How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM)

How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) is a CBS sitcom premiered on September 19, 2005. Created by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays, the show received generally positive reviews. TV Guide gave it the "Editor's Choice" honor in its Fall Preview Issue. Thomas and Bays drew from their friendship in creating the characters, with Ted based loosely on Bays and Marshall and Lily based loosely on Thomas and his wife.

Dubbed "A love story in reverse," the show is structured as the main character, Ted, in the year 2030 telling his son and daughter about the events that led to his meeting their mother, which begin in 2005. The show frequently explores the concepts of stories and storytelling usually with multiple flashbacks occurring each episode. Seeing the show in non-chronological order often results in the viewer seeing something happen and then finding out later the events that caused it. This effect has been dubbed "deep frying" the story, a reference to the show's director, Pamela Fryman. This structure necessitates many more scenes than the average sitcom; therefore the show is not filmed before a live studio audience despite being shot in the traditional sitcom format. Laughter is not recorded until the episode is shown to an audience after it has been completely edited together.

How I Met Your Mother has been renewed for a third season and premiered last September 24, 2007. The show has moved back to its old time slot, 8ET / 7CT.