That's Much Better

The alternate ending for the final episode of "How I Met Your Mother" to be included on the Season 9 DVD was leaked to the internet.



Isn't that better than the actual ending, even though I didn't really hate it?

How I Met Your Dead Mother

And Ended Up With the Woman I Really Wanted the Entire Time

I really don’t know how to feel about the series finale of “How I Met Your Mother”. So let me start with a big sweeping generalization.

Women ruin everything, but especially sitcoms. When sitcoms are designed only for men they are funny. When sitcoms are designed to appeal to the female audience too, they become sappy and every couple that’s “supposed” to be together ends up together. It may be hard to remember this now, but “Friends” was actually funny when it started. But then the female fans started to clamor for certain characters to be coupled with other characters and it became an incestuous mess.

I firmly believe that’s what happened here. The female fans, and probably the female writers, and maybe some of the males, wanted Ted to end up with Robin in the end. It just felt right.

I actually kind of agree, untilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll they called her Aunt Robin for the first time. [I thought that happened in the season one series finale, evidently it was the first episode, but still my point remains]. Once they did that, they should have thrown the whole idea out the window. I know they didn’t want it to be too obvious (people would have bitched), but if it felt right, it would have felt right.

And if we’re looking at it from the sappy point of view why not make Ted and Tracy a happy couple who shares their life together. That’s how the show started, Ted running through all the wrong women because he believed in love and that he would eventually find the right one, the love of his life he was looking for.

I loved the scene when he finally met my mother under the yellow umbrella at the train station. And they talked about all their near misses, and all the luck that brought them together.

As I was watching I thought this would have worked out really well. Lily in her white whale costume, Robin walking out the door, and instead of Robin being Ted’s white whale. Ted became Robin’s. The symmetry would have been beautiful.

But they ruined the ending. It could have been beautiful, he went through all the trials and tribulations of looking for love and finally found the one perfect woman for him. Why did they have to kill her off and get him together with Robin? Girlz is dumb.

There have been many series finales (Sopranos and Seinfeld come to mind) that people hated because they weren’t true to the show.

Note: I sort of felt this way about “Breaking Bad”

But that’s bullshit. Sopranos was a mob show, we were never promised some deep look into the makeup of the American family. How I Met Your Mother is a comedy. Its only mission is to be funny. I think the finale failed on that point a little, because too many sad things happened (Barney-Robin divorce, deterioration of the gang and of course my mother’s death) and it wasn’t all that funny.

But I don’t think they degraded the entire series by making it about my mother who in the end didn’t necessarily turn out to be the real love of Ted’s life. Nor do I think the entire final season was a waste just because it focused on a wedding for a marriage that didn’t last.

My problem with the final season and especially the final episode is that they weren’t all that funny.

But as a whole, I do feel a little bit good about the way the series ended, with Ted and Robin and the blue French horn as the final image of a show I really enjoyed for a really long time.

I Met Joe

I've been reading a lot of reviews on the season finale of "How I Met Your Mother" most of them were negative, implying the reveal wasn't dramatic enough or my mother wasn't shocking enough ("I waited 8 years for that" was the general sentiment). I just kind of wrote those negative Nellies off as the cynics who troll the internet without ever saying anything nice. I was happy to read an article on the New York Post that was a little more favorable, and like me, hopeful about what will transpire in the final season.

But I was unhappy to read what the Post titled the post.



"How I met yo mama!!!!!!!"

The Post has since changed it to simply what the article was headlined, which is standard for pretty much every other newspaper site. I'm not exactly sure how a mistake like this happened but my internet experts say there was probably an internal line where the writer used this flippant shorthand to title the story, and it accidentally got copied and pasted into something that would be made public.

Not a big deal, actually kind of funny, and the kind of stuff only the Poop notices, and only the Poop brings to you, my loyal Poopheads.

I Have Met My Mother

Her name is Cristin Milloti, and she is my mother. Finally, on the finale of the 8th season of "How I Met Your Mother" they revealed the titular "mother."
She was carrying the yellow umbrella and wearing the cute boots that Lilly is going to borrow because they are the same size. And I am assured that this is not a pump fake, this is really her.



