How Men Are All Dogs | S2E16 "Stuff"

Summary

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How We Made Your Mother

Season 2, Episode 16: "Stuff"

Released: Feb 16, 2026
Hosts: Josh Radnor (“Ted Mosby”) & Craig Thomas (series co-creator)
Producer: Alec Lev
Guest Mentions: Cobie Smulders (via text), special discussion of Rob Reiner

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Josh and Craig revisit "Stuff," a notably light and joke-heavy episode from Season 2 of How I Met Your Mother. Through playful banter, they explore the episode’s comedic highlights, thematic depth about relationships and emotional “stuff,” and share vivid behind-the-scenes anecdotes. The discussion also detours into pop culture influences, including a moving tribute to director Rob Reiner and reflections on comedic legacy, honesty in art and friendship, and what the show owes to its creative DNA.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Episode Context and Initial Takes

• Timeline trivia: The podcast episode airs nearly 19 years after the original airing of "Stuff" (02:34, 02:50).
  • Josh Radnor: "We're officially 19 years ahead of each episode as they air almost to the day. That's how we designed it. 19 years. Lucky number 19. What a weird number."
• Episode tone: A self-aware admission that "Stuff" is one of the lighter, goofier episodes, but features scenes and running jokes that became iconic for fans (03:14, 03:38).

2. Iconic Gags & Recurring HIMYM Lore

• The Mermaid Theory:
  • First major “mermaid” bit that would become a running motif.
  • Craig Thomas: "We were obsessed with mermaids for some reason on the show." (04:07)
• Slap Bet Returns:
  • Sudden, unexplained callback to slap bet payoff, showing faith in audience engagement (06:12).
  • Craig: "At the very end, [Barney] just gets the shit slapped out of him...And if you missed that other episode three months earlier, you're like, what the fuck just happened? But...I kind of respect the swing."
  • Josh: "In the kind of moral universe...Barney deserved to be slapped right there."

3. Dog Allergy Woes & Behind-the-Scenes

• Dog Scenes:
  • Josh: "One of the worst things that happened to me on How I Met Your Mother was getting licked in the face." (07:15)
  • Josh: "I'm allergic to dogs...Robin had these five dogs." (07:51)
  • Jokes about discovering a new allergy: "I'm also allergic to strange men day players coming in and licking me on the face." (08:20)

4. Philosophical Symposium: Stuff & The Past

• The 'Stuff' Premise:

  • Exploration of what partners owe each other regarding the stuff and memories from past relationships.
  • Craig: "Are you to pretend that you've never once been with another person? Or do you acknowledge all the other human beings you dated?...That's why it's called 'stuff'." (08:50)

• Double Standard/Judgment:

  • Ted must throw out physical objects from exes, while Robin’s “stuff” turns out to be living dogs from former boyfriends.
  • Josh: "It feels pathological. Like every boyfriend, there's a dog that's involved." (09:50)

• Group Decision Making:

  • Episodes frequently use the gang as a “moral oracle.”
  • Josh: "They keep going back to the booth and back to the gang. It feels like they're visiting like the oracle of Delphi...We have another riddle." (09:58)
  • Craig: "There's something nice about putting it to the group." (10:10)

• Emotional Realism:

  • Josh: "If you get together and you have some life under your belt, you also have some history...they’re not actively provoking you [but] to the new boyfriend or girlfriend, they can be very provocative." (10:44)

5. Honesty in Friendships & Relationships

• Symmetry of A/B Story:
  • A-story: What do you owe your partner about your past?
  • B-story: What do you owe your friends (i.e., supporting their often terrible plays)?
  • Craig: "The whole episode is this kind of philosophical symposium based on, what do you owe these people you love?" (22:16)
• Radical Honesty vs. Kindness:
  • Referencing therapist Terry Real on the dangers of "unbridled self-expression" (23:17).
  • Josh: "[Barney] is a fan of unbridled self-expression. But he can't handle it back to him." (23:47)

6. Favorite Visual Gags and Set Memories

• Terminator 2 Effects Comparison:
  • Josh: "The objects in Ted's apartment turning into these women...reminded me...of the liquid metal, the guy, the scarier robot." (16:19, 18:33)
  • Craig: "That effect is very liquidy...like the little British phone booth sort of liquidly expands into this human."
• Play Scene Anarchy:
  • Josh on the “Buttafuoco pants”: "Even Neil was dying. And Neil was the least breaky of all of us. Me, Ally and Kobe were gone." (25:24)
  • Craig: “We found the five frames you weren’t breaking.” (26:15)
  • Hilarious prop gags: Barney’s play program innocuously titled “Suck It Lily” (29:10)

7. Music & Cultural References

• Needle Drop: The Stooges
  • Craig: "I was so proud...No other CBS sitcom ever used a Stooges song...that's essentially a song about, like, kind of S&M." (43:21)
  • Fun facts: the hi-hat in "I Wanna Be Your Dog" is a single piano note (43:57).
• Oral History Book Recommendations:
  • Please Kill Me about the NY punk scene of the 70s
  • Meet Me In The Bathroom about 2000s NYC music

8. Influences & Tribute—Rob Reiner & the Show’s DNA

• Rob Reiner Tribute (49:34–59:00):

  • Josh: "He made some of the greatest films ever...Stand By Me, This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men." (51:56)
  • Discusses how How I Met Your Mother is a blend of “When Harry Met Sally” + “Stand By Me” + the flashback/fairytale lens of “The Princess Bride,” and details the impact those films (and Reiner’s tonal mastery) had on the show’s structural DNA (52:18).

• Lessons from Art & Collaboration:

  • Craig: "You can make an argument that How I Met Your Mother is essentially When Harry Met Sally meets Stand By Me meets the Princess Bride...Every molecule of those movies knows what movie they’re in." (53:13)
  • Josh shares Rob Reiner’s advice: "If you’re not nervous on the first day of shooting, it’s time to leave the business." (57:36)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the “slap bet” callback:
  Craig Thomas (06:12): “...at the very end, he just gets the shit slapped out of him. And Marshall just goes, that’s two. And if you missed that other episode three months earlier, you’re like, what the fuck just happened?”

• On the thematic heart:
  Craig Thomas (08:50): "The philosophical symposium...when you’re in a new relationship...do you pretend you’ve never been with anyone, or acknowledge your past?"

• On on-set hilarity:
  Josh Radnor (25:24): "Even Neil was dying. And Neil was the least breaky of all of us. Me, Ally and Kobe were gone...Jason was not helping us at all."

• On honesty and “unbridled self-expression":
  Josh Radnor (23:17): "One of the worst things you can engage in in a partnership is what he calls unbridled self-expression. Like, just saying, I'm just being honest. But you're also being cruel."

• On Reiner’s influence:
  Craig Thomas (54:06): "Every molecule of those movies knows what movie they're in. That's coming through the singular vision of Rob Reiner."

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:31–02:34: Playful banter on episode numbering and release timing
• 03:05–07:40: Recapping iconic moments (the Mermaid Theory, Slap Bet, dog-licking story)
• 08:41–11:29: Dissecting the “stuff” premise—past relationships, emotional baggage, group as oracle
• 16:06–20:16: Visual gags—transmogrifying objects, Terminator 2 influences
• 22:16–24:44: Philosophy of radical honesty (Barney and “unbridled self-expression”)
• 25:21–27:55: Set breakdown—Buttafuoco pants and peak on-set hilarity
• 43:13–46:55: The Stooges needle-drop, oral history book talk
• 49:34–59:00: Rob Reiner tribute and reflections on show’s creative roots

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Episode Tone, Style & Takeaways

The episode embodies the loose, candid rapport of old friends, rich with wit, warmth, and deep connection to their creative journey. Radnor’s and Thomas’s tone is playful but earnest—balancing sharp humor with real emotional and philosophical inquiry. Their behind-the-scenes stories and pop culture digressions—especially the heartfelt Reiner tribute—help listeners understand not only what made "Stuff" tick, but what gives How I Met Your Mother its enduring soul.

