Don't Call Yourself A Fan If You Don't Know If It Was Friends Or How I Met Your Mother
- by Alexandra Geist
- – on
- in Movies and TV
Friends and How I Met Your Mother are both iconic TV shows that are Netflix binge-watch favourites. They are both sitcoms, both follow a group of quirky friends, and both have characters that are super relatable. And let's not forget those oh so cheesy laugh tracks. Gotta love the '90s and early 2000s. True fans, though, would be able to tell the difference between these shows. Those "seen every episode" fans consider Marshall, Lily, Robin, Barney, Ted, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Ross, Phoebe, and Joey as their friends (Try to say all those names 5 times quickly...). We all grew up together. We figured out the world together. They are the true icons of "adulting is hard".
Whether you were rolling your eyes at another one of Ross' divorces, waiting on the edge of your seat to find out if this time, for real, Ted would finally meet his kids' mother. Maybe you imagined that you, too, could be a Canadian pop star like Robin Sparkles. Or laughed at how completely crazy Barney is at the bar. We laughed with them, we cried with them, and we definitely wanted to give them some tough love every now and then. We like to think we would have been great friends at one of Marshall's dinner parties, or Phoebe's coffee-house gigs.
In any case, take this quiz to find out if you are a true Friends and How I Met Your Mother fan. If you can distinguish between plot lines in the two series, we're very impressed. Good luck!
One of the leading ladies wins a hot-dog eating contest at a bar.
In this episode, the friends roast each other about what they still have on their resumés. Some have different accolades from their high school days, others have random contests that really add no value to work performance. One still has his radio DJ days on his resumé, one has his basketball dunking competition from before he left Minnesota, and one has a hotdog eating contest from many years ago still on hers. By the end of the episode, they delete their outdated resumé references, but this person decides to reclaim her title, eating 33 hot dogs in 8 minutes.
Someone dates a doctor named Stella
In both series, the guys date many people. Joey and Barney, we've lost count. And so have they, probably. So only a true How I Met Your Mother or Friends fan would remember that one of the guys in one of these popular sit-coms dated a doctor named Stella. He meets her when he is getting a tattoo removed. Stella is dating one of the guys, and actually gets engaged to him, before leaving him at the altar for her ex-boyfriend.
One of the guys teaches the girls self-defence
This is one of our favourite episodes of any sit-com ever. Too funny. In this episode of either How I Met Your Mother or Friends (that's up to you to decide!), one of the guys is convinced he can teach the girls self-defence. He is convinced that they won't be able to defend themselves against an attacker, so he tries to prove his point by choosing random times to attack the girls. They do, in fact, end up being able to take him down.
Someone steals a blue French horn
On two of our favourite characters' first date with each other, the restaurant that they are eating at has a blue French horn on the wall. The two make many jokes about it over the course of the series, and eventually he steals the blue French horn to give to her when he tells her he loves her (again... he says it for the first time on their first date. Smooth). Oh blue French horn, you've become a strange, adorable icon for love.
This series aired for a total of 10 seasons
Both shows had long runs. They had a huge fan base, and we just didn't want them to end. One of these shows, though, lasted just one year longer. One finale, after nine years, showed one of our beloved male leads reconnecting with an old flame that he is still in love with. The other, after ten years, shows one of our favourite gals abandoning a move to Paris to stay home with the man she loves. Oh, and the most iconic TV couple moving to the suburbs with their newborn twins.
This quote started the central love story: "HAAAAAAAVE you met ____?"
Ah, a good wing man. Wing woman. Wing person. Whoever you are, someone to help you in your relationships is, for us anyways, not even just "nice", but necessary. There's always that one person who just *gets* relationships and dating more than you do. And gosh, is it nice to have their help. In each of these popular shows, one of the gang is a hit with the ladies and has no trouble helping his buddies. In fact, the pilot episode is based around this pickup line.
"WE WERE ON A BREAK!!!!!"
