JoAnna Garcia is coming to How I Met Your Mother as an old friend, and potential conquest, for Ted Mosby on How I Met Your Mother later this season, reports say. The Privileged alum will play Ted’s college buddy, Maggie, in “The Window.”

Maggie is described as the perfect “girl next door” type, the one every guy wants to marry as soon as he meets her. Only no one has. Ted senses an opportunity.

When he learns that Maggie is not a relationship for once in her life, ecstatic Ted rushes to make a move before his narrow “window of opportunity” closes for good.

Will he succeed? That’s doubtful, as Garcia is only signed on for a single episode. But some funny How I Met Your Mother quotes should come out of it at least.

Josh Radnor’s Ted Mosby has always had a thing for old friend Maggie (Joanna Garcia).

Garcia, who has also appeared on Gossip Girl this season, joins Rachel Bilson, Tim Gunn, Chris Elliott and Kenny Rogers as How I Met Your Mother guest stars this season.

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JoAnna Garcia has landed a guest spot on How I Met Your Mother as yet another potential conquest of Ted’s, TVGuide.com has learned exclusively.

The Privileged alum will play Ted’s college buddy, Maggie, in an upcoming episode called “The Window.” She’s described as the perfect girl next door who every guy wants to marry as soon as he meets her. So sought-after is Maggie that she’s always in a relationship, leaving Ted waiting and waiting for his shot at her. When he hears that she’s finally single, he rushes to her door in hopes that his “window of opportunity” has not elapsed.

Garcia, who has also appeared on Gossip Girl this season, joins Rachel Bilson, Tim Gunn, Chris Elliott and Kenny Rogers as Mother guest stars this season. Garcia is only signed on for one episode.

“The Window” airs Dec. 7 at 8/7c on CBS.

It will be difficult to top his guest-starring stint on Seinfeld - or at least the use of his name on that iconic sitcom - but singer Kenny Rodgers will guest star on an upcoming episode of How I Met Your Mother.

The crooner will appear on October 19.

During the installment titled “Dual Citizenship,” Ted and Marshall take a road trip to Chicago, as they try to recreate a cherished college memory. However, the plan hits a major snag when Lily tags along.

Somehow, this leads to a performance by the famous singer.

In other recent, major How I Met Your Mother casting news: Tim Gunn and Rachel Bilson will show up on the show’s 100th episode.

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Barney decides to return to his compulsive womanizing ways, after his brief foray into monogamy with Robin crashes and burns…

[CLAIRE] Late 20s, this beautiful girl is intrigued by Barney, who’s wearing a scuba diver’s suit. Taken aside by Lily and told some of Barney’s tangled history — she’s even more intrigued. When Barney breaks down and confesses that he’s terrified of dating women as himself (and not as some fake character), she agrees to go out with him as himself — an outcome that Barney has planned his entire day arranging…GUEST STAR (1)

[SHELLY] Late 20s, this sweet young woman is a teacher who works with Lily. She agrees to have a meet-and-greet date with Ted at the bar — only Barney gets there first. Manipulated into believing that he’s a famous billionaire explorer and a highly eligible bachelor, she goes back with him to his apartment — an episode that leaves both Ted and Lily intent on revenge…GUEST STAR (3)

[ROBERTA] Late 20s, an attractive girl, she meets Barney at the Empire State Building, and breaks down in tears when he lies, telling her that her boyfriend isn’t showing for their date. Needing a shoulder to cry on, she goes back with him to his apartment — and takes the opportunity to steal Barney’s Playbook — for Roberta is a plant, sent by Lily to capture the Playbook.sptv050769..GUEST STAR (5)

[GIRL] Late 20s, this very attractive girl falls for Barney’s latest ploy: that he’s a secret astronaut with Secret NASA, the kind the government never talks about…1 scene (4)

[GIRL 2] Late 20s, this girl in the bar is deeply impressed when Barney tackles the infamous Ice Pick Killers (aka Ted) right in front of her…1 scene (5)

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Lily’s father is coming to How I Met Your Mother, series creator Carter Bays tells TVGuide.com exclusively.

“We’re going to meet Lily’s dad later in the season. He hasn’t been cast yet,” Bays says. “It will sort of explain a lot about Lily: why she is the way she is, why she’s kind of a control freak.”

Avid fans will recall that Papa Aldrin was not seen at Lily and Marshall’s wedding in Season 2 — and there’s a reason for that, Bays says.

