How I Met Your Mother was not filmed in front of a live audience, because a single episode took three days to shoot, making it incompatible with that structure. Was How I Met Your Mother filmed live?
One of the hit sitcoms of the 2000s is arguably 2005’s How I Met Your Mother. Lauded for its unconventional premise, the series ran for nine seasons before it concluded its television run in 2014, as it finally revealed who the mother of Ted Mosby’s twins is.
While the sitcom might have been a hit, it did not follow one of the popular conventions that dedicated the popularity of a series to the use of a studio audience.
Hit sitcoms of the time mostly used live audiences in order to gauge whether the comedy of the episode or scene was actually funny, but How I Met Your Mother did not.
What was How I Met Your Mother?
Created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, How I Met Your Mother was the surprise hit sitcom which premiered in 2005. The sitcom was an unlikely hit due to its unconventional narrative style which was believed to not be successful in television.
The sitcom used flashbacks to tell its story, which was premised on, “A father recounts to his children – through a series of flashbacks – the journey he and his four best friends took leading up to him meeting their mother.”
The sitcom gave rise to the popularity of now household names, including title actor Josh Radnor as Ted Mosby, Jason Segel as Marshall, Neil Patrick Harris as Barney, Cobie Smulders as Robin, and already acclaimed actress Alyson Hannigan as Lily.
Was How I Met Your Mother filmed live?
A convention for popular sitcoms during the early 2000s was the use of a live studio audience when shooting episodes.
Hit sitcoms like Friends used a live audience in order to gauge whether the episode was truly comical.
However, How I Met Your Mother did not use a live studio audience. The primary reason for this was due to the structure and time constraints of shooting a single episode of the show.
Considering that the sitcom was based on a non-linear structure, instead of the estimated 12 hours it would normally take to shoot an episode, as a scene takes three hours and changing sets is considered within this time frame, How I Met Your Mother took an average of three days.
Therefore, it was impractical to invite a studio audience as they would not be able to grasp the chronology and comical moments, as they were not shot in sequence.
How I Met Your Mother crew remark on lack of live audience
In the years following the show’s success, the writers and executive producers of the sitcom felt more comfortable further explaining the shortcomings of having a studio audience.
Executive producer Greg Malins explained that not having a studio audience allowed for the writers to not be “a slave to the audience…” by writing for laughs instead of the advancing the story forward.
A fact which was asserted by one of the writers, Jamie Rhonheimer, when he suggested that the lack of a live audience allowed for the writing team to focus more on the “emotional stories.”
Why did How I Met Your Mother change its ending?
In light of the writers telling more emotional stories, rather than ones that focussed on producing laughs, the fans also had an emotional reaction to the first ending of the sitcom, when Tracy McConnell was revealed as the mother of Ted Mosby’s twins.
However, when she died and Ted ended up with Robin by the series finale, the fans were dissatisfied with this version of the ending, resulting in the producers releasing an alternate version.
In the alternate version, the series ends with Ted revealing that Tracy McConnell is the mother of the twins and that they live happily ever after together, instead of Tracy dying of cancer.
The legacy of How I Met Your Mother explained
How I Met Your Mother was ground-breaking in the fact that the sitcom was premised on one of the biggest television and film misnomers, that an audio-visual narrative cannot be told through using flash-backs.
Considering that the sitcom ran for nine successful seasons, it challenged this narrative. However, after the sitcom ended, there were not a lot of shows that were as successful in utilising this narrative style successfully.
However, in 2022, Hulu is attempting to recapture the phenomenon of the original sitcom with the spinoff How I Met Your Father, starring Hilary Duff in the title role of Sophie.
Final thoughts
To date, How I Met Your Mother still stands as one of the best sitcoms to have aired on television, despite having concluded its nine-year run in 2014.
The sitcom challenged the set television and film misnomer that you cannot tell a long-form story successfully through using sequences of flashbacks.
Moreover, due to its unique storytelling device, the sitcom did not use a live audience but a subtle laughing track throughout its run.
This is as a single episode took three days to shoot due to its unique structure, which could not logistically accommodate a live audience.