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Summary

• "Stuff" is a “lighter” but deeply rewatchable episode, filled with iconic running gags (Slap Bet, Mermaid Theory) and riotous on-set memories, like the Buttafuoco pants sequence.
• At its heart is a real philosophical question: what, if anything, do we owe our partners about our romantic past, and what do we owe our friends in tough honesty?
• The conversation is packed with comedy-craft insights, music/film influences (Terminator 2, The Stooges), and an extended meditation on the creative legacy of the late Rob Reiner—exploring how How I Met Your Mother was shaped by the giants of romantic comedy and friendship films who came before.

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For fans and newcomers alike, this is a lively, rich deep-dive into the mechanics and magic of both sitcom storytelling and enduring friendship.

Transcript

[Josh Radner]

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[Josh Radner]

What a pity I won't be soon in New York City when I see you. Please permit me to tell you everything in New York City. Well, hello out there. Welcome to another episode of How We Made youe Mother where I, Josh Radner, am talking to my friend Craig Thomas here right now. I'm staring at him.

[Craig Thomas]

Hi Craig, I'm right here. It's true.

[Josh Radner]

Craig co created a show called How I Met yout Mother with Carter Bayes that I starred on from 2005 to 2014. We're making our way through each episode. We're deep into the second season. Today we're discussing episode. What. What episode of this is the second season? Episode 16. Number 16, Sweet Sixteen. This episode is called Stuff. It was written by our our our the great Courtney Coco. Coco Coco. Team Coco. All of us here and Alec, tell us when this episode aired.

[Alec Lev]

This aired on February 19, 2007. And I'm pretty sure if you're listening to this today, on the day it dropped, it is February 16th or so, wow.

[Craig Thomas]

So close. All surrounding my birthday.

[Alec Lev]

Don't worry about it. But, yes, almost. We're almost exactly in time.

[Josh Radner]

So we're officially 19 years ahead of each episode as they air almost to the day. That's how we designed it. 19 years. Lucky number 19. What a weird number.

[Craig Thomas]

Nice round number 19.

[Josh Radner]

If you met someone and their favorite number was 19, you'd be like, what.

[Craig Thomas]

Are you talking about?

[Josh Radner]

Anyway, so this episode, Craig, this is a. We talked about it. It's a. It's a bit of a lighter episode. However, it has a couple of things in it that I think have become, like, weirdly iconic, both for the fans and also, I gotta say, there were a couple things that I had forgotten. They were in this episode that were on set.

[Craig Thomas]

Hilarious. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

[Josh Radner]

Okay, so I think top half fish, bottom half, humid. Like, the mermaid question is kind of entered the How I Met yout Mother lore.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, yeah, definitely. That's the. We bring it back throughout the series. It's a big debate.

[Josh Radner]

And I gotta say, if you said, you know, gun to head, what is your. What episode was that in? I'd be like, oh, I couldn't have done.

[Craig Thomas]

No idea.

[Josh Radner]

I have no idea. I remember the bit. I remember the argument.

[Craig Thomas]

Well, the weird thing is, many seasons later, we did an episode called the Mermaid Theory that's about something completely different. We have a whole other mermaid thing that has to do with mistaking manatees for being mermaids, because it's a bunch of dudes out at sea and on a boat and they're so starved for women that. That's the. That's the genesis of mermaids. The idea that if you. You will start to hallucinate if you're sort of lonely enough and imagine mermaids where they are manatees. That's like, many years later. And a whole. We were obsessed with mermaids for some reason on the show. That's what I'm.

[Josh Radner]

Would you say that. That Splash was a formative influence on you and Carter?

[Craig Thomas]

Apparently, because it kept coming up. Splash is a freaking great movie. Yeah, that's in there. That's in the. That's in the mix.

[Josh Radner]

So what were your. What were your thoughts when you. When you revisited this episode? Do you watch all the episodes with Rebecca?

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, almost. Sometimes we jump ahead, you and I, when we have to record something out of sequence and she refuses to do it.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, because she's having lunch with my wife and they're complaining about us jumping ahead.

[Craig Thomas]

I know you said Joanna had the same thing, and she won't she refuses to do it. She just wants to go sequentially. And I respect that. So sometimes I jump ahead to watch one, and then I have to rewatch it when she and I then catch back up to it. So there's certain of them that I've been watching twice. But she thought this one was really funny. She said, this one's just a joke machine. That was her take. She's like, this is just a funny little joke machine. And it's true. It's very funny. I think it's a really funny episode. A lot of great moments, but it's light and it's silly. A lot of stupid stuff. I love the series arc thing of continuing the slap bat. I loved the bravado of when I was rewatching it. I was thinking, oh, well, I remember it ends with slap number two when Neil's dressed as a crazy tin man, like, robot. I remember that image so well and how funny it was. But I thought, oh, we must remind the viewer about the slapback. Right? There's many episodes between this episode, you know, when we set that up in this Robin Sparkle's episode and the whole episode I'm watching last night going, when are we gonna set that up? When are we gonna remind the viewer? And then I remembered the bravado of we just didn't say a fucking word.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Craig Thomas]

The slapback. And at the very end, he just gets the shit slapped out of it. And Marshall just goes, that's two. And if you missed that other episode three months earlier, you're like, what the fuck just happened? But there's. I gotta say, I kind of respected the swing.

[Josh Radner]

I know the literal swing and the metaphor.

[Craig Thomas]

The literal swing. We didn't settle.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, it's funny also, in the kind of moral universe of How I Met your Mother, like, Barney deserved to be slapped right there. Absolutely merited that slap. What else in this episode struck you.

[Craig Thomas]

Excuse the pun, My sense memories of watching the episode where I remembered how satisfying it was. Barney was such a dick when he got the shit sucked out of him. Neil did an amazing fall. Yet another great Neil physical comedy moment. How satisfying that was. But I remember the other visceral thing that I remember you talking about at the time and reminding me over the years and kind of hating me. Carter, slash whoever wrote it for Courtney Kang, I guess to you said getting licked on the face by various dog actors was really not a high point for you.

[Josh Radner]

Oh, yes. That was one of the worst things that happened to me on How I Met yout Mother was getting licked in the face.

[Craig Thomas]

I remember you saying at the time you came up to me after the take and. Cause I remember I was on set, I think, for that one. You said to me, my face still smells like drying saliva right now, Craig. You guys did this to me, and I won't soon forget it. You were really unhappy with that, and I am sorry.

[Josh Radner]

I was really unhappy. Yeah. There was no way for me to kind of, like, stiff upper lip that, like, I was really.

[Craig Thomas]

I really. Because your upper lip was getting licked by a strange man.

[Josh Radner]

And it's also funny. Like, one of the challenges we had, and I had to reveal this to you right after I was cast, was, I'm allergic to dogs. I mean, I'm very public about. I have a labradoodle now named Nelson, who has my whole heart, and he doesn't make me sneeze because he's hypoallergenic. But my whole life been very allergic to dogs. And then I get ca. It was basically like me getting cast on a western. You're like, you have to ride a horse. And I'm like, I can't do it. But, you know, Robin had these five dogs.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah.

[Josh Radner]

And I was like, I'm also allergic. I realized to strange men day players coming in and licking me on the face. I didn't know that. That also.

[Craig Thomas]

It's a rare allergy.

[Josh Radner]

It'll show off on the allergy test. They can test for it now. Your skin will just blow up.

[Craig Thomas]

I'm glad we're raising awareness for it because it is a real thing.

[Josh Radner]

It's a great bit of the. So the gist of this episode. Why don't you tell us the kind of inciting idea for this? We didn't even do this. Right.

[Craig Thomas]

We didn't even do our little. Oh, yeah. I mean, the philosophical symposium of this episode. And I do love a good. This falls under the hinnom category of, like, philosophical debate. Go. Some episodes are little mysteries. This one is just a symposium on when you're in a new relationship, the way Ted and Robin are in this episode. Are you to pretend that you've never once been with another person before this person? Are you supposed to act like that's the. The universe only revolves around this one person? Or do you acknowledge all the. All the other human beings that you were. That you had feelings for and you dated and all? That's why it's called stuff. It's about the things. The things we keep from previous relationships. And I really love the twist in this episode. That we think it's all about the stuff that Ted has been given by various women. And then it turns out Robin has these living, breathing things that represent her previous relations. Chips, the boy, the boyfriends that she got dogs with. Which is also insane, by the way. We didn't spend enough time in the episode being like, how many dog, how many, how long did he date these guys that you got dogs?