On one of these shows, one of the couples breaks up after a dispute. They have a fight, and agree to "take a break". One of them interprets that as breaking up, and the other as seeing each other less for a while. During the one day they are on this break, he picks up a girl in a bar and sleeps with her. For the rest of the series, he tries to justify his actions by emphasizing that they were on a break, while she is upset, thinking that he cheated on her.
One of the guys' girlfriends shaves her head while the friend group is at a beach house
Both of these shows are set in New York and both of these friend groups seem to have a property they can escape to outside of the city. In How I Met Your Mother, Ted impulsively buys a house after hitting rock bottom and while visiting it, the whole group seems to have a meltdown. In Friends, the gang goes away to Phoebe's mother's friend's cottage and a very jealous Rachel does a poor job of hiding her disdain for Ross' new girl. So, who cracks?
One of the male leads is a lawyer
No matter what the show, making fun of people's professions is fair game. Friends joke around with each other, and heckle one another. In one of these two shows, though, one of the male leads spends a lot of time studying to write the bar exam to practice law. He eventually struggles to choose between a more lucrative law career that doesn't fulfill him, or one where he is paid very little but feels like he is helping people in his community.
Someone is always wearing a suit
One of the guys in this series is obsessed with suits. In fact, "suit up" is one of his catch phrases. When he tries to sleep with the bartender at MacLaren's, though, she finds him pretentious and he realizes it's his suits. After having a bad experience dating people on Wall Street, she finds suits very unattractive. A deal-breaker. Wanting to prove that he isn't a pretentious guy, he starts dressing casually. Eventually, though, he is forced to choose between her and suits. He chooses suits.
This series features ____ Sparkles, a Canadian pop star
This newest friend kept her Canadian pop star alter ego a secret until her friends asked her to go to the mall in season two. She adamantly refused to do so, but didn't explain why. Naturally, one of the guys would have none of this and was determined to find out the secret that prevented her from going to malls. He was convinced that the secret She was hiding was that she was not above board. The gang is all too happy to discover the truth though!
One of the female leads gives birth to her brother's triplets
What a strange thing to happen on a sit-com... but yes, it's true. In one of these series, one of the female leads agrees to be a surrogate for her brother, whose wife is too old to carry a child herself. The kids are not biologically hers, but she carries the babies to term. The babies are delivered by a doctor who is obsessed with Happy Days and Fonzie, which irritates her to no end. She ends up realizing that giving up the babies is harder than she thought it would be.
The friends drive a taxi cab across the country
With one of the friends working in Las Vegas, the others decide to visit him at the casino. While there, two decide to tie the knot, and one unexpected couple shockingly gets married. The other two make the trip back to New York City in a cab belonging to a grandmother. It's a long road trip when you aren't on particularly good terms with your road trip buddy. There is a lot for this friend group to talk about after their trip to Vegas, that's for sure.
"I don't even have a pla-"
Like most twenty-somethings, this group of friends doesn't really have a plan. They don't know what they're doing with their lives, sometimes they don't even know how they're going to pay rent... they just know they don't want to be stuck in a dead-end job that makes them unhappy. Through the ups and the downs, one thing is clear - these not-quite-adults are still learning. They're doing their best. In one episode, the three girls are hanging out together, sleepover-style, and one of them says "I don't even have a pla-" when asked if she has a plan.
A female lead leaves her fiancé at the altar and moves to New York City
At the beginning of the series, one of the female leads realizes that she will not be happy marrying her fiancé, Barry. She doesn't want to be married to a wealthy dentist, and realizes she will go from being reliant on her father to being reliant on her husband. With emotions stronger than just cold feet, she leaves her wedding and moves to New York City, searching for her friend from high school, who she hopes will take her in.
