one magical line, and you have to do the absolute best you can be incredibly talented, put in a huge amount of work, and that's all you can do. And then on the other side of the line is a whole series of luck, always. But that luck is because you've walked up to the door with the right materials and the right person to open it. That's exactly the way it works.

[Craig Thomas]

And we did work really hard, I'll give us that. Because Carter and I were. That whole summer we were recording music in my mom's basement while also writing three portfolios. Right. Like Conan, like Letterman and like, Letterman was like, the least fleshed out.

[Carter Bays]

Well, there was. This guy was mostly coming to Alex point. Yeah. I mean, we spent the whole year working on our Conan packet because it was like, it's gotta be Conan. It's Conan or nothing. You loved Letterman. I had not watched a lot of Letterman. I was like. I was not a Letterman guy necessarily. But then, like, David Miner, who Matt had hooked us up with, who gets, you know, he's. We have him to thank for our career for sure. David Minor was like, he. He basically gave us the news. Like, they're not hiring at Conan. Everyone loves it there, obviously, because why would you ever quit this amazing, fun show? But two writers had just left Letterman and they were hiring and they're looking for people. And it was. This is like on a Friday. And it was like, can you get them a Letterman packet by Monday?

[Craig Thomas]

And we had a little bit of a start on it, but it was like, maybe 20, 30%.

[Josh Radnor]

We just stayed up. Each show needed a different packet, like, tonally, because they were different. So a Conan packet would be different.

[Carter Bays]

Than a Letterman, especially Letterman, because Letterman is so, like, about his voice and about his, like, specific thing that he does.

[Josh Radnor]

You had 72 hours to write an enormous amount of comedic material in the. In the voice and style of David.

[Craig Thomas]

Letterman while living at my mother's house in Long Island.

[Carter Bays]

Yeah. And. But it's funny looking back. Yeah, we were like. We're like, yeah, we would, like, go to a diner and, like, like, thank. You know, and by the way, Jane Thomas, I owe her my life as well, because she, like, put me up for that that summer. Like, I was, like, living in Craig's.

[Craig Thomas]

House how Carter met my mother.

[Carter Bays]

But I just remember, like, the. There was a moment that we had to push through, but a moment of like, we just spent nine months on this Conan O'Brien packet, and you're telling us we have to generate a top 10 list, and we only have two days to do it. That's outrageous. And, like, you know, the joke being to write a top 10 list, you have, like, three hours to do it when you get the job. So, like, five of them a week. Get it done.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, yeah.

[Carter Bays]

But. Yeah, that was a very long weekend, but ultimately a successful one.

[Josh Radnor]

So you get the packet into them by Monday. When do you hear that you're hired?

[Craig Thomas]

Like, the next. A few days into that week, we was.

[Carter Bays]

Our lives.

[Craig Thomas]

Our lives changed. Like, what? Like, maybe the next week after that, we started. Carter. It was like. It was so fast.

[Carter Bays]

Yeah, we had, like. We did one interview with Tim Long, who was the head writer, and then.

[Craig Thomas]

Shout out to Tim as well.

[Carter Bays]

Shout out to Tim and Kate Adler, who was the. Who was the producer at the time. And she. She. The two of them sort of bumped us up to the next. And then. Then the second interview was on the 12th floor, which I think we didn't. We didn't understand the meaning of that at the time. But in. In the letterman days, the 12th floor was Dave's floor. Like, that's. That's like the. That's like the. The main production floor of. Of Letterman. And we. It was. It was with Rob Burnett, the. The executive producer at the time. And Robbie, you know, we. We file in. We go up the elevator to this. And it's not a big. It's not like a labyrinth. It's like a. It's like an L shape of the floor plan of the 12th floor. But we go in and he's down at one end, and we go into Rob's office. And I remember Rob, we. This is how young we were. We had, like, our. Our. We had our resumes attached to the thing, and they were like. And Rob, I remember Rob being like, wow, their grades are really good.

[Craig Thomas]

We had our GPAs.

[Carter Bays]

Good GPAs. But, yeah, in that moment, he was like, this was Student of the Month in October. Not bad.

[Craig Thomas]

Craig knows cpr.

[Carter Bays]

Interesting.

[Craig Thomas]

Okay. I'll add, I don't know cpr, but.

[Carter Bays]

That was on a Friday. And he basically said like, ah, they seem good to me. And then he turned to us and was like, enjoy this weekend. This is as good as this job is gonna get. Cause starting Monday is gonna be terrible. But, you know, come in on Monday and you're hired. And we walked out and we're so stunned that we got lost in the complex L shaped floor plan of the toll.

[Craig Thomas]

There's no way to get lost, but.

[Carter Bays]

We got lost all the way down. We turn the only corner. We turn the corner, the only corner of the whole hallway. And we turn the corner and like, you can film this in your mind. It's High Noon, and there at the other end is David Letterman, like, standing alone. I think he was like tossing a football, just standing there, like, he's maybe gonna kick our ass or something. And we say to him, do you know where the elevator is? And he says, down the hall. And like, I love. I remember that particular phrasing. Do you know where the elevator is? Like this building that has your name on it in giant lights. Wow. You knew where the other.

[Josh Radnor]

That's a. That's an incredibly charming story. I love that you guys ran into him and this mythic kind of character.

[Carter Bays]

And I think we were wearing backpacks. I think we brought backpacks to the meeting. And he called us the Backpack Boys behind our back for years after that.