[Josh Radner]

It feels pathological. Like every boyfriend, there's a dog that's involved.

[Craig Thomas]

We skipped over that really huge question, I guess. Convenient.

[Josh Radner]

I also think there's something funny about they keep going back to the booth and back to the gang. It feels like they're visiting like the oracle of Deli or something, where they're just like, we're like, we have another riddle. We have another question. You have to help us solve this.

[Craig Thomas]

Totally. And I love that. I mean, that's kind of a long running tradition of him where it's like, we're going to put it to the group. They're having huge arguments between the two of them. And they say the only way to solve this is the group. And there's something kind of nice about that.

[Josh Radner]

The hive mind of the five together, they'll get some. And you know, you can expect like, Lily's going to kind of answer one way, Barney's going to answer another way. Even though this episode is a joke machine, the underlying kind of philosophical question that you just laid out is a really deep and serious question that I think anyone who's dated more than two people has had to kind of face.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, yeah. And Marshall and Lily are the exception.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, they're the exception because they got together so young. But if you get together and you have some life under your belt, you also have some history and you have, you know, some incredible memories and vacations and mementos and things that are going to, to you, they've probably taken their kind of rightful place in your, you know, credenza of memories. And they're not like, like actively provoking you. And maybe you like that throw pillow or whatever. But to the, the, the newish boyfriend or girlfriend, that they can be very provocative because it feels like, well, you're holding onto a piece of them. You haven't let that go. Like, how significant was this for you? If you, if you still have these pieces and mementos around the apartment.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah. And it's part of your life story before you met that person, but it's also fair for that person to be a little bit wary of it maybe. Yeah, yeah. I Don't know. I think it's a good philosophical debate. I don't know that there's a right or wrong answer to it, but it's like, it's very human. I think everybody, even Marshall and Lily. Marshall's earlier in the season was really triggered at the idea that Scooter had gotten a little bit further around the bases with Lily than he thought. Even in that situation, it's like they've basically only been with each other, but there's still that. And I think it's just. It's very real. It's very real.

[Josh Radner]

And I wrote you this little ditty to sing to you in New York City. We'll be right back. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is an all in one website platform. You can build your site, accept payments, market your brand, and so much more. All with Squarespace.

[Craig Thomas]

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[Josh Radner]

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[Craig Thomas]

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[Alec Lev]

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[Josh Radner]

I'm on our web.

[Alec Lev]

Yes. Watch this. I'm on our website. I'm clicking add. New page. I'm adding a page. Oh, look, there's all these different options for what I want my page to look like. I'm just gonna make it a blank page right now.

[Josh Radner]

Are you finding it easy or difficult, Alex?

[Alec Lev]

This is. I can' it.

[Josh Radner]

I've been.

[Alec Lev]

This is so easy. So I've just added a new page. I'm going to call it. What should I call the new page?

[Josh Radner]

New page.

[Alec Lev]

New page. I've called it New Page. And now I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to edit that page and I'm going to add. I don't know, I'm going to call it maybe just a little blank section here. And on that page, I'm going to say this.

[Craig Thomas]

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[Alec Lev]

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[Craig Thomas]

That's right.

[Alec Lev]

And maybe for a bonus on this ad, I'm going to go and I'm going to take a picture of us all right here. Everyone give a wave to the camera.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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[Alec Lev]

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[Josh Radner]

New page.

[Alec Lev]

New page. And you will actually see it because.

[Josh Radner]

I did it that quickly. Wow. This is like what we used to do on How I Met yout Mother. This is like Barney's blog. Like you'd mention it on the show and then there it was.

[Craig Thomas]

It's happening.

[Josh Radner]

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[Craig Thomas]

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[Josh Radner]

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[Craig Thomas]

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[Josh Radner]

And now back to the show. There's a kind of, I don't know, there's a kind of like greed component to love. Like I want to be the only one you've ever felt this way about. I want to be the only one you know.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah.

[Josh Radner]

I will say the recurring visual bit that I thought Pam and and the the team did such a great job with is like the. The objects in Ted's apartment turning into these women who then taunt Robin and then the dogs turning into these ex boyfriends. It did a. That was one of the things where I was like, you cannot do that at a live taping in one night. Like, that is. Like, that's proper filmmaking. It even reminded me, like, when. When the. The objects were morphing into the women that had dated. Like, we're always struggling, like, what movies or TV shows to watch because our tastes somewhat overlap sometimes, but also often veer. But for some reason, the other night, we watched it over two nights, and I had never seen it. And I just want to say I enjoyed every frame of it. We watched Terminator 2.

[Craig Thomas]

Oh, fuck, yeah. Wait, had you never seen it before?

[Josh Radner]

I'd never seen Terminator 2.

[Craig Thomas]

Terminator 2 is a.

[Josh Radner]

Don't yell at me. I'm saying I was watching it. It's one of Jordana's favorite movies. She said her.

[Craig Thomas]

Jordana? Yes, Jordana. It's one of my favorite movies. Love that movie.

[Josh Radner]

I was watching it. And first of all, I want to say I was watching it and I was like, is James Cameron actually maybe the best director? Frame for frame of, like, the action sequences, Matt, are so. It's unbelievable. That movie that, like, got made in, what, 92 or something? Like.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, 92. 91, maybe 91. I referenced it in my novel. Josh, I don't know if you remember. There's a moment where Rob in my novel is having a hard day, and she. His wife Paige, comes home and finds him watching Terminator 2. Because she says, that's his. That's his movie he watches when he's having a hard day. Because men. Men think that when they're having a bad day, the stakes are the apocalypse. Like, that's how male brains are. So they need to watch an apocalypse.

[Josh Radner]

But I really. It's.

[Craig Thomas]

And that's what I really do. I really watch a movie all the time.

[Josh Radner]

It feels as good as any. You could stack that movie up against any classic Hollywood classic, and it's like, frame for frame. It is. I was never bored. It's like a fully explored and executed universe. I really thought it was like, a masterpiece.

[Craig Thomas]

It's like a perfect piece of writing, too. It's perfectly constructed, that story.

[Josh Radner]

But what it reminded me of.

[Craig Thomas]

The reason I brought this up, Terminator.

[Josh Radner]

2, the way that the pillow morphs into a woman reminded me of the liquid metal, the guy, the scarier robot.

[Craig Thomas]

For a minute there, I so forgot what we were talking about.

[Josh Radner]

That.

[Craig Thomas]

I thought we all had a gummy right at the beginning.

[Josh Radner]

No, we're doing a podcast about Terminator 2 there.

[Craig Thomas]

Are we recording this?

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Terminator?

[Craig Thomas]

It's our Rewatch podcast of Terminator 2 that we do every day.

[Josh Radner]

But it reminded me of the liquid metal, like how he could just reconstitute himself.

[Craig Thomas]

I bet we gave that as a like mnemonic to the effect House. We said we want it to be Terminator 2.

[Josh Radner]

It allowed us to at least do a tight 90 seconds on the glories of Terminator 2.

[Craig Thomas]

It's so good. It's so good.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah. I'm so glad I know it now. And I. And I. And my dad too is also like, yeah, it's one of the best movie like he.

[Craig Thomas]

It's also like the rare. Like, like Godfather to like an amazingly good sequel that's maybe as good or better than the first one. It just doesn't happen that up Empire Strikes Bad.

[Josh Radner]

Well, we were. We were trying to. Both of them were on Netflix and we were trying to decide if we watched Terminator 1 or Terminator 2. And she says, we'll watch the preview for Terminator 1. I watched the preview and I was like, okay, I understand what happened in Terminator 1.

[Craig Thomas]

It's also great. It's also great and worth going back. But Terminator 2 is probably better.

[Josh Radner]

I know it's great. But I'm also like, I'm ready now to watch Terminator 2. Like, I get it.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah. Yeah. Terminator 2 is better. So you maybe made the right. Yeah. Oh, it's amazing. But yes, that effect is very liquidy. The way those sort of like the little British phone booth sort of liquidly expands into this human. Yeah, I like that effect.

[Josh Radner]

It's very funny. And that was the other kind of great effect. And we can talk later about this, but the sped up argument between Robin and Ted at the end that ends in them somehow limping their way across the finish line with the revelation that they should move in together.

