Yahoo Lifestyle “HIMYM” Co-Creator Says the Show's Team Was 'Very Aware' and 'Nervous' About 'Seeming Too Much' Like “Friends” (Exclusive)
Craig Thomas tells PEOPLE that 'HIMYM's flashbacks and storytelling structure differentiated it from 'Friends'
Monty Brinton/CBS via Getty
Neil Patrick Harris, Cobie Smulders, Josh Radnor, Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel in 'How I Met Your Mother' in 2005When How I Met Your Mother premiered in 2005, co-creator Craig Thomas knew that the series was bound to draw comparisons to another hit sitcom about a group of friends dating and mating in New York City.
“A lot of shows before us had tried to replicate Friends, and not succeeded,” Thomas tells PEOPLE. “So, there was a long trail of failed attempts to harness what Friends was.”
The Emmy-winning NBC series ended its 10-season run in May 2004, a little over a year before How I Met Your Mother premiered on CBS. Thomas, who co-created How I Met Your Mother with Carter Bays, notes that while the two shows didn’t overlap, HIMYM’s creative team was “very aware of not wanting to seem like we were aping Friends."
Monty Brinton/CBS via Getty; Reisig & Taylor/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
The cast of 'How I Met Your Mother' and the cast of 'Friends' in 2005 and 1994, respectively“Of course we knew that the poster for the show was going to look like a Friends-esque show,” he says. “We were nervous that it would seem like we were trying to be too much like Friends.”
“The way we tried to differentiate ourselves immediately was just to show that we had this different storytelling structure,” Thomas explains.
While the show’s main storylines centered on the misadventures of Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor), Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris), Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders), Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel) and Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan) in the present day, HIMYM’s unique framing device featured the voice of Bob Saget as an older version of Ted narrating the story of how he met his future wife to his two teenage children 30 years later.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
CBS via Getty
Neil Patrick Harris, Cobie Smulders, Josh Radnor, Jason Segel and Alyson Hannigan in 'How I Met Your Mother' in 2005“We would play with time, we would play with narrative, we would play with flashbacks and flash forwards,” Thomas explains. “And our hope was that the rhythm and the storytelling style, immediately, in the pilot, indicates that whether you love or hate How I Met Your Mother, you're not going to hold against it that it's just trying to completely emulate Friends, because we weren't. We were hoping not to do that.”
Thomas, however, is quick to note that he’s a “huge fan of Friends.”
“I went through college watching Friends,” he says. “When people come up to me and say, ‘How I Met Your Mother was my college show, we all watched it together every week,’ I'm like, ‘That's exactly what I did with Friends, just a little mini half a generation before you, or thereabouts.’ ”
“So, I hugely love and respect Friends,” Thomas adds, “but I really didn't want to seem like we were yet another show trying to be that.”
Thomas and Radnor will look back at the series through a different lens beginning March 10 with the debut of their rewatch podcast, How We Made Your Mother.
Read the original article on People