[Craig Thomas]

The backpack.

[Carter Bays]

That was our nickname.

[Craig Thomas]

The worst boy man of all time.

[Josh Radnor]

The. The rough draft of the Mosby Boys. So you guys are there how long?

[Craig Thomas]

Six years, Four and a half years.

[Josh Radnor]

Oh, four and a half.

[Carter Bays]

Four and a half.

[Josh Radnor]

Okay.

[Craig Thomas]

The next time we talked to Dave after that story was just when we said goodbye. We probably talked to him three other times in between.

[Josh Radnor]

So tell me, what did you guys learn at Letterman that helped you write and run How I Met yout Mother?

[Craig Thomas]

Everything. Right, Carter? Everything. We were. Because after Letterman, we were on a couple of other sitcoms that are sort of forgettable. Didn't really go the distance. Although we're an American dad, which is still on tv, which is amazing. We were in there for one season, but basically everything we needed to learn to be a showrunner, we learned at Letterman. And then when you go onto a sitcom staff, a lot of the ethos, at least back in the day when we were getting into it was like the writers weren't in the edit room. The writers weren't necessarily always on set. The writers sort of wrote things and were that part of the assembly line on Letterman. If you had an idea in the morning, you had to produce it by the showtime. You had to get your music, you had to order up your graphics. If there was chiron and titles involved, you had to. Every piece of it. You went on the shoot, you basically kind of directed or co directed your bit. You had with the director, make sure you got everything you needed, get into an edit room, book your time there, get with the editor. Every part of it was you. Every part of it you were responsible for producing. And that was such good training for being a showrunner. Because I think by the time some writers who've only ever been on sitcom staffs, they become a showrunner, they've never really spent a lot of time in edit. They've never done a sound mix. We had done all that stuff.

[Carter Bays]

It can't be overstated how much technology and, and like the, the editing software that exists now, like imovie coming built into your laptop. How much that has changed the world. Because at the time it really was like us knowing how to go into an edit room was like, like we'd gone to Hogwarts. Like, we like, had this like, mystical power that like, like really, like no one understood how to like, you know, trim 15 frames off of something like it, like dumb, simple stuff that anyone in the world now knows. It was really a, like that, that Letterman definitely gave us a chance to like basically go to film school for four years. Go to film school and, and comedy school in a big way. I, I also feel like, like the whole like 10,000, 10,000 hours thing of like learning how to like. I definitely feel like I learned how to, how to write a joke and how to write something that gets a laugh. Like, I don't even think of myself as necessarily a funny person, but I knew like, what the mechanics were of how to. And the only way to learn that is doing it over and over and failing a lot.

[Josh Radnor]

And like, yeah, yeah, I wanted to.

[Craig Thomas]

Ask you about that.

[Josh Radnor]

The failure. Did it, did it thicken your skin considerably? So you, you pitch jokes obviously to these older, more veteran writers and they're swatting them down or ideas are getting, you know, batted down or something doesn't get a laugh. Like, did you feel like that which didn't kill you, made you stronger kind of by the end of that?

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, definitely. And it was very humbling and it told you it was a volume business. You needed to have a next joke, you needed to have a next idea. There's no writer's block when you're doing five shows a week and you're getting paid decent money to do it. There's no writer. You have to have an idea. You have to have an idea, and even if it's not great, you have to produce it and make it and hope that it gets on and does okay. Carter and I did the viewer mail segment for four years of our four and a half years there, and we would go down for the taping of that segment and be in the audience and you had to sit in that audience. We stood off to the side and we would sit there and listen to those play and either get a laugh from the audience or not get a laugh from the audience. And what didn't get a laugh, and it was dead silent. And Dave's up there, this iconic, wonderful. I mean, I idolize Dave. I love him. I made that joke before, but I love Dave. When he would turn on it, he'd go like, ooh, that was a tough one, Paul. Be like, we're getting torn a new one on national television by our hero, or at least my hero. And there's nothing more humbling. There's no thicker skin to be developed than that moment. And you gotta scrape yourself off the floor and say, I got at least one more shot at this next week if we don't get fired and you just work even harder and you develop that ability to bounce back.

[Josh Radnor]

I am guilty. Please acquit me. All sins are forgiven in New York City.

[Alec Lev]

How We Made youe Mother is hosted and executive produced by Josh Radner and Craig Thomas. The show was produced by me, Alec Lev and our co producer is Doug Matica. Our audio producer and mixer is Alex Reeves at Point of Blue Studios. Artwork by John Morrow. Please follow rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or your podcast player of choice. It really does help the show. Our theme song is NYC by our own Josh Radner. Special thanks to Lola Kennedy and Elliot Connors. Visit how we madeyourmother.com to sign up for our Substack mailing list and for links to our social media. You can also click on the contact page to send us an email or a voice message. Your stories and questions are an important part of the show. Subscribe to John Josh Radner's Muse letters on Substack. Read Craig Thomas's published [e-mail] and you can subscribe to My Dead Father Society, also on Substack, to learn about how you make a difference. This show's ongoing campaign to raise money for congenital heart disease research. Check out the Make a Difference tab at the top of our website. This episode was made possible by the support of Backyard Ventures Marketing provided by Tink Media. People will, in fact, dance.

[Josh Radnor]

The real question it just hit me. Am I in love with you or just New York City?