[Craig Thomas]

It is not our first fast forwarded argument in series. Even in season, we've maybe had four or five of them. We love that device.

[Josh Radner]

You can't do that with a live audience. Like, that was. And by the way, I was trying to remember. I think you and Carter or Courtney wrote us some dialogue. Or did you just say fight? Do you remember?

[Craig Thomas]

I think we wrote. I think Courtney probably wrote up a map of like let's cover these bases. So to help it last long enough. But I bet you guys improv around whatever a little map was.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, yeah. It'd be fun to ask Kobi if she remembers, but I think we did. I think at that point we knew the terrain of both our relationship. And the central argument that we probably just got unleashed. And I think my memory is we were going crazy. We were doing it, and she was. Pam was kind of sending us around the room so she could get a variety of things.

[Craig Thomas]

I wonder how long you did it for.

[Josh Radner]

How long? But I do. I think. I remember at the end, Pam called Cut, and I think the crew applauded. Like, I think the crew was, like, into it.

[Craig Thomas]

Like, it was a Eugene o'. Neill.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Craig Thomas]

Like, we really.

[Josh Radner]

But we really. Even in the fast forward, you can see that we were in it. We were really.

[Craig Thomas]

You were having a fight. And it was so well done that the twist that they make this decision to move in together plays like a great surprise because, like, how the fuck did we get there? It's great. I almost forgot. And that is the sort of emotional ballast of this episode. Something important happens at the end of this episode that sets up a whole new condition that we explore for the rest of season two. So that you need that at the end of this episode.

[Josh Radner]

It strikes me as we're talking that the A story between Ted and Robin is what do you owe your partner vis a vis your past? And the B story is actually about friendship. What do you owe your friends?

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, I like that when they ask.

[Josh Radner]

You to kind of sit through something somewhat unbearable.

[Craig Thomas]

To me, that makes this a more structurally sound episode than, like, columns. Remember we were talking about that episode Columns a few episodes earlier, where it was like the A story and the B story were very separate and they didn't really dovetail.

[Josh Radner]

You could have dropped the B story into any other episode.

[Craig Thomas]

It didn't matter. And that is not us playing to our strength. You see us still. We're still learning in season two. What are our superpowers? What are our things that are harder separate? AB story is not good on how much mother this flirts with being that. But the emotional kind of overlap of, what do you owe a partner? What do you owe a friend? The whole episode is this kind of philosophical symposium based on, what do you owe these people you love? And also the honesty versus the kind of obfuscation piece. Do I act like I've never once dated anybody else? Do I act like my friend's play is great even when it's totally horrible to sit through? What do we owe? Do we owe each other honesty and transparency, or do we owe each other lies and glazing things over?

[Josh Radner]

I don't know. There's a very famous couples therapist named Terry Real. Terrence Real. And he. He writes Great books. But I've heard him say this a number of times in interviews, that one of the worst things you can engage in in a partnership is what he calls unbridled self expression.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah.

[Josh Radner]

Like, just saying, like, I'm just being honest. But you're also being cruel.

[Craig Thomas]

Right.

[Josh Radner]

You know, you're using no discernment. You're using no softening of tone. You're in total opposition, and you're just trying to take him out at the kneecaps. You know, there's no. It's like fighting unfairly. Right?

[Craig Thomas]

Yes.

[Josh Radner]

And Barney, at least from the friend perspective, is a fan of unbridled self expression.

[Craig Thomas]

Radical honesty. Radical self expression.

[Josh Radner]

Like, I have to say, this is.

[Craig Thomas]

But he can't handle it back to him. But he wants to be able to dole it out.

[Josh Radner]

That's often the case. That is often the case. Yeah. Whereas I think Ted is trying not to do. Ted gets pushed in points, and he does engage in that. Like, there's a bunch of moments you could map out in the series where Ted, like, can't take it anymore, and he finally says the thing he shouldn't have said, you know, and it's like, oh, fudge. Like, you know, there's these moments. Right. But I think, like, even at the beginning when he tries to be like, oh, no, that was with my sister. Like, he's really trying to protect Robin.

[Craig Thomas]

He's trying to protect. Yeah, he knows it's going to be triggering. That whole sequence of Sister is really funny. You played that great. It's a good Ted episode. Ted has a lot of funny moments in this one.

[Josh Radner]

Well, getting. My favorite was. And we'll talk about this. But getting Bel Biv devoe. No, old ref, though. Bell Biv devoe is an old ref. Because Jordana didn't know what that was.

[Craig Thomas]

Old tech, old rap. Old tech, old rap. But, oh, Jordana didn't know what Phil Bib Duvo was. Were so old. But that joke. You were. You killed that joke. I just want to say that was a great Bel Bib devoe called even they don't know what this is. But that was like a laugh out loud. I watched it twice. That line. I went back and watched that line twice.

[Josh Radner]

While we're here. While we're here, why don't we just talk about that moment? Okay, that is a buttafuko. The buttafuoco pants that, that, that. That Marshall parades in. And they're. They're another. It's Oracle of Delphi. They're trying to get it's another one of them. They're trying to. They're like, we have to put it to the group. And there's something about. There's five of them, so there's always a tiebreaker. Like, there's a. You know, it's a good number for that. For the hive.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah. They're a conveniently odd number. Yeah.

[Josh Radner]

Marshall is doing one thing, but Jason Siegel. When we shot that, I remember it was like he walked out. And I think we rehearsed it, obviously without the pants, because we didn't. We weren't in costume yet, but he walked out and I just. I will never forget Jason Siegel walking out and kind of. He was like clucking his head like a chicken. Like kind of. His chin was going back and forth and he kept going, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh. And he knew that we were dying. He knew that we were dying. Even Neil was dying. And Neil was the least breaky of all of us. Me, Ally and Kobe were gone. Like, gone, gone, gone. And I was shocked at how quick the pop was and how. How we looked. Like you could. Like Sue Fetterman and Pam musta. You guys must have had to search for a serious face.

[Craig Thomas]

I bet. We found the frames you weren't breaking. We found the five frames you weren't breaking.

[Josh Radner]

It was one of those where Pam had to be like, guys, professional acting. Please, please. Because he would. And you know, when Siegel or Neil knew that they were making you laugh, it wasn't like they were trying to help you get through the scene. They were trying to.

[Craig Thomas]

They loved it.

[Josh Radner]

Crush you. They wanted you to. And the way that Jason paraded these pants around.

[Craig Thomas]

Oh, so funny. And he.

[Josh Radner]

And he. When he knew that we were losing it, he just amped it up to 11, you know, it was just like.

[Craig Thomas]

It made me laugh so much. I watched that whole scene over twice. And he was. When he's like. When he's going like, death, Ted, Ted. He's like. He's like, come on, you got me. You got my back here. And even Ted can't. Can't go in.

[Josh Radner]

Oh, my God. But I'm telling you, we probably. We had to do like eight takes of this very quick.

[Craig Thomas]

But normally that should have been three takes, tops.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, it was just such a one off little thing. But I remember that as one of the. The other one was. I remember because I was trying to get to Burning man, you guys. We were trying to get me out so I could go to Burning Man, I think second or third season. But what was the One where Lily walks in. Oh, it was the intervention episode where she walks in with a Cockney accent.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, yeah.

[Josh Radner]

And we had never rehearsed it. We just did it because I think maybe it was a rewrite that, like, it was a Cockney accent and Ali walks in with that Cockney accent, and we lost our minds.

[Craig Thomas]

Lost your shit.

[Josh Radner]

And I was like, this is the funniest thing I've ever seen. And I have to catch a plane. Like, I have to go.

[Craig Thomas]

I'm fucking myself over by laughing this much.

[Josh Radner]

So there are a couple moments when you. I mean, I think people like hearing about this. Like, moments where we just lost our minds on set laughing.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah. It's not like that was happening all the time. It had to be something truly out of the ordinary, like the Buttafuoco pants. And by the way, that must have been old ref, too, I'm sure. I don't know. Jordana, did you recognize them? Buttafuoco is like, that is a deep cut, 1990s, like, embarrassing long island story.

