Television series

How I Met Your Mother

Name: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Released: 2005
Cast: Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan

Nine seasons of a bedtime story that keeps changing its mind. Future Ted narrates his own twenties to his kids, dressing up every heartbreak as a necessary detour toward 'the mother' — but the real draw is the group's chemistry: Barney's schemes, Marshall and Lily's marriage, Robin's ambivalence about settling down. It's nostalgic, structurally clever comfort TV for people who like their romance told backwards, with punchlines.

TVMaze rating

7.8

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Friends1994

The blueprint for the hangout sitcom HIMYM is riffing on — same apartment-and-coffee-shop rhythm, same tangled will-they-won't-they energy spread across a friend group that feels like a family.

But Overexposed and occasionally dated in its attitudes toward gender and sexuality; you may have already seen every episode twice.

Cheers1982

The bar-set ancestor of every ensemble sitcom that followed, with a slow-burn central romance and a supporting cast whose bickering never gets old across eleven seasons.

But Multi-camera pacing and studio-audience laughs feel old-fashioned now, and the setup takes a season or two to click.

Scrubs2001

Nobody swings between broad comedy and genuine gut-punch drama better — fantasy sequences and workplace farce sit right next to real grief, much like HIMYM's tonal whiplash.

But The hospital setting and heavier medical storylines can feel like a tonal detour if you just want breezy romance.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Wonder Years1988

Ted's narration to his kids is a direct descendant of Kevin Arnold's grown-up voiceover — an adult sifting nostalgia for the moment that mattered, decades before HIMYM borrowed the device wholesale.

An adult narrator looks back on his teenage years, turning ordinary heartbreaks into the shape of a life — tender, funny, and quietly devastating in ways HIMYM only gestures at.

But Slower, more melancholic, and set in the late 1960s suburbs — a very different texture from a New York bar comedy.

New Girl2011

A loft full of oddballs, a slow-building romance, and jokes that land fast — it's the closest modern equivalent to the group dynamic Ted's friends provide.

But Leans harder into quirk and less into the nostalgic narration gimmick; some seasons wobble in quality.

The Office2005

Mockumentary format aside, it has the same gift for turning a found family into something you genuinely miss when it ends, with romance woven through the comedy.

But Starts shakily in season one, and the tone is drier and more cringe-based than HIMYM's warmth.

Modern Family2009

Interview-style asides and an oversized extended family deliver the same comfort-food warmth, with jokes that rarely miss for a solid five seasons.

But The formula repeats hard across eleven seasons and rarely surprises once you've seen a few episodes.

Parks and Recreation2009

A found-family sitcom with real character growth and genuine sweetness — friendships you root for the way you root for Marshall and Lily.

But Season one is rough, and the romance is more of a side note than HIMYM's central engine.

Community2009

A study group standing in for a friend group, with wild formal experimentation — genre parodies, timelines, meta jokes — that plays with structure the way HIMYM plays with memory.

But Uneven due to behind-the-scenes turmoil, and its absurdist streak is a different flavor of funny.

Happy Endings2011no page yet

Rapid-fire, underrated, and packed with the same tangled friend-group romance and banter, minus the framing device — pure hangout comedy at speed.

But Short-lived and less widely known, so it lacks the deep bench of callbacks and lore HIMYM built up.

(500) Days of Summer2009

Same trick as Ted's flashbacks — reordering a relationship's timeline to reveal how it really happened — but stripped of the sitcom cushioning and set to an indie soundtrack instead of a laugh track.

A nonlinear breakdown of exactly how a relationship started, soared, and fell apart, told with the same structural playfulness as HIMYM but compressed into one sharp, bittersweet feature.

But Deliberately subverts the romantic-comedy payoff you might be hoping for; it's more interested in disillusionment than closure.

Blue Valentine2010

It takes HIMYM's founding promise — a story about how you find the person you end up with — and answers it honestly, refusing the warm hindsight that makes Ted's version so easy to swallow.

Cuts between a couple's giddy courtship and their unraveling marriage, delivering the rawest, least sentimental version of 'this is how I met the person I loved' you'll ever see.

But Bleak, unflinching, and emotionally exhausting — the opposite of comfort viewing, with no laugh track to soften the blow.