The series is recounted through a series of flashbacks
This show, in its entirety, is told through flashbacks. We jump back and forth between a main character talking to his children, and seeing his past self try to meet the woman of his dreams. For most of the show, the audience sees what has happened to him in the past. It is not until the very last episode where the actions of the show are happening in the present moment (or, technically, in the future, since the "present moment" is the year 2030).
One of the female leads tries on her brother's fiancée's wedding dress
It's totally great to be excited about your own wedding - it *is* forever, and it's good to be psyched about who will be standing next to you at that altar. Getting excited about your sibling's wedding? Amazing! Your friend's wedding? SO fun! But... there's kind of a line. As in, being excited for someone's wedding and helping them choose their wedding flowers is great. Going with them to pick a dress, also fun. But trying on that dress? That's a little weirder.
A male lead in this show says the wrong name to his bride at the altar
Needless to say, if you're committed to spending the rest of your life with someone, you just don't say the wrong name at the altar. When you stare into their eyes and say "I do", you want to be sure you know what you're doing (and that they do, too). In this show, the male lead says the wrong name at the altar. He is still thinking about his ex, who he is still in love with, though he denies that he's still hung up on her.
Everyone always hangs out at a bar
Every group of friends has their usual hang out spot. For some, that's a café. Maybe it's the mall. The library. A park. In this show, the group of friends always hangs out in the "local watering hole", MacLaren's pub. This pub is home to many first dates, awkward flirting, unsuccessful phone number seeking, and so much more. It's where the group lets loose, unwinds, and talks about their frustrations. It's also where Lily crushes a hot dog eating competition.
One of the characters hates Canada
This character is a little bit of a weirdo and his prejudices just make little sense. Then again, a whole lot about his life philosophy makes little sense, considering he has several number one rules by which to live. That being said, he decides that Canada is the worst and takes it upon himself to tease another character about it relentlessly... That is of course, until he finds out that not only is he part Canadian, the Canadian part might be related to his soon-to-be wife!
Two roommates get a chick and a duck
In one episode of this show, around Easter, one of the guys watches a commercial on TV about chicks. He decides to get his roommate a chick. Not realizing that chicks are often disposed of around Easter if no one wants them, (and not realizing they are so unbelievably under-qualified to care for a chick), the roommates enter into adoptive parenthood: fowl edition. When they try to return the chick to its original owner, they end up with both a chick and a duck, hoping to save the duck from an unfortunate fate as well.
One of the female leads tries to teach a friend French for an acting audition
In one of these shows, the friends find out that one of the girls speaks French. Turns out she learned it while she was on the streets. She and two of her street friends would meet by a dumpster and learn French. So, when she finds out that the actor of the group has an audition in French, bien sûr she's going to help him! Although, as it turns out, he is very, very horrible at French, and quickly gives up on bilingualism.
One of the female leads has 7 dogs
We love dogs! Who doesn't? In this series, one of the leading ladies, Robin, has seven adorable pups, of varying sizes. They were all gifts from ex-boyfriends. Robin loves her dogs, but when she starts dating another one of the friends, he insists that she get rid of her dogs. He is not the biggest fan of dogs in the first place, but when he finds out that they were gifts from old flames, all he can see when he is with her is the faces of her ex-boyfriends when he looks at her dogs.
One of the female leads abandons her fiancé to go be an artist
This is one of the most heart-wrenching moments in the show, though this particular couple go through quite a few together. They have one of the strongest relationships on television, though it doesn't seem that way at first. The lead character decides she needs to know who she is outside of her relationship and breaks off their engagement in order to head to San Francisco. Do you remember if this was a plot point on Friends or How I Met Your Mother?
One of the bros has a gay black brother
On this show, Barney's brother is his icon. He loves using him as a wingman; in fact, he thinks it's perfect since they are not competing for the affections of the same people. They can date a brother and sister. They can do anything! What a great team. One day, though, when James comes to visit, the group of friends goes to a gay bar and James just isn't into hitting on people anymore. Turns out, he's getting married and having a baby.