I really liked this episode in its entirety even before the reveal. The stuff with Ted still being in love with Robin is a bit much. Barney and Robin trying to break up that couple was quite funny (yes that was Penny from "Happy Endings"). And although the Marshall judge thing was totally unrealistic, I do understand they are trying to set up some major tension between Marshall and Lily for the 9th and final season.

I think there is plenty of material for a very strong final season. There are a lot of loose ends that could be tied up as well as enough fun stuff to do with the courtship (I'm assuming they will jam pack next season so that it ends with the wedding, or better yet the birth of the kids, or better yet until the day he is telling them the story). It should be a great final season to bring a show that started off as a 10, and fell to a six, back up to its rightful perch.

But for now the big question is, who do the kids resemble most?

We Prepared You For the Week in Pop Culture

Like most of you I agree the "Fred Sanford" is a much better dance craze than "The Bernie," which as slept the Oakland area.
Now one of Oakland's most prominent athletes, Stephen Curry, demonstrated the Bernie while running back down court after hitting the 10th of his 11 3-pointers against the Knicks in a 54-point tour de force performance.



But that wasn't the only time the Universe brought us a "Weekend at Bernie's" reference this week. There was also a very clever open to the latest episode of "How I Met Your Mother". The link isn't working so I will just set up the premise for you if you missed it. In Barney's Playbook of ways to get laid, there was a gambit called "Weekend at Barney's" with Barney playing the role of Bernie and Ted and Marshall as Jonathan Silverman and Andrew McCarthy.

Don't Believe the Hype

The 100th episode of "How I Met Your Mother" was a disappointment on a couple levels.

First, I wasn't thrilled with the show's ballyhooed musical number "Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit."


Note: for some reason the normally youtube friendly HIMYM producers didn't put the full song and dance on the web. All the versions I could find were mirrored. So check out the writing on the newspaper dispenser. You may want to watch this while holding your computer up to a mirror.


Second, I was hopeful Rachel Bilson would be my mother. I fell in love with her on "The O.C." when everyone else was going gaga over heroin-chic Mischa Barton. But that got shot down pretty early on.








That brings me to the conundrum about my mother. It seems clear to me now that they never plan to reveal my mother until they have an end date for the series. She'll either be introduced in the final episode (a typical network trick) or early in the final season which would give them so many great opprtunities for fast forwards until 2030 (which I think would make the final season legend -- wait for it -- dary!)

I don't have a problem with them waiting because I don't watch the show to find out who my mother is. That's not the point. I watch it because it's funny regardless of the plotline hanging above the show like The Sword of Damocles.

But I actually wouldn't mind if the outed my mother sooner rather than later because I trust them to do smart and funny courtship and maybe even marriage episodes.

After all, these are the same people who cast Stacy Keibler as the hot bartender.

Someone actually told me she didn't think Stacy Keibler has big enough boobs to play the part of a bartender with big boobs. That may be true but she's got a GREAT ASS!







In another bit of inspired casting Carrie Underwood makes her acting debut in a HIMYM episode set to air in March.

How I Met Your Mother Turns 100

The 100th episode of "How I Met Your Mother" airs on Monday and it features a 2 and a half minute song and dance number with 65 dancers and a 50 piece orchestra.



I don't like spoilers but I will say the song is in praise of the suit, after a girl Barney tries to bang doesn't like men who wear them.


Note: Anyone who took a class at Syracuse taught by Professor Bob Thompson surely knows 100 episodes is the former benchmark a show needed to reach before it could be syndicated. In the 100th episode of "St. Elsewhere" a patient named Cindy Cation survived 100 episodes of angina.

Like Those Pictures of Dogs Playing Poker

I love dogs. I love poker. But I hate those pictures of dogs playing poker.

That's sort of the way I feel about this CBS ad, a mashup of "Frosty the Snowman" and some classic Barney Stinson (NPH) lines from "How I Met Your Mother."



Parents groups are outraged over this saying a childhood classic should not be used in this way, especially since the dialogue they chose is particularly racy.

