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.

Robin and Barney resist their friends’ pressure that they should have “the talk” about their relationship. Meanwhile, a panicky Ted, about to face his first college class, decides he must keep control of his students by releasing his “inner douche” — a tactic that backfires miserably…

PRETTY GIRL:- A student in Ted’s beginning architecture class, this pretty young college coed appears in Ted’s nightmare, belittling him and questioning his credentials. In class, she proves a perfectly polite young woman who is just trying to give Ted a head’s up that he’s making a fool out of himself -sptv050769- but he’s not listening…3 speeches & 3 lines, 1 scene (2)

GIRL 2 AND 3, GUY AND GUY 2:- These college students are also beginning architecture students who feature in Ted’s nightmare. They rudely confront their new professor, questioning his abilities and his intelligence…1 speech, 2 scenes; 1 line, 2 scenes; 1 speech, 2 scenes; 1 line, 2 scenes respectively (20)

STUDENT:- This college student is perplexed when Ted fires a question at him about architecture (when this is actually a economics class)…1 line, 1 scene (41)

PROFESSOR CALZONETTI:- This veteran college economics professor clues Ted in on the fact that he’s been lecturing the wrong class in the wrong classroom…2 speeches, 1 scene (43)

STUDENT 2:- This architecture student lets Ted know that his gaffe has already made the rounds of YouTube…1 line, 1 scene (45)

Watch “Definitions” Episode Online

After being “in talks” to be the host of Primetime Emmy Awards this year, Neil Patrick Harris is now officially on duty to lead the event on Sunday, September 20. Sources are telling EW that the “How I Met Your Mother” star has signed the contract.

No statement is made yet from Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, but a formal announcement is expected to be made “early next week”. The annual event, which enters its 61st year, will be held at Los Angeles’ Nokia Theater and broadcast live by CBS. The nominations, meanwhile, will be revealed on Thursday, July 16.

With Harris as the host, the award show is expected to have an increase in rating after hitting an all-time viewership low last year. Emmy producers were under pressure to boost the rating since other award shows like the Oscar, MTV Awards, Grammys and Tonys have excelled in their recent ratings.

Neil Patrick Harris is fresh off hosting the 63rd Annual Tony Awards on June 7.

Neil Patrick Harris has seemingly done it all —he’s hosted the Tony Awards, headlined the internet sensation Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, starred on Broadway and has earned even more fans with his role as Barney Stinson on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Soon, however, the 36-year-old actor will get musical with Batman as he lends his voice in Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

Based in part on the DC Comics “team-up” series The Brave and the Bold, Batman: The Brave and the Bold features two or more super heroes coming together to solve a crime or foil a super villain. The series debuted on November 14, 2008 on Cartoon Network.

“This is a big obnoxious, Broadway-type musical,” joked Brave and the Bold producer James Tucker, who says Harris is “pitch perfect” in “Mayhem of the Music Meister!” as a former band-camp nerd turned megalomaniac.

According to Tucker, the Music Meister is a combination of various DC Comics villains and “has the power to create song wherever he goes, and he’s trying to dominate the world,” adding that the episode’s “plot itself is just the framework, an excuse to have everybody sing!”

“[It's] something [Harris can] contend with, as opposed to just a lark. It feels polished because of his vocals. And not just his singing, but his acting as the character, too. He nailed it. I showed him some drawings [of the character] and he got it instantly,” Tucker said of Harris, whose Broadway credits include a well-reviewed turn as the Master of Ceremonies in the revival of Cabaret.

Tucker and producer-story editor Michael Jelenic wrote five original songs for the episode.

Warner Bros. Animation will air “Mayhem of the Music Meister!” during its Brave and the Bold panel at Comic-Con International at the San Diego Convention Center on Friday, July 24, 10am/PT.

We’re going to let Ted sum up How I Met Your Mother’s fourth season. “That was the year I got dumped at the altar. The year I got fired. The year I got beaten up by a girl goat. It was the best year of my life.” We’re not sure if this season would qualify as our favorite, but it certainly was still a good one! We have plenty of How I Met Your Mother quotes to prove it.

Here’s a sampling of some of our favorite quotes from the season:

Barney: Bimbos make me happy. Bimbos make me feel alive. Bimbos make me want to pretend to be a better man. This whole thing with Robin was just a fling, but at the end of the day, my heart belongs to bimbos.



Ted: The lamb here is supposed to be great.
Nora: I am a vegan. I wish I could tune out that moral voice inside me that says eating animals is murder. But, I guess I’m just not as strong as you are.
Ted: That’s ’cause you need protein.

Ted: There aren’t any black people in Minnesota?
Marshall: Not if Prince is on tour.

