Let’s go to the Mall & Interview with Carter Bays

The infamous music video “let’s go to the mall” in the CBS show How I met your mother

When one of the characters asked Robin (Cobie Smulders) why it looked like it came from 1980’s, she replied, “The 80’s didn’t come to Canada until 1993.”

HIMYM is the freshest show I’ve seen in a long time (although to be fair, Bernie Mac show has had an excellent run too). It was renewed for another year. Here’s an interview with writer Carter Bays

We actually didn’t give too much thought to the whole single vs multi-camera debate. It seems that people pick sides and wave their flags one way or another. For some reason it felt like we wanted to have a laugh track on the show. Having worked on single camera shows, I know it can… you can fall victim to the thing of because there’s not a laugh after every joke, not every joke has to be funny. And we wanted to try to set the bar for ourselves and make it funny from start to finish.

I think we like being the ones carrying the torch and being the last funny sitcom on the air… maybe I shouldn’t say it. (laughs)

Really, Carter is not exaggerating. Except for Fox Sunday night, CBS Monday night and NBC Thursday night, there’s not much left in sitcom world. (See the list of my fave sitcoms and Thoughts on How to write a sitcom). BTW, my ambition for 2008 is to write a few sitcom scripts.

Speaking of funny vintage sitcom moments I seem to have missed, see Self-Defense against Fruit and International Philosophy.

Random Monty Python observation: notice all the fields and wooded areas Monty Python shoots their sketches in.  Nice public areas –I’m unsure whether my own city has similar kinds of areas.


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