Personally, I just never understand why something is funny just because it's delivered by someone you wouldn't expect like babies cursing and old white people acting black.

But I like whiny complainers and complaining whiners even less than I like unfunny jokes. So I side with CBS here and say no long-term damage will come to any children who google "Frosty the Snowman" and get this clip instead.

Stella is Not My Mother

In his never ending quest to ruin every TV show for me Isaacs texted me immediately after “How I Met Your Mother” to tell me my mother was revealed. But we all know that Stella is not my mother so Isaacs didn’t ruin anything for me. Ted running into Stella again will evidently lead him to meet my mother, sometime soon hopefully.

Isaacs seems to think the pending reveal is a bad omen for the show but I fully expect at least two more seasons, and if they ended after that, I’d be fine with it. I’d rather they ended it on a peak, instead of dragging out the main storyline with contrived twists worthy of “24.”

But HIMYM shows no signs of slowing down, in fact, this episode was one of my favorites ever.

First of all, the entire conversation about the vagaries of the universe sounded like everything I’ve been saying on this blog for years. And the subsequent explanations (the food poisoning at Schlegel’s bagels, the dollar a day deal with the bum) were hysterical.

Ted says "a butterfly flaps its wings and it starts to rain." I've written about that too.

And Marshall’s charts (a pie chart about bars and a bar chart about pies) absolutely killed me.




And the one about Cecilia was very similar to an old Poop post.



Thanks for reading guys and keep up the good work.

If You're Into That Sort of Thing

Thanks to President Obama and his big speech last Monday night, CBS had to rearrange its schedule at the last minute, pulling the plug on a new episode of "How I Met Your Mother" and delaying it until March 2nd.
But the episode was leaked online.
I've posted it here for those of you who can't wait, don't wanna wait or love the allure of the forbidden.
As for me, I will wait two more weeks to watch it so Mrs. Poop and I can enjoy it without smushing our faces together like slutty girls in their Facebook pictures. Even though our computer monitor is pretty big.
Anyway, if you choose to watch "The Stinsons" constrain your commentary to a cursory nature so as not to ruin the episode for those choosing to wait (like non-slutty girls).

The Naked Man

I'm sure millions of impressionable youngsters (I would do it) are already enacting the latest bit of genius from an episode of "How I Met Your Mother."
The "naked man" seems just crazy enough to work.
The entire episode was completely awesome, but nothing was as funny as Ted and Barney discussing the naked poses.






And did we catch a little bit of foreshadowing? When Ted was talking about the strange things he walked in on at the apartment, the scene with the goat pointed to May 8, 2009, right around sweeps, maybe for the season finale?



The goat has actually been mentioned a couple of times before but the story was never told completely. I think we can expect the denouement soon.

Don't Call It a Comeback, She's Been Here For Years

Many people had written of the career of Meadow Soprano aka Jamie-Lynn Sigler. They said she was typecast as the mob boss's daughter. But I knew she was more than that.
And in one short span of time she showed what kind of actress she can be.
On Sunday night she was a foul-mouthed slut, playing herself on "Entourage" and phoning Turle for a late-night booty call.
But Meadow came back, the very next day, and killed it as a foul-mouthed slut, playing a "wooo girl" on "How I Met Your Mother."
And damn did she look good riding that mechanical bull.

The Magic is Back

After a couple of subpar episodes to start the season "How I Met Your Mother" returned to its former glory with "Intervention."
The thing I love about this show is even when they do ridiculous stuff, it's written creatively and intelligently. The "Barney from the Future" gimmick was absolutely hysterical.
The writers just have a creative way of telling a story. This show is so much better at illustrating a point than any other show on TV. Their liberal use of flashbacks always keeps the show moving.
When explaining the hole in the wall, they made you believe it was Robin playing hockey, or Robin and Lilly fighting, but then we realized it was Barney fist that created the hole.



The series of interventions that followed (Marshall's hat, Lily's British accent, Robin's spray tanning, Barney's magic tricks) were hysterical but unfortunately it led to an emotional moment when they all told Ted they didn't want him to marry Stella.