[Josh Radner]

But if you live through the 90s, it's no explanation needed.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, it was Kobe's thing of, like, I don't want you to get shot in the face. It was so giant. It's Amy Fisher, right? That's what that story was. Amy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Being from Long island in the 90s was tough because everyone's like, ah, the Buttafuoco story. You're from Long Island. Let's talk about that. I'm like, no, please, I don't want to talk. I don't want. I don't want to represent that. Yeah, but that.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, that was. When I. When I watched it, I was like, oh, this is the Buttafuoco pants. Like, this is where that was. And it's a very strong memory of us just being the least professional actor. Like, we could not keep it together. And Jason was not helping us at all.

[Craig Thomas]

This was a weird week because you had that and then you had guys licking your face.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah. And then you had.

[Craig Thomas]

There's a lot of weird stuff going. Neil's dressed in a Tin man robot outfit and saying the word moist over and over again. It was a weird. It was a genuinely, like, fever dream of an episode in some ways.

[Josh Radner]

Do you know what my biggest laugh was actually?

[Craig Thomas]

Clap.

[Josh Radner]

Jordana pointed it out or I would have missed it. You never say it, but it's just over the corner of the pro. The name of the name of the play.

[Craig Thomas]

Suck it, Lily. Suck It Lily. That he came from is called Suck it Lily. Me too. I lost my mind at that. I had completely forgotten about it, like, to the point where I was like, did I not. Did props do that without us asking them to? And I never noticed it.

[Josh Radner]

It was so funny to me, so profoundly. And also, I had a genuine question.

[Craig Thomas]

So funny.

[Josh Radner]

Who are the other people coming to see this play?

[Craig Thomas]

I said the same thing to Rebecca. I was like, especially Neil's play.

[Josh Radner]

No, that's what I meant. Neil's play. I could understand friends and family come to the other play, but who is coming to see Suck It, Lily by Barney Stinson?

[Craig Thomas]

And then walking out as if, like, this isn't as great as I expected it to be.

[Josh Radner]

The Times review wildly inflated how good this was.

[Craig Thomas]

I said the same thing. Who are these people? Oh, my God.

[Josh Radner]

And also, it was the same venue and the same.

[Craig Thomas]

The same exact venue. The same crew.

[Josh Radner]

Who was on our crew?

[Craig Thomas]

He was on our crew. Yeah. That was the suck at Lily thing. I was like, that was just Where's Waldo for me. I was like, whoa, I completely forgot about that playbook.

[Josh Radner]

Such a funny. If you catch that. It's so funny. Oof.

[Craig Thomas]

Really good. Really funny. But I almost felt like, did I never notice that? Which is insane to say, but that's how much I forgot that.

[Josh Radner]

Well, I think you had to have, because the way Pam shot it, it.

[Craig Thomas]

Was like, we probably wrote it. We probably wrote it.

[Josh Radner]

But, like, the way the person was arcing and holding up the program was clearly so you could see it. It's almost like a Simpsons joke. It was such a quick visual throwaway.

[Craig Thomas]

Airplane or something.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, or airplane. Exactly. And I love that you didn't hit. Like, you didn't.

[Craig Thomas]

We never called it out. We never called out that that was the show's title.

[Josh Radner]

But also, like, Lily was probably handed a program that said, suck it, Lily. And she just, like, moves on with it.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, it's something great. There was something calling it out at all. And it's just there for you to find. And it's the same thing as the slap bet at the end. It's like it's there even if you have no idea what the slap bet even is. You're like, all right, well, he just wanted to slap the shit out of him. That's too. Wouldn't make any sense. But the slapping the shit out of Barney made enough sense. There's something nice about the under explanation sometimes. There's something nice about. Just leave it. Let it speak for itself.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah. You know what really made me laugh, and I loved Playing. It was like in Lily's play, how Ted gets roped in to being. Was he capitalism? What was he? Greed? Capitalism.

[Craig Thomas]

He was capitalism, I think. Or maybe he's greed.

[Josh Radner]

But I loved when Marshall says, oh, my God, Ted's in this play.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah. He's so excited. And then he's really jealous later. I never get chosen to be in this. And it's funny because it's almost like a small payoff. And we didn't again, we didn't call it out. Maybe it would have been nice to call it out at the very end. Marshall is part of the show.

[Josh Radner]

He's part of the show when he.

[Craig Thomas]

Slaps the shit out of Bernie. He's heard of that show.

[Josh Radner]

He's the day of sex moxie. He's the day of sex slopina.

[Craig Thomas]

Is the deus, like, sloppy. See, when shit like that comes up, it's like when Elliot coined the phrase tegendary. I just want to get in a time machine. I want deus ex slapina to be on the show. I guess this is the next best thing when these things come up on the podcast. But it does break my heart a little bit because deus ex slapina is fucking brilliant. Josh.

[Josh Radner]

Thank you.

[Craig Thomas]

And now you know, there's also one.

[Josh Radner]

Of my greatest fears is being roped into audience participation while I'm like, at a play or concert. Like, I want zero eyes on me if I'm in the audience.

[Craig Thomas]

Okay, well, question for you. Let's do the symposium. You're a wonderful actor.

[Josh Radner]

Thanks.

[Craig Thomas]

You're a wonderful theater actor.

[Josh Radner]

Thank you.

[Craig Thomas]

And a sidebar. If anybody out here has the chance to see Josh on stage live, a fantastic and different theater actor than you are tv, really. There's different superpowers. You have em both. Okay. You've gone to plenty of shows. Sometimes they're terrible. What do you say to the friend in the show? Are you ever flirting with that honesty level or you were great, but the show sucked. Do you ever try to like shoot, like parse it out?

[Josh Radner]

My friend Dion Flynn, who's like, he's a writer for the Tonight show and he is one of my dearest friends. We have a 2 decade old running bit, 25 year running bit about what you say to a friend whose show you hated when you go backstage.

[Craig Thomas]

Well, that's. Here we are, we're in this episode.

[Josh Radner]

One of his lines is, you were never better, which is like really confusing.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, that's really confusing.

[Josh Radner]

Or you know, you were up there, man. Like I, I forget he has so many good ones. He's actually compiled the list of all of ours. But it is. I think it's a bit of like, actors who. A lot of times, especially when you're younger, the audience is mostly actors. They're your friends who are coming to see your show. So you have to kind of like, sometimes you're bowled away. Like, I remember going to see Chris Messina in a show. He invited me to a show that he was in off Broadway at the Flea.

[Craig Thomas]

I remember that place.

[Josh Radner]

I just. I was like, chris, this is like. It was one of those performances. I was like, I couldn't give that performance. It was so daring and scary and incredible. Incredible. But, yeah, it's a lot of actors who are. Do you know the joke of. How many actors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

[Craig Thomas]

How many?

[Josh Radner]

A hundred. One. To screw in the light bulb. 99. To sit in the audience with complimentary tickets and say how they could have done it better.

[Craig Thomas]

That's it. I mean, it's. My wife is a dancer, choreographer. So we've gone and seen a lot of, like, very funky, very downtown, tiny little performances. And sometimes they're genuinely not that far off from Barney in the robot costume or Lily Singh. They're sometimes super crazy. And we can go be. We can. We can be celebrated. We can be there to support a certain performer and think, they were amazing. Their movement was amazing. They were great. But the show as a whole didn't grab us. We didn't like the show, but we thought they were great. But even that, when you try to draw, you almost can't say that either, because somebody coming off stage doesn't want to hear about how the show sucked. But they were great because maybe they needed to believe the show was great to give that amazing performance.

[Josh Radner]

It's dispiriting because you want to believe that you were part of something, and all your efforts was, well, I came to something and that people had a good experience. One of the worst things you can say to an actor after a play, and this is just a public service announcement. Congratulations is a terrible thing to say.

[Craig Thomas]

You know, they hated it.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah. When they say congratulations, it's like they're not. This was not something they.

[Craig Thomas]

You were in that you were in.

[Josh Radner]

That you were up there, that existed.

[Craig Thomas]

And you were there.

[Josh Radner]

I believe when you were on stage, I believed you were there. Yeah. I will say, years ago, a college friend of mine, Beth Schachter, we were at a play. It was like an evening of one acts that were. It was all absurdist. It was kind of like, it was, it was like tinfoil, mayonnaise covered, you know, people. It was very strange. And my friend who I went to college with, she directed me a lot in plays in college. She leaned over to me in the middle of it and she said, this is the kind of theater our parents fear we're making.