“He was not at the wedding. It’s a bit of an estranged relationship and he’s going to come back into her life,” Bays says. “We find out he wasn’t the best dad. It’s sort of at the root of why Marshall’s very gung-ho about having kids and Lily not so much.”

Lily’s dad will appear in the season’s Thanksgiving episode and Bays says the Mother crew is currently looking at “a lot of people” for the “fun part.”

Season 5 of How I Met Your Mother premieres Monday at 8/7c on CBS.

Who do you think should play Lily’s dad? And what do you think happened between father and daughter?

How I Met Your Mother’s fifth season will pick up right where the fourth season finale left off now that the cat is out of the bag: Robin finally finds out Barney’s love for her, which she then reciprocates. Sure, we want these two to end up together more than anything but do we really want to see a lot of TV-relationship cliches on this show? Thankfully, series co-creator Craig Thomas assures fans things won’t be cheesy.  


Barney and Robin are going to decipher where their relationship is going when How I Met Your Mother returns for its fifth season on September 21 but that doesn’t mean they can’t have fun while they figure things out. And in Barney’s world, “having fun” means a lot of making out.

Neil Patrick Harris, who plays Barney, describes their bedroom scene “a dirty, dirty inevitability” and “a lusty endgame.” And since Cobie Smulders won’t have to hide her pregnant belly anymore (she has already given birth to her baby girl in May), fans can expect her character Robin to show a lot more skin on How I Met Your Mother this season.

Seeing this picture gets me all excited for the new season of How I Met Your Mother. Still, I can’t help but worry about how this will all affect Barney’s “awesomeness” and legendary antics now that Robin and Robin are a couple. But Harris has an interesting take on the whole situation, hinting that being in a relationship is not going to get him “Mosbyed.”

“He just has so many bad habits as far as strip clubs and shameless flirting goes, I don’t think he’s even contemplated that he would have to curtail any of that,” Harris told Entertainment Weekly. “So that’s an interesting wrinkle. In episode 2, he’s just business as usual — but with a girlfriend. But Barney can’t really exist in business as usual, with a girlfriend. I think the writers have got some good stuff to mine.”

Trying to recapture the glory days of their wild bachelorhood, Ted proposes that he and Marshall take a road trip to their favorite Chicago pizza parlor, but his trip down memory lane hits a huge snag when Lily tags along. Meanwhile, Barney’s needling Robin to become a U.S. citizen, but she can’t seem to overcome her innate Canadian-ness…

[MRS. CRUIKSHANK] This snooty, extremely proper 50-something woman is the owner operator of Crumpet Manor, a very precious Victorian bed and breakfast where Marshall, Ted and Lily stop during their road trip. She describes the sedate fun that can be had at her establishment, while Ted, who is in the mood for greasy pizzas and strippers, squirms…4 speeches & 3 lines, 2 scenes (25)

[WENDY THE CURLER] This very Canadian woman from an all-star Canadian curling team is partying down in the very Canadian Hoser Hut with her very Canadian teammates. They invite Robin along for a very Canadian spree, swilling Canadian beer and attending a Bryan Adams concert.sptv0507069..3 speeches, 2 scenes (36)

[BRUNO] This disheveled looking goombah works at Gazzola’s, a filthy Chicago pizza parlor whose oven hasn’t been cleaned in 100 years. He’s a bit taken aback by Ted and Marshall’s odd behavior, and he doesn’t appreciate it when Marshall inadvertently flashes him a partial moon…1 speech & 2 lines, 2 scenes (37)

[LUCY] This quintessentially Canadian counter girl, who works at a donut shop in Toronto, depresses Robin when she assumes that Robin is an American…3 speeches & 1 line, 1 scene (39)

[TURBANED MAN] Barney assumes this Middle Eastern-looking man is foreign, but he’s actually from Florida…1 line, 1 scene (48)

A sexless innkeeper is just the kind of thing you’d expect on a show like How I Met Your Mother. While you probably don’t have a clue as to how this person will stir the comedy up, I’m sure all sorts of crazy ideas are already running through your mind. Just hearing it actually sounds hilarious. But wouldn’t it be funnier if we knew the sexless innkeeper’s identity?

So who’s the sexless innkeeper? It’s none other than…Ted Mosby! When How I Met Your Mother returns this fall, we all know that he’s already landed an architectural teaching job at Columbia. He’s probably the same old Ted we’ve known for the past four seasons but to his students, he’s just the “Sexless Innkeeper.”

