The final season of How I Met Your Mother keeps trucking along — allegations of racism, slap-based 90s R&B cameos and all — toward its one-hour series finale on March 31, and once it gets there, it’s going to take us all on brief trip on the wayback machine. Specifically, to 2006, when one of the finale’s pivotal scenes was filmed after executive producers Carter Bays and Craig Thomas realized that the kids on the couch who have been hearing every last bit of their father’s sexual history in terrifying detail were getting older awfully fast.
In 2006, with the series in its second season and the possibility existing that it could be on for several more years, Bays and Thomas realised they’d better film that final scene right away. After all, the actors were growing up, would soon look different and wouldn’t even be able to fit in the clothes they wear while sitting on the couch.
So one day Bays and Thomas brought the young actors in, closed the set to all but one camera operator, and filmed the two-minute scene that will bring the series to a close. [David] Henrie and [Lyndsy] Fonseca signed nondisclosure agreements. So intent on keeping the secret, Fonseca put it out of her mind and doesn’t even remember what they filmed, Thomas said on Wednesday.
Through all the seasons that have come since, there hasn’t been any reason to change it, he said.
“It’s been the plan all along,” he said. “What you see on March 31 has been the plan. We leave the series with a certain message that we wanted to convey.”
I imagine the most difficult part of all of that was converting the footage from the original VHS tape to digital. We were still using VHS in 2006, right? I’m not good with time. What year did LaserDiscs come out? I don’t know. I’m sure they’ll figure it out.
Bays also revealed that they had a contingency plan in place from the beginning in case CBS canceled the series before they got to the mother they always intended Ted to marry: it was going to be Victoria, the baker from Season 1, played by Ashley Williams.
Whatever. I’m still furious that Rachel Bilson wasn’t the mother. Summer > Robin Scherbatsky > Anna > Every girl Ted dated on HIMYM.
Source: News.com.au, photo via CBS