[Craig Thomas]

That's a great line. That's really funny.

[Josh Radner]

And this old man, he must admit he fell in love with you in New York City.

[Craig Thomas]

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[Craig Thomas]

End of commercials back to show. It's so hard because when you're in something, it's almost like you can badmouth your own family, but when somebody else badmouths your family, you're like, wait a second, if I work on something and somebody goes, I remember even writing for Dave Letterman, which was a great honor. I think Dave's a legend. I love Dave. Every now and again, I tell someone that and they'd go, oh, I hate him. And I go, well, I don't know what to say to that. I write stuff for that show and I love that. And I would take it personally that they were dissing Dave. Most people love Dave, by the way. But like I, it's just weird. It's like, I'm not Dave. I didn't create that show. I was just a writer. I was 22 year old writer. But I would take it personally. And it's like you want to. It's so hard because you have to believe in the thing you're doing. So you kind of. So it's always that dance of like. Can I slightly indicate I didn't like the show but I thought the person was amazing in the show. And I think it's always. You just can't say it, you can't.

[Josh Radner]

I'm of the, I'm of the feeling that like, especially if someone is a professional or, or, or has their eyes set on that, like, you know, I never would tell someone, like, maybe you should consider doing something else. Like that's something. If that, if that comes about, that's gonna be, you know, there's that famous Ed Norton story that he went in and auditioned. I, I'll say who it was. It's George Ann Walken, who was this casting director for years. I don't know if she still does, but I think he was auditioning for the public or something. He'd been at it for a while and he's told this story many times. But he auditioned and she said, look, I think you're really smart, I like you a lot. I think you need to start looking at something else to do.

[Craig Thomas]

Oh, man.

[Josh Radner]

And like a week later he booked Primal Fear and he became a movie.

[Craig Thomas]

Star and got an Academy Award number.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah. So there's always a thing of like, we don't know what's bad.

[Craig Thomas]

Nobody knows anything is the rule.

[Josh Radner]

And also like, you're an actor, you're an artist, like some things are gonna hit, some things aren't.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah.

[Josh Radner]

I think that it's better to keep the enthusiasm up of like, I love you, man. I'm here to support you. I want you to, you know, to do well. There's a great story, I think it was John Krasinski told about that he kind of dissed a movie either to Paul Thomas Anderson or near Paul Thomas Anderson. And Paul Thomas Anderson pulled him aside and he was like, never criticize movies, especially in public. He said, even bad movies, people Are trying to make something good and interesting.

[Craig Thomas]

People work so hard.

[Josh Radner]

So hard.

[Craig Thomas]

You gotta follow the person's lead. If someone comes off stage and goes, didn't that show sucking go like, well, you were great. But yeah, maybe if the person comes off and doesn't offer that up, just, you gotta be like, go with God.

[Josh Radner]

And there's probably a couple people in your life that you should keep on tap who are like, you'll give it to your straight people. You're my honesty people. But for the most part, I think, like, you know, I mean, this was stacked up for maximum. You know, we're getting into a more serious discussion about something that this episode actually doesn't exactly interrogate Because Lily's play clearly sucked. Barney's play intentionally sucked.

[Craig Thomas]

But I liked that Barney got a little sucked in. He actually cared about his performance in the end. He's like, it's too bad you guys didn't get to see the end of it. He clearly wants to be able to finish his show, which I think I liked that moment, because that's the humor. Even he wants to finish his stupid show, because, God damn it, he's come this far. I liked that we showed that side.

[Josh Radner]

And also, there's something about. About Barney that became clear. It's like, this is an aspect of his gambling addiction, which is that he has to win.

[Craig Thomas]

He has to win.

[Josh Radner]

He has to win. It's like, they don't put money on it, but the bet is, I can make you tell me. This sucks, Lily.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah. Yeah. And he will not stop. Yeah, it is. It is his gambling addiction. He must win. That's really true. And he has to. But then he. I love that there's a little part of him that's kind of loves his own show.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah.

[Craig Thomas]

And then he gets slapped in the face by Marshall. So he gets his comeuppance like that. There is no clearer review than slapping the face. Face of a person performing. Yeah. Yeah. I love that Marshall ended. That ended the show for Barney.

[Josh Radner]

I love that Ted gets pulled up for the curtain call on Lilia's show. There was something that is fun to play about. Like, I. I don't want this to be happening, but I have to act like it's all okay. Like, whenever you get two opposing things that kind of pull you apart.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah.

[Josh Radner]

You know, that's always really fun to play when you have to wear a mask, you know?

[Craig Thomas]

Yes. Yeah, Totally. Totally. And that's what the whole episode's about, which I love. And I think it's a good Ted and Robin episode. It kind of. It both moves their future forward a little bit and raises the stakes of they're gonna live together now. Which is a huge part of the episodes to come, but also shows you, like, a little bit of trouble, right? There's a little bit of trouble brewing there, right? It definitely, without spoilering anything, it foreshadows things to come at the end of the season.

[Josh Radner]

I gotta highlight a great needle drop. I did. I did not get into the Stooges. I was not into the Stooges at this moment in my life.

[Craig Thomas]

Carter and I love the Stooges. One of the best shows I've ever seen is Rebecca. Carter and I went to see Iggy Pop at Irving plaza in the 90s. And he was at that point, you know, what was he in his 50s or whatever he was. And he gave the most fucking energetic punk rock show, you know, 25 years after, you know, when he would have been considered in his prime of that. He is so rock. And that is like one of my favorite Stooges songs or Iggy Pop songs. I Want to Be youe Dog. And the idea, I was so proud of it watching it last night with Rebecca. I said, no other CBS sitcom ever used a Stooges song.

[Josh Radner]

No way.

[Craig Thomas]

That's essentially a song about, like, kind of S and M. Yeah, basically it's one of that song. It's like a fucking song. Also, one cool thing about that song is like, you know how the hi hat in drumming, like the hi hat kind of keeps the tempo in that song. If you listen to that song, the hi hat part is a single piano note. There's just one piano note going, ding.

[Josh Radner]

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

[Craig Thomas]

It's kind of like basically the hi hat part, but it's as if the drummer is keeping time on one piano key. The ding, ding. And I love that about that song. It's such a weird production choice. I don't know if David Bowie. God, I should know that. I don't know if David Bowie produced that album or not. But it's just a really cool listen for that one piano note. And I want to be your dog.

[Josh Radner]

David Bowie produced Iggy Pops. He didn't do Stooges. He did Iggy Pops. I think he did Iggy Solo.

[Craig Thomas]

I think.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But. But there's also something funny, like when you literalize it. When it's like, I want to be your dog and then you see Robin walking five men with collars and leashes. It takes the entendre away. It Makes it a single entendre song. Like it's no longer about what. It's something else.

[Craig Thomas]

And it's barely a double entendre in the song. But we still made it even less so.

[Josh Radner]

It was a great, great music choice. Great needle drop.

[Craig Thomas]

That's one of my. I really forgot that we did that. And that should be on the list of like. Like fucking cool music we put on. Like, the Stooges were on at 8:30 on CBS. After King of Queens and before Two and a Half Men. And like a csi.

[Josh Radner]

I know. Hey, did you ever read. This is a great book recommendation for anyone who's kind of interested in the punk scene in the 70s. Have you read Please Kill Me?

[Craig Thomas]

I can't. Did Carter and I recommend it to you because we read it like in our 20s at that point.

[Josh Radner]

Oh, no, I didn't read it until like maybe eight or ten years ago.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause that's. We. Carter turned me onto that book. And then we would tell everybody about it. I don't know if we ever. I love that book so much. It's this great oral history. Punk. Yeah. Strong.

[Josh Radner]

That book's incredible. It's an oral history. It starts basically at with Velvet Underground. It ends with Sex Pistols.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah. It sort of takes you through the whole chap. The whole movement.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah. But it's a great starting at like, Max's Kansas city, going to CBGB's, Patti Smith. Like, it takes you through. It's almost like a great history of 70s New York, but told through the very specific lens of punk.

[Craig Thomas]

Absolutely. The Ramones.

[Josh Radner]

The Ramones, yeah. Another great book that my friend Lizzie Goodman wrote is called Meet Me in the Bathroom. Did you read that book?