We’ll learn more about this when a batch of girls comes to his apartment and immediately fall asleep, according to Entertainment Weekly’s Michael Ausiello. Later, Ted is bummed when he realizes that he is a “Sexless Innkeeper” whose “dates” are only interested in a comfy place to crash.

Sounds funny? That’s not all you can expect from How I Met Your Mother’s fourth episode this season. We’ll also see Marshall and Lily, seeing that they’re not the only couple in the group anymore, wanting to hook up with Barney and Robin for some fun double-dating. However, their desperation and enthusiasm eventually becomes a huge turn-off.  

How I Met Your Mother kicks off its fifth season on Monday, September 21 at 8pm on CBS, serving as lead-in to new comedy, Accidentally on Purpose, which airs at 8:30pm.

Just a few days before production began on How I Met Your Mother: Season 5, I had the chance to talk to one of the show’s creators, Carter Bays. Season 4 ended with a couple of major plot developments, including Barney and Robin admitting their feelings for each other and Ted taking a job as a professor – where we know he will ultimately meet his wife to be, who is one of his students. Bays spoke about the next step in these plot turns and more.

IGN: At the end of last season, you went a long way towards revealing the mother. You know your fans will play Where’s Waldo with that last shot of Ted’s class.

Bays: We would expect nothing less from our fans! We were actually thinking of sneaking in… Someone had the idea of getting, like, Amy Adams, and just put her in the back row as an extra. So if you freeze it and you look carefully, it’s like, “Oh yeah! Wait a minute…” But we didn’t do that unfortunately.

IGN: I would assume you might still hold off awhile on actually introducing the mother, but the way the show works, she could be snuck in there at some point, right?

Bays: As always, we want to take our sweet time with it, but it’s definitely… The pond just got a little bit smaller. As opposed to saying she’s somewhere in the giant city of New York, she’s somewhere in this little world that Ted’s going to be in. Not every story is going to be in that world next year, but we’ll be seeing more and more of it and we’ll get tantalizingly closer than ever before.

IGN: Was it fun for you to do a bit of a bait and switch and then bait again with Stella?

Bays: That was tremendously fun and it was so cool to have someone like Sarah Chalke playing that role. She’s game for anything. There’s few actors where you can take a character that’s really sweet and lovable and turn her into a demon and then turn her into a sweet, lovable person again and have it be pulled off as seamlessly as it was. I think it’s to Sarah’s credit… It’s hard to not like her I think!

IGN: You must be very relieved to not have to hide pregnant actresses this season.

Bays: Oh, I don’t know what we’re going to do with all our giant purses and giant throw pillows! I guess we’ll have a giant purse charity auction or something.

IGN: She was obviously the one who was pregnant for more of the season, but you guys got especially creative with Alyson [Hannigan].

Bays: She didn’t give us much of a choice! She just walked in one day and said, “Guess what guys? You’re going to have to deal with this.” It was a fun challenge to have. There’s kind of a family first mentality at the show and more than anything we’re just so happy for Aly and Cobie [Smulders] and that they had beautiful, healthy babies. The whole thing was fun. It was fun that there’s now a second generation of How I Met Your Mother.

IGN: The Barney and Robin relationship has taken a big new step. As the season opens, how are they doing?

Bays: Well, it’s not classic happily ever after, to say the least. It’s two people that aren’t programmed for happily ever after and never would have prioritized that, were it not for the fact that they’re crazy about each other. So it’s going to be a bumpy road for them. We’ll have a lot of good stories. Now that things are out in the open for Barney and Robin, there’s a lot of fun to be had.

IGN: Anything you can tease about what’s to come?

Bays: There’s a lot of good stuff. Our 100th episode is going to be this year, and we’re writing a big musical number for that. That’s going to be fun. We’re going to finally get to see Neil [Patrick Harris] and the rest of the cast show off their musical theater chops. And I think you’ll be surprised. Everyone’s seen Cobie do her thing, but Josh [Radnor] is a bit of a song and dance man and Jason [Segel] of course has written his share of music too.

IGN: I know Alyson was very happy to have little to do on the Buffy musical. Will this be a similar situation?

Bays: We haven’t spring her aria on her yet, but she’s going to have a fifteen minute solo. Just a capella. It’s going to be great. I think she’ll be up for it.

IGN: Any hints as to what would cause all the characters to sing together?

Bays: It’s pure whimsy and fantasy. I think everyone at the show has pretty romantic sensibilities and it’s going to be classic, old time Hollywood, good old fashioned musical number.

How I Met Your Mother: Season 5 premieres Monday, September 21st at 8:00pm ET/PT on CBS.