I thoroughly enjoyed Robin's use of the word douchey. That's douchey, not doo-shay.

Of course the episode ended with a potentially weird twist, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here, because obviously the show needs the apartment and McLaren's. And Stella is not my mother.

Is My House Bugged?

Last fall I vented my frustrations at an asshole co-worker by using his name in place of the word "poop" in my daily conversations. When that co-worker was seriously injured in an accident I realized the power I wielded.
I led the Redskins to 3 late season victories by employing this method to jinx the opposing quarterbacks.
For instance, "I have to go take an Eli Manning," "I changed a Tarvaris Jacksony diaper," "I'm taking Diesel out, I need a Tony Romo bag."
Needless to say I was very surprised when this rhetorical method was utilized in an episode of "How I Met Your Mother."
Ted demonstrated his hatred for New Jersey with the line "I gotta drop a massive New Jersey."
This is not the first time a joke I've used has appeared in this show. The first episode featured Stella using a similar version of my popular refrain ("I just lost my erection") when she said "I'm losing wood here."

So far this season of HIMYM has been a little disappointing, I really thought they were pursuing a cheesy, sappy angle in the first episode when Barney fell for Robin. That fear emerged again when Barney made a sad face after Robin announced she's going to Japan to be a foreign correspondent.



I'm really hoping they don't turn Barney into a gay pussy who pines for Robin. He's at his best when he's womanizing and making crude jokes like the line of the year so far, from Episode 2: "I love this burger so much, I want to sew my ass shut."

Bracket Buster

Another subpar (relatively) episode of "How I Met Your Mother." It seems to me that since returning from the strike the show is more concerned with dropping subtle hints about my mother than actually being funny.
And what I loved about the first 2 seasons was that there wasn't this overarching need to solve a mystery. Sure the mystery was out there, but whenever we found out the answer was fine, so long as we were entertained in the meantime.
The weak attempt to bring March Madness into the show felt contrived, like Emmitt Smith's guest appearance when they were trying to do a Super Bowl tie-in.
The crazy chick bracket was amusing, of course the writers shine when they have to show their creativity.
I also liked when Robin said she was going to be the hot decoy. She was!



The Nicole Eggert guest appearance was also a welcome surprise, though I'm pissed they ruled her out as my mother.

[Correction: That was not Nicole Eggert. Holly was played by Maite Schwartz. Sorry for the false alarm.]

But of course the show ended with that one great scene that really saved the episode:



I'm glad they gently spoofed Doogie, they needed to do it at some point, but not overdo it. This was perfect.

And of course I also enjoyed the show's creative synergy, as TedMosbyisaJerk.com is a real website and it unveils the cover of the famous movie starring Ted Mosby, "Lance Hardwood: Sex Architect."

A Brit Part

It was another "How I Met Your Mother" episode that seemed thrown together too quickly because of CBS's ambitious return date after the writers' strike.

Britney wasn't bad, her character was just useless. I liked Sarah Chalke and thought she looked way hotter than she ever looked on Scrubs, but there just weren't that many funny parts.

It just seemed as if Britney's character was thrown in. And I know her final scene with NPH was thrown in, and you could tell.



The scene where Ted and Stella discussed Abby, or Alan and when Britney returned Ted's book, were both incredibly stupid.



I also didn't really like the 2 minute date (although it produced a good line “The last two minute date I had gave me a daughter”), but it was shot in real time with no edits, so that makes it cool.

Sarah Chalke apparently brought her own lab coat from Scrubs because it's tailored to her.



The interlude where Barney convinces Ted to grow a mustache to win a bet, was hysterical. And capped with "I woulda done it for free," really saved the episode for me.

Hopefully they'll get back in the groove once the pre-strike ideas are finished.

Btw, I hope you all noticed Stella's reference to a St. Patrick's Day party. I think that's another red herring, she is not my mother.

We Waited 3 Months For This?

I was very disappointed with the comeback episode of "How I Met Your Mother."
The Ted-Barney storyline was not really that amusing and Barney didn't even have that many funny lines.