[Craig Thomas]

No, I didn't read it.

[Josh Radner]

It's kind of a spiritual sequel to Please Kill Me because it starts it's 2001-2011, New York City. Starting with the Strokes, you know, through Vampire Weekend, LCD sound system, DFA Record. Like, that whole thing. Like, everyone thought, like, this isn't a scene. But she actually showed that there was something. You know, the yeah yeah yeahs and TV on the radio. Like, there was so much going on in that moment. So anyway, two great oral history books about New York City. Please Kill me is the 70s. Meet Me in the Bathroom by Lizzie Goodman. 2001, 2011. I love a good oral history. It's a great way to tell a story.

[Craig Thomas]

It's a great. And it's like, so readable because it's these little quotes and back and forth. I actually thought about when I wrote my novel. My novel is like all these switching four perspectives. And I thought about the obsessive readability of a book. Like, please kill me because you just need to keep turning the page because it's all these fascinating people. You're like, well, I can't stop here. Iggy Pop's about to talk on the next page. And after that, David Bowie says something and then Joey Ramone. It's so. It's great. It's like, it's a great, like bathroom read. You can read as much or as little.

[Josh Radner]

I think Daisy Jones in the Six is written as a kind of like fake oral history about a made up band.

[Craig Thomas]

Oh, is it? I didn't.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, yeah. But it's a great way to tell a story and. But yeah. So we've gone far afield. We've talked about the stooges in Terminator 2. In this episode called Stuff.

[Craig Thomas]

At least it's all cold. You know what?

[Josh Radner]

The episode's called Stuff. And we're just talking about a lot of stuff.

[Craig Thomas]

We're just talking about stuff.

[Alec Lev]

Before we go, I could just report in this directly from Cobie Smulders. My guess is because there's no sound, we were just told where to go physically and made up the words. So she also doesn't quite remember.

[Craig Thomas]

Can you just text her in real time about that question?

[Alec Lev]

Not only did I text her, but she didn't remember it at all. And I videoed the show now on Hulu on my phone and send her the clip. And that is the report that we just got it.

[Josh Radner]

Wow.

[Craig Thomas]

Well produced. My God. All right, so you guys were just making up.

[Josh Radner]

I think. All right, there it is. I. I think I.

[Craig Thomas]

Doing your own play. Your own shitty play. A shitty play within the show about a shitty play. You're doing your own half baked play. But it probably wasn't shitty. It sounds like.

[Josh Radner]

No, I think it was kind of good. And I think it was kind of like, who needs writers? I think that was the feeling was like, who needs writers? We can just.

[Alec Lev]

There's a. There's a great. This is brutal comp to that during Sand Castles in the sand where she is arguing where Kobe and I believe Alan Thicke.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah.

[Alec Lev]

As her dad are arguing over something. And it was another silent argument because it was a music video and it was. It was actually filthy and hysterical.

[Craig Thomas]

That's really funny.

[Josh Radner]

Welcome back. So we in this episode, Stuff, episode 16 of season two, How I Met yout Mother. In our talk, Craig and I, we mentioned the movie Splash. The great Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, Darrell Hannah, comedy. We mentioned Terminator 2. And as we go through this, we're talking a lot about references that you and Carter and the writers were pulling from. I remember when you. You. You told me, I think after I'd gotten cast, that you thought of Ted as a mix of Lloyd Dobler from say Anything meets George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life. Was that the mashup?

[Craig Thomas]

Absolutely, that's the mashup. That's the mashup. I think about it every year when I watch It's Wonderful Life, which I just did the other day with my kids. My kids hadn't seen that. When we watched it, I'm like, George Bailey. There's so much George Bailey and Ted Mosby.

[Josh Radner]

Well, also Christmas Story. I mean, we're. As artists, I think we are the sum of our references on some level. And I think as a writer, I know this, and I even did this as an actor a little bit. You imitate your heroes until your own voice and style comes through. You know, you. I tried to write like Philip Roth or Kenny Lonergan or, you know, like, I was trying to write like these people, and then I get my own voice and same. Same with you guys. And, you know, it's. This is airing, I think, in February, but we're. We're a couple. We're a little bit ahead. And my friend and my. Someone we both. That meant so much to us artistically died very tragically. Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle, a couple days ago from when we are recording this. And I just wanted to kind of just have a couple words about what his movies meant to both of us, just personally. And I just posted something on Instagram about this, but Rob cast me in a pilot for NBC DC called Everyday Life in 2003 or four, I can't remember. And the pilot was never picked up, but he directed it. He played my dad. Mercedes Ruhl played my mom. It's about a family of therapists who all live and work in the same brownstone. And it was all improvised, and it was really wild and really fun. And I got to know Rob, and we had lunch over the years many times. And he screened a cut of my second movie at his house with his wife. And they gave me such beautiful feedback on it. And he was just. He was just a lovely, generous, passionate, beautiful man. And he also made some of the greatest films ever. I mean, truly, like Pantheon films, you know, Stand By Me, this is Spinal Tap, the Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men like you can't believe that one director directed all of this.

[Craig Thomas]

It's astonishing. It's an astonishing achievement. Who else could do that? I don't know any.

[Josh Radner]

It's the range of.

[Craig Thomas]

In the span of a few years, like he had a run that is just among the all time creative runs in the history of film. I mean, it stands next to any other body.

[Josh Radner]

So what creative DNA do you think is Reiner esque that found its way into How I Met yout Mother?

[Craig Thomas]

I think you can make an argument that How I Met yout Mother is essentially When Harry Met Sally meets Stand By Me meets the Princess Bride. Because When Harry Met Sally is the gold standard New York romantic comedy, right? I mean, there's just like. It's just untouchable. And even within that movie, there is the framework of it's a story kind of being told. All those couples you see interspersed about. Obviously, Nora Ephron wrote it beautifully, but I know she developed that whole project with Rob so collaboratively. And then in like the Princess Bride, that idea of a story being told and popping in and out of the story, a story being told to a child by an older, wiser person and jumping in and out of the story. If you put that together with When Harry Met Sally, that's basically how I met your mother and Stand By Me having again, that future narrator kind of making sense of, in that case, childhood, but remembering this beautiful chapter of his life that he's trying to capture as an adult in his middle age, who's played beautifully by Richard Dreyfus in that movie. God damn. That's how I met your Mother. All of those things are How I met your Mother. And then the musical comedy piece. When Carter and I would write those Robin Sparkle songs, what I would always look to was, this is Spinal Tap, because the songs that they did for this is Spinal Tap, they wrote them to be good songs. Those are really, really good songs. They were so deadpan about what that movie was that they said, the songs will be absurd, but we're also gonna make them great. And there's something about Reiner's just control of tone even within these incredibly diverse projects, that he just knows what these things are. Talk about. You said the word DNA like the DNA of those things. Every molecule of those movies knows what movie they're in.

[Josh Radner]

Totally.

[Craig Thomas]

And that is coming through the singular vision of Rob Reiner. I loved him. I love his work. I never got to meet him. I feel like I lost a friend and I never even met the man. And boy his influence on everything and how much, Mother included is just beyond measure. He's just a brilliant actor.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah. And I think also, if you could distill or boil down what is a director's job, it's to make sure everyone's in the same movie. That there's a kind of. I read this thing that Tarantino, he made a movie actually before Reservoir Dogs that no one saw. And he said, I made all my mistakes on that movie. I got all my mistakes out. Like, I figured out what do.

[Craig Thomas]

I never knew.

[Josh Radner]

And he said to someone early on, like, I don't know how to light a scene, I don't know how to frame a shot. And they said, yeah, a cinematographer does that. You just have to keep the story in mind and make sure that everything that's showing up on screen is in service to your vision of the story. And I think Rob was an absolute master at, like you said, because you stack those all up against each other, you could, you could probably isolate certain themes that recur. You know, I mean, there, there is a notion of like true love. Love wins the day.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah.

[Josh Radner]

You know, the, the, the value in both friendship and also, and, and also seeing how friendship and how love evolves over time. When Harry Met Sally is. It's astonishing, the economy of storytelling. It almost could be a nine year run of watching Harry and Sally find their way to each other. But he does it in two hours. There's no fat on it.

