Hulu’s How I Met Your Father, releasing in January 2022, is a How I Met Your Mother spinoff following a new group of 30-something in New York City who try to navigate dating, friendships, and jobs in a new era. Flipping the roles of the original series, How I Met Your Mother centers on Sophie (Hilary Duff) telling her son about how she met his father, with Kim Cattrall voicing older Sophie/The Narrator, positioning Sophie as taking over the original’s Ted Mosby role.
Since it was announced that How I Met Your Father and the original series would connect, many have speculated this to mean How I Met Your Mother’s cast will make cameos. As such, it’s been theorized that Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) would be the perfect crossover, with the womanizer easily being slipped in as a one-night-stand for a How I Met Your Father character. With How I Met Your Father being set in the early 2020s, there are plenty of ways for original characters to make cameos since the final season featured flash-forwards to this timeline.
While it’s more than likely that How I Met Your Father will feature cameos from original cast , there are plenty of ways to make the new series an in-universe spin-off without physically bringing old characters back. How I Met Your Mother has set the stage for its own inclusive universe with various settings, professions, and running gags that could all play a part in the lives of How I Met Your Father’s characters. While the easiest overlap would be MacLaren’s Pub, How I Met Your Father set photos have already revealed the new gang to frequent an entirely different bar. Outside of HIMYM character cameos and MacLaren’s, here’s a breakdown of ways How I Met Your Father can connect to the original CBS series.
Ted’s Columbia University Architecture Class
Beginning in How I Met Your Mother season 5, Ted became a professor of architecture at Columbia University. While this job most notably was a major connection to finding Tracy as she took the Econ course Ted mistakenly showed up to teach, it also opens the door for Ted to be a former teacher of a How I Met Your Father character. Since How I Met Your Father’s characters are likely in their early and mid-30s at the time of the premiere, one could very easily have taken Ted’s Architecture 101 course at Columbia - or have even sat in on the same mistaken Econ class as Tracy. Ted began teaching at Columbia in 2009, which aligns with How I Met Your Father’s characters being college-aged at this time. If one of the new characters happened to be a student in Ted’s season 5 course, they also likely played Robin’s “but...umm” drinking game.
Barney’s Blog/The Playbook
While most of the readers of Barney’s blog and The Playbook are Barney himself, it’s possible that by How I Met Your Father’s timeline, his tricks have become popular for a new generation. How I Met Your Mother season 9 featured random bachelors Justin and Kyle being mentored by Barney on The Playbook, suggesting these weren’t the men to whom he ed on his wisdom. Since Barney got divorced, he likely continued his blogging and Playbook writing into 2022, which would make it plausible for one of How I Met Your Father’s male characters to skim through or regularly follow them. Since it is 2022 and blogging has been taken over by a new medium, it’s also possible Barney has made a successful podcast about his womanizing, with How I Met Your Father’s new characters listening in.
Robin’s World-Famous News Reporting
The flash-forwards from How I Met Your Mother season 9 reveal that Robin Scherbatsky became an internationally acclaimed news reporter by How I Met Your Father’s timeline. After running into Ted and Penny in 2020, Future Ted Mosby reveals that Robin became famous for her news reporting, traveling, and bullfighting. Since Robin will still be on-air during How I Met Your Father’s 2022 timeline, the new series can feature comments about a big story by Robin or one of her famous exploits without even having to show her face. Without actually bringing Cobie Smulders back, How I Met Your Father could also put Robin’s likeness on a sign on the bus or a news ad for the characters to walk by.
Barney & Ted’s Bar “Puzzles”
While How I Met Your Mother never actually revealed whether or not Ted and Barney made their Puzzles bar official, it would be an incredible in-universe connection to have How I Met Your Father’s characters drink there. First conceptualized in How I Met Your Mother season 4, Barney and Ted had an impulsive idea to go in together on a bar called Puzzles, with the allure of the name being, “Why do they call it Puzzles? That’s the puzzle!” A season 7 episode shows Barney and Ted making an impromptu Puzzles bar in Ted’s apartment, only for more chaos to ensue and the friends to decide against their business venture. It’s possible that Barney and Ted decided in the future to go into the bar business for real, becoming the unseen owners of Puzzles that How I Met Your Father’s characters regularly attend. Even if Barney and Ted didn’t own Puzzles in the new show, it would be an apt Easter egg connection to name the new bar setting after the original characters’ failed venture.
Goliath National Bank
One of the most iconic settings of How I Met Your Mother is Goliath National Bank, the world-leading bank that Marshall, Ted, and Barney have jobs with at one point in the series. Since the bank has several locations around New York City and is popular for credit and banking, GNB could easily connect the shows by having a How I Met Your Father character either working or having an there. Since none of How I Met Your Mother’s main characters worked there following the series finale, How I Met Your Father could introduce one of its characters as a GNB employee without needing an original cameo.
“The Wedding Bride” Movies
As far as How I Met Your Mother’s fake media goes, Robin Sparkles and The Wedding Bride are at the most notable. The Wedding Bride is a big-budget movie written by Tony Grafanello, Stella Zinman’s husband, who she left Ted at the altar for. In the movie, Tony retells the story of his love triangle with Ted and Stella (Sarah Chalke) but revises it to make himself the good-guy and Ted, the villain. In How I Met Your Mother’s universe, The Wedding Bride was a massive success, with a sequel titled The Wedding Bride Too being released in 2013.
In a flash-forward to Ted and Tracy dating in season 7’s “No Pressure,” Ted reveals the first time he told Tracy he loved her was outside of a movie theater, with the marquee showing Wedding Bride III. This would have happened long before How I Met Your Father’s timeline, but it means the fictional series is popular enough that the new show could have the characters watch The Wedding Bride movies. If How I Met Your Father’s cast references The Wedding Bride’s characters like Jed Mosely, they would be talking about the How I Met Your Mother characters who inspired them without even knowing it.