Vanessa Minillo can't act and didn't even look that hot.



The Marshall-Lily story was absurd (is this the same apartment that's in Dowisetrepla?) but there were a couple funny lines about the ghost of the Confederate general and his courtly Southern manners.
But perhaps my senese were heightened because I read an article saying that the show is trying to avoid episodes with A and B storylines in favor of episodes which feature the entire Fab 5 in scenes together.

I am encouraged by the fact that we are advancing to finding out who my mother is. We know she has a yellow umbrella and we know she was at the party and now we know Ted has her yellow umbrella. My only fear is that they will drag this out. I'm hoping they'll introduce her in the season finale this year. I think they can do that and continue on with the show because it's not as if people are watching just to find out who my mother is. As long as the show continues to be well-written, smart and funny, people will continue watching once Ted and my mother get together.



Did we already meet my mother? We saw Ted bump into a random woman at the club and nothing else happened with her. Personally, I don't think she's my mother, I think it was just a trick to get people talking. If she is my mother, her name is Nicole Muirbrook Wagner and she's pretty unaccomplished to get what I think will be a key role.



Have You Met Ted? says that in next week's episode, the doctor who removes Ted's tramp stamp will be played by Sarah Chalke from Scrubs. Alicia Silverstone originally was cast for the role but dropped out when Britney Spears signed on because she didn't want to be overshadowed. And because Chalke couldn't find more time in her busy schedule, the Stella character will only be in one episode, at least this season.

Welcome Back

I was going to put off this post until Monday but I might as well say it now: "How I Met Your Mother" is coming back on Monday, March 17, St. Patrick's Day, finally!
The Chicago Tribune has a great article about what we can expect from the rest of the season, but if you like to go in completely fresh, don't read it, there is a lot of info, not spoilers, but info.
Here a couple things I think are important enough to point out without giving too much away. Monday's episode was salvaged from before the strike, and the New Year's Eve setting was changed to St. Patrick's Day.
Vanessa Minillo guest stars.
And Britney Spears, yes Britney Spears got her act together long enough to film a guest spot on the March 24 episode.
And lots of other good stuff is in store for us as well.
I can't wait.

Brotherly Love

Now that we're all married and have kids, my brother and sister and our spouses decided we would no longer exchange gifts for birthdays or Hanukah, only the kids would get presents.
But due to my constant raving about "How I Met Your Mother," Master Bates decided to break this rule and he bought me the first two seasons of HIMYM on DVD.
This should help me get through however long it is until the writers go back to work and we get some new episodes.
This also comes at a time when two Poopheads, SCZA and Jems, stopped fighting it and finally gave into the temptation to catch up on all the episodes so far, 55 I think.
I would get frequent texts from SCZA about episodes I hadn't seen in two years. My recall of them surprised even me.
Mary the Paralegal was of course a highlight, I can't wait to rewatch them all.
Thanks Master.

How I Met Your Mother - The Last Episode For A While

With the writers' strike dragging on there won't be any new episodes of the best show on TV for at least a couple months. But thankfully the show went out on a high note.
"The Platinum Rule" encapsulated many of the things that I love about this show, but most importantly its willingness to be the exact opposite of everything else on TV, and to do it brilliantly.
The fact that the point of the show is to find out who my mother is, but we never find ourselves just wanting to find out already. The journey is more rewarding than the destination.
Any other show would constantly be promising hints at who my mother is and every episode would have to end with some clue (or a loud explosion) but in this show, the episodes that don't advance the show's main plot are often the best ones.

The episode starting with the gang warning Ted not to date his doctor, the one who is going to remove his tramp stamp. "If you have it removed how will everyone know you're a stripper from Reno with daddy issues."



As usual the episode was perfectly crafted and the story flowed perfectly from Barney's story (Wendy the waitress) to Marshall and Lilly's story (the charades loving neighbors) to Robin's story (the hockey playing sports guy). And for each of those times they used the previous instances as a warning, but no one ever listened.

This episode was a perfect example of what I like in a TV show, movie, personal encounter...a good story, well told.

Too bad we won't have anymore good stories for a while.