[Craig Thomas]

It's just like it's incredibly efficiently done. Yeah. And that's part of his brilliance. It's just knowing what the story needs and not going past that, not never losing sight of that. I know Carter, too, is just an enormous, enormous fan. And when we pitched the pilot, when we pitched. How much, Mother? As a series, I guarantee you, every time we pitched it, we referenced the Princess Bride and the future and essentially Peter Falk telling the story. And When Harry Met Sally, this is how we pitched the show. We pitched the show using Rob Howard.

[Josh Radner]

And also the Princess Bride tells this kind of mythic fairy tale, but also narrator's head is pitching a kind of mythic fairy tale about his 20s and 30s in New York.

[Craig Thomas]

And Stand By Me has that feeling too. It's a fable, it's his writer's leg. But it's how we, we all write our memories. Right. We keep writing and refining our memories.

[Josh Radner]

And I think he had a. You know, you can see this from his, his dedication to, to politics, to free speech. Like, he was an incredibly passionate man who also believed, like we could be better.

[Craig Thomas]

Yes.

[Josh Radner]

You know, there was something in his movies that was aspirational in the best sense of the word. I felt like even though you could. You could definitely glean a through line of deep optimism, it was a. It was a hard earned optimism. My favorite kind. It was a realist's Optim was definitely like, we're headed someplace better.

[Craig Thomas]

Yes.

[Josh Radner]

Let's leave our characters better than we found them.

[Craig Thomas]

Yes, that's right. That's right. Let's evolve, let's grow. And he was a curious kind of searching mind and heart, that man. It was so clear in his life and his work. That's who he was. I didn't know that. I didn't remember, I guess, that you acted in that pilot with him. He played my dad. I forgot that I knew it was sort of him and he. He directed it. I forgot you acted in scenes with him. That's so cool.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, of course. It was the season right before How I Met yout Mother.

[Craig Thomas]

It was just the pilot.

[Josh Radner]

Just the pilot didn't get picked up by NBC, but you got to act.

[Craig Thomas]

In scenes with Rob Reiner, who was also directing it. That's an incredible experience, man.

[Josh Radner]

And I told this story in my Instagram post, but I'll just tell it to you now. But he was kind of behind the monitor and I was kind of lurking and talking to him a little bit, and he turned to me and he said, I'm nervous. And I said, you still get nervous? I thought, like, why is he nervous for this pilot? And he said, if you're not nervous on the first day of shooting, it's time to leave the business. You know, like, nerves to him were a real sign. You still cared so much and you still had skin in the game. And it was.

[Craig Thomas]

His heart was in it. His heart was in everything he did, including that. Including so deep into his career, he still was nervous. I love that story. And that says everything.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, yeah. He just loved making things. And he was a great collaborator and he was truly. He offered himself as a mentor to me in a lot of ways. You know, we. For a couple years there, we were having lunch once a year or so, and he was, you know, often with his producing partner Alan Grisman, who's a great guy who also produced that show. And they were just really kind to me. And I'll never forget him inviting me over to the house to screen the cut of Liberal Arts. And he cast me in that pilot when I was, I don't know, 28, 29, 27, maybe. I don't know. But I was a couple years out of grad school. I think I had been on Broadway in the Graduate, and I'd gotten fired from my first pilot. The second series didn't work. The third pilot season, I tested like, 10 times and didn't get anything. And so this was like my fourth pilot season, maybe fifth pilot season. And I don't know, just to be able to. Like, there are these moments, like, maybe you felt this way about Letterman and Craig, but where when you tell your parents who cast you or what you're doing, they get it. Like, your parents in Long island, your parents in Ohio, they get it. Like, my parents grew up watching all in The. You know, they. They watched all in the Family. They watched and loved all those movies. So when I got to say Rob Reiner cast me in a pilot for NBC, they also knew what NBC was. There was something that. It was important moments for me. It's important.

[Craig Thomas]

I know what you mean. It's important. I have a real job. I'm really doing this because this person believes in me.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah. And I remember I shot the pilot, and my grandfather died before I got the news. I actually got the news. It wasn't picked up the day of my grandfather's funeral. But my dad said something really kind of sweet. He said, well, your grandpa went to his death thinking you were doing a show for NBC with Rob Reiner. That's okay. That's okay. That was okay. Good for him to feel into that. And it was just like, there are these moments, and maybe we've talked about this, but there are these moments as a. As an artist, as a young actor or writer, where you lose faith in yourself. It's natural. Is this going to happen for me? Oh, it's happening for that guy. Why isn't it happening for me or her? And then there are these people that come along and say, hey, we need you. We'd like to. You. You're the guy. You're the one for this. And Rob came along at a moment that I needed someone to believe in me, like him, you know, I needed Rob Reiner. It was great that it was actually Rob Reiner. You know, I got the actual guy to say. And I remember auditioning for him. I remember making him laugh. I remember there was a great, funny comedian, actress who played my wife, Mary Gallagher. And we were improvising at the. I think at the network. Like, it was our. It was our network test, and he was kind of interviewing us, and maybe he was playing the couples. Therap, essentially. Like, we were in couples therapy, and she was like, I don't want to do anything crazy fancy for the wedding, you know, and she wanted this, like, kind of hippie wedding. And I was like, my mom. My parents are not going to like. And they're like, well, where. Where do you want to get married? And I was like, cipriani. Which is, like, the most fancy place you could get married in New York City. Like, it's like.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah.

[Josh Radner]

You know, it's. It's absurd how aristocratic it is. But I knew. I knew a Cipriani because I think, like, an ex girlfriend's friend had gotten married there, but Rob knew Cipriani's, and he almost fell out of his seat. You know, it was, like, the perfect thing. I think it got me the job that I knew.

[Craig Thomas]

I can't imagine the satisfaction of knowing you. You made, like, really laugh. Like, what an. That's. That's. You'll always have that moment. That's amazing.

[Josh Radner]

And he was also. He was also. You know, some funny people don't laugh.

[Craig Thomas]

Yes. Oh, yeah.

[Josh Radner]

He was a funny person who laughed. So you felt.

[Craig Thomas]

I know.

[Josh Radner]

You felt his warmth. You felt his generosity. I also felt him wanting us to do well. We were clearly the ones he want. I think we were the only ones who tested. Like, he wanted it to be us. He created an environment where we could do our best work. So, you know, it's also. It's a strange thing. I made this thing with him. We worked together for a couple weeks. No one ended up seeing it except some NBC executives who said, we're going to pass on this. So it's not like I have this big document of, like, this is what we made together. I. I think I saw one cut of it or something, and it was like, I just moved on. And then I did How I Met yout Mother the next year. But I am forever grateful that he said. He pointed and said you. I'm grateful I got to spend some time with him. I'm grateful for those lunches, and I'm grateful that those movies live on and inspired us and inspired people even that didn't know him.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah.

[Josh Radner]

But, you know, I can attest just personally that he was just a wonderful. And he was a great talent, and he was also a real mensch, and I miss him. And I'm so. It's so heartbreaking that he was denied the happy ending that he gave so many of his characters. And so, yeah, that's heartbreaking. A lot of love for you, Rob. And he will be very missed and Michelle and just wishing his family and his loved ones the best. 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 and is presented and distributed by the Office Ladies Network and Odyssey. This episode is also executive produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. The show is produced and edited by Me, Alec Lev and our co producer is Doug Matica. Our audio producer and mixer is Alex Reeves at Point of Blue Studios. Our digital Content producer, AKA Gen Z Master is Emily Blumberg. 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 theme song is New York City by our own Josh Radner with additional music by Craig Thomas and Andrew Majewski. Special thanks to Lola Kennedy and Elliot Connors. Visit how we madeyourmother.com to learn more and 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 Josh Radner's Muse Letters on Substack and check out his his music and everything [e-mail] order Craig Thomas's debut novel, that's Not How It Happened, wherever books are sold and check out his other published writings at craig thomas writer.com and you can subscribe to my own Dead Father's Society also on Substack to learn more about how you make a difference. This show's ongoing campaign to raise money for Congenital Pediatric Heart dis disease research. Check out the Make a Difference tab at the top of our website. People will in fact dance.

[Josh Radner]

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

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[Alec Lev]

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[Craig Thomas]

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[Josh Radner]

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