Ted: Can’t you just leave the place open a little while longer? We’ll keep an eye on things.
Carl: You two? No way, you wouldn’t know the first thing about running a bar.
Barney: Serve the hotties first?
Carl: Here’s the keys.

Woman: You said that if I slept with you my son would get the part.
Barney: Well apparently I’m a better actor than your kid.

Ted: I never said I was gonna get back together with her. But I was thinking, she’s new in town, would it be the worst thing in the world if I gave her a call?
Marshall: No, no, Ted, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. It would be the fourth worst thing. Number one, supervolcano. Number two, an asteroid hits the earth. Number three, all footage of Evil Knievel is lost. Number four, Ted calls Karen. Number five, Lily gets eaten by a shark.
Lily: I’m Lily and I approve the order of that list.

Ted: Well after he proposed a vocational paradigm shift, I made an impromptu presentation using a four pronged approached that really brought him to his knees.
Barney: Hit him with a chair?
Ted: Yep

Just when you thought she was out … they pull her back in.

Sarah Chalke’s Stella resurfaced at the end of CBS’ How I Met Your Mother this week, and at a most interesting moment. Throughout the entire episode, Narrator Ted had set the stage for an encounter which, had it hot happened, his kids wouldn’t be here today.

Now, mind Adult Ted’s words carefully: Never did he tell his kids that this latest story — in which food poisoning, Barney’s 200th conquest and an intervention all led his younger self to this run-in — was about meeting their mother. After all, Ted has already met (and dated, and gotten engaged to, and been left at the altar by) Stella.

So, might this reunion beneath the tell-tale yellow umbrella instead kick off a new chain of events leading Ted to actually meet the Mother? CBS confirmed Tuesday that Chalke will guest-star in the next episode, as will Jason Jones, who in previous episodes has played Stella’s babydaddy, Tony.

The plot summary: “An old acquaintance who feels he’s ruined Ted’s life” — Tony, let’s presume — “insists on helping him find a job.”

Maybe that job opportunity brings Ted and his true love together? All a CBS rep will say is, “Stella plays a very important part in Ted’s future.”

Then again, maybe the bigger question on HIMYM fans’ minds is: When will CBS give the show a Season 5 pick-up?

Buffy The Vampire Slayer and How I Met Your Mother star Alyson Hannigan and husband Alexis Denisof (one of the stars of Angel) have a healthy baby daughter. The couple met during the 1999-2000 season of Buffy and this is their first child.

People reports that little Satyana Denisof was born March 24 and how wild is this, that’s Hannigan’s birthday too. Hannigan told people her strange pregnancy craving was ginger ale. She said she also felt a little absent minded during the process. Hannigan told talk show host Ellen DeGeneres she felt like a stoned Koala bear. There’s an image I can’t even completely wrap my head around.

But because it came from Alyson Hannigan, it suddenly sounds like a cool thing to say. I’m going to call someone a stoned Koala bear at the next available opportunity. Seriously though, congrats to one of SFUniverse’s favorite couples!

Image: Bauer-Griffin

Date of Birth: March 24, 1974

Birth Place: Washington D.C.
Eye Color:
Height:
5′6″

Actor Bio: By the age of 4 she was working in commercials. At the age of 11 she moved to LA to pursue acting. She worked in some hollywood productions however she didn’t become well known until her breakout role on the WB’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. Alyson worked on the show for seven years. Alyson is also well known for her roles in all of the American Pie movies where she was known as the ‘Band Camp Girl’.

In 2003 Alyson married her co-star Alexis Denisof.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Date of Birth: January 18, 1980

Birth Place: Los Angeles, California

Height: 6′ 4″

Actor Bio: He grew up playing basketball and the piano. His most memorable performance in film to this point has been in new-cult classic “Slackers” where he played Sam Schechter. Jason also had a recurring role in the cancelled “Undeclared”.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Date of Birth: July 29, 1974

Birth Place: Columbus, Ohio

Height: 6′

Actor Bio: He graduated from Kenyon College and NYU’s Tisch school of the arts. Josh has always had a strong presence in theatre; doing a lot of work for the “Manhattan Theatre Club”. Josh was also in “The Graduate” on Broadway.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Movies:

1. Not Another Teen Movie - Tour Guide (2001)

TV Series:

1. “How I Met Your Mother“ - Ted Mosby / … (2005-2007)
2. “Family Guy“ - Ted (2007)
3. “Judging Amy” - Justin Barr (2005)
4. “Everyday Life” - (2004)
5. “Miss Match” - Andrew (2003)
6. “Six Feet Under” - Will Jaffe (2003)
7. “ER“ - Keith (2003)
8. “The Court” - Dylan Hirsch (2002)
9. “Law & Order“ - Robert Kitson (2002)

“Welcome to New York” - Doug (2000)