How I Met Your Mother aged even faster than the average sitcom, but it’s still worth watching today. Comedy notoriously ages faster than any other genre. An old horror movie from the ‘60s or ‘70s might feel a lot slower than a horror movie that came out this year, but it’ll still creep an audience out.
But comedy is different. There have been timeless comedies whose absurdism transcends the period in which they were produced, from The Naked Gun to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But for the most part, since humor often relies on contemporary reference points and comedy is intrinsically tied to the social climate it was made in, comedies usually age badly.
Even by the usual standards, How I Met Your Mother aged really quickly, partly because there’s been a massive social upheaval in the last decade. The show’s reference points are outdated, but even more so than that, a lot of its comedic premises have become antiquated. But still, it’s a great sitcom that everyone should watch.
Despite Airing In The 2000s, How I Met Your Mother Has Aged Surprisingly Fast
A Lot Of HIMYM Doesn’t Hold Up Today
How I Met Your Mother only premiered 20 years ago, and it ended its run just over a decade ago, but it’s already aged pretty poorly. The character of Barney Stinson, in particular, would not fly today. He’s a misogynist who treats women like objects and pathologically lies his way into anonymous sex. In a post-#MeToo era, Barney is a villain.
When the show was on the air, it presented its protagonist Ted Mosby as a nice guy that any woman would be lucky to have. But in the years since, Ted has been reevaluated as a “nice guy” — a guy who thinks he’s a hopeless romantic and the perfect boyfriend, but is actually selfish, pushy, and toxic.
And it’s not just the chauvinistic elements of How I Met Your Mother that have aged badly; there are a lot of cultural references that age it, too. With references to Lost, The Wire, Pearl Jam, Neil Strauss, The Departed, and that viral video résumé that got circulated on YouTube, you can really tell it’s a product of the 2000s.
It’s not uncommon for a sitcom to show its age, but there are much older shows than How I Met Your Mother that still hold up today. The golden age of The Simpsons was surprisingly progressive for the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. The political discussions in All in the Family are surprisingly relevant today, half a century after it aired.
Aging Is A Problem For Many Sitcoms, Including The One Most Similar To HIMYM
Friends Has The Same Issue
When How I Met Your Mother first premiered, it was one of many shows in the wake of Friends that set out to become the next Friends: a lighthearted sitcom about a group of twentysomething pals navigating work and relationships. There was also New Girl, Coupling — even The Big Bang Theory aped that style in its later seasons.
How I Met Your Mother was arguably the most successful of the Friends clones, since it ran for almost as long as Friends and became just as ubiquitous in pop culture. But Friends had the same problem as How I Met Your Mother: it aged surprisingly quickly after it went off the air.
There’s a lot of regressive humor in Friends that doesn’t play well today. All the jokes about the male nanny feel unnecessarily cruel now that it’s been destigmatized. There are a lot of homophobic and transphobic storylines, like the running gag that people assume Chandler is gay or the mistreatment of Chandler’s transgender parent.
Joey makes a shockingly inappropriate joke about Emma’s 18th birthday when she’s still a baby. Ross does everything in his power to prevent his infant son from playing with dolls. Monica is constantly body-shamed whenever there’s a flashback to her adolescence. All these indiscretions come together to give Friends the same rapid-aging problem as How I Met Your Mother.
Why How I Met Your Mother Is Still Worth Watching, 20 Years After Its Premiere
The Jokes Haven’t All Aged Well, But The Emotions Still Land
Although parts of it have aged terribly, How I Met Your Mother is still worth watching. A lot of the jokes don’t fly today, but the emotions still land. The writers of this show had a way of tapping into universally relatable situations like breakups, long-distance relationships, and the loss of a parent in a way that feels surprisingly real.
How I Met Your Mother had the makings of a typical network sitcom — multi-camera filming, a laugh track, a handful of recurring sets, etc. — but it feels much truer to life than a standard artificial sitcom. That’s one of the things How I Met Your Mother did so much better than Friends; the melodramatic moments land a lot more effectively.
The misogynistic humor hasn’t aged well, but a lot of the show’s humor has an absurdity that feels timeless. It uses zany conceits like time travelers or an imaginary talk show or an anthropomorphic magazine cover as an outside-the-box way to approach mundane but profoundly relatable everyday situations. How I Met Your Mother is still a must-see for sitcom fans.
