Many of today’s situational comedies feature big groups of friends so close with one another that they’re almost family. This theme of friends who are extremely relatable began with one of the first sitcoms to come out in the 20th century. In 1994 the television series “Friends” first aired on NBC and ever since then we have continued to see movies and shows revolving around groups of friends, one being “How I Met Your Mother”. This sitcom has been compared to “Friends” ever since it first came out on television in 2005 because they are both extremely funny and relatable. This essay will explore and compare the similarities and differences in regard to the setting, characters, situations, plots, styles, and the overall group relationships between two of the world’s highest ranked comedy television shows.
The sitcom, “Friends”, created by David Crane and Martha Kauffman, revolves around the lives of six twenty to thirty-year-old men and women as they struggle to find love, happiness, and purpose in the city of Manhattan. The show follows Rachel Green, Monica Geller, Ross Geller, Chandler Bing, Joey Tribbiani, and Phoebe Buffay throughout their personal and professional lives as they learn about themselves, family, and friendship while also trying hard to find direction and success over the span of ten years. But when “Friends” wrapped up in May 2004, the comedy did not end.
In September 2005 the comedy series, “How I Met Your Mother”, began, created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. Similar to “Friends”, the show also follows the lives of a group of twenty to thirty-year-old men and women in the city of Manhattan. In the unique way the show is structured, Ted, the main character, sits his son and daughter down in the pilot episode, which takes place in 2030, and goes on to recount the journey he took with his four best friends, Marshall Eriksen, Lily Aldrin, Barney Stinson, and Robin Scherbatsky. Through the use of flashbacks and memories of his friends, Ted describes the events that led up to him meeting his wife and children’s mother over the span of 9 years.
These two comedic television shows share uncanny similarities and parallels, one of them being the similarities between the characters across the two shows. Both “Friends” and “How I Met Your Mother” have the sweet nerdy and smart guy, Ross and Ted, who’s always looking for someone to love and marry and spends most of the show in love with one of his best friends. Then there’s the funny yet socially awkward best friend from college, Chandler and Marshall, who ends up getting married first, much to everyone’s surprise. Both shows have the protective motherly girl, Monica and Lily, who loves to be in charge and ends up marrying the funny guy. Then there’s the career woman, Rachel and Robin, who is exceptionally beautiful, shows up in the pilot episode and has an on-again off-again relationship with the nerdy guy. Lastly, there’s the womanizing playboy, Joey and Barney, who is usually smug and shallow yet very lovable. The characters across the two shows almost seem like carbon copies in terms of personality.
Another similarity between the two shows is that “Friends” and “How I Met Your Mother” have many of the same situations. For one the “parent couple” of the group, Monica and Chandler and Marshall and Lily, both get married by their playboy friend. Both sitcoms also show the characters at a recurring hangout spot, where they go to talk and drink. The characters in “Friends” are always on the couch in a coffee place called Central Perk while in “How I Met Your Mother” the characters are in a booth in a bar called MacLaren’s Pub. Both series usually show the characters hanging out during regular work hours, which is odd because to afford the things they spend their money on they need to work. Andrew Harrison, a critic, once wrote that “Friends” was representing a “faux-leisure lifestyle”, where the writers of the show depict the characters as having a lot of free time. This is true in both sitcoms and it shows their directionless paths in a comedic twist. Jake Martin, in one of his articles wrote that “Friends” emphasized the belief that “it was O.K. to not have a clue because at the end of the day, it was more important that there was someone there to listen.” “How I Met Your Mother” presents this view as well. The last similar situation that the two sitcoms have in common is that there are multiple cast members from “Friends” that show up in “How I Met Your Mother”. One these cast members is Monica’s mother who features as Lily’s grandmother on “How I Met Your Mother”, causing some people to draw the conclusion that Monica and Chandler are Lily’s parents. Another one of these cast members plays one of Phoebe’s husband’s girlfriends who features as one of Ted’s girlfriends on “How I Met Your Mother”. In both shows this woman gets dumped on her birthday because she is believed to not be “the one”. These similar situations across the two shows is another reason people link them together.
While the two shows have many parallels they also have a couple of differences. For one, the way the plot of each television show is organized is different. “How I Met Your Mother” stretches one story for nine seasons. Ted narrates the story of how he met his wife but the wife is only mentioned for a short period of time in the very last episodes of the show. Ted ends up talking about all his hook ups and some inconsequential things that happened in his life and it just seems like the show dragged the major plot of the series. You can see the dramatic full picture of the way the writers scripted the show in the two pictures below. On the other side, we have “Friends” where the writers seemed to tackle a different plot in each episode with one larger or more important plot spanning the length of each season. This show never stuck on any one issue for long and it seemed to make it more appealing. When both shows ended, “Friends” seemed to leave the audience happy and fulfilled while “How I Met Your Mother” showed how Ted’s story ended a little too abruptly, not leaving us as satisfied in terms of comedy or closure.
Another major difference between “How I Met Your Mother” and “Friends” is their styles. “Friends” is more old-fashion by showing the characters hanging out in a coffee place where they just sit and talk. “How I Met Your Mother”, on the other hand, is more modern. The characters hang out in a bar, which is where most twenty to thirty-year-olds find themselves when they want to have fun with their friends in today’s society. It captures the bar scene while “Friends” focuses more on the traditional group hangout in a café to catch up. “How I Met Your Mother” even hints at “Friends” in one of the episodes when Barney says the way his group hangs out is more fun.
Both shows feature groups of friends and emphasize that wherever you are and in whatever situation you find yourself, you always have your friends and it’s never the same unless they’re there to witness the best moments of your life with you. Patrick Harris, the actor who plays Barney on “How I Met Your Mother”, once described the show, as it was coming to an end, as a show that’s about “growing up with friends”. I feel that this, the overall group relationships, was another difference between the two shows. While both “How I Met Your Mother” and “Friends” revolved around a big group of friends, the characters in “Friends” were more like family. Watching the show, the audience can feel the warmth between the characters while the characters of “How I Met Your Mother” seem more like friends right out of college than family. Both shows have friends who would do anything for each other, but “Friends” gives off the feeling that whenever the characters are together it’s like they’ve been together forever and they’re becoming true family.
Television sitcoms can be traced back for decades, but the theme of relatable big groups of friends who consider each other family, only truly surfaced around the time the television show “Friends” came out. Then when “Friends” ended “How I Met Your Mother” took its place. The two shows have obvious similarities like that they both revolve around twenty to thirty year olds living in Manhattan. But they also stand out and have their own strengths like one is more modern while the other invites the feeling of true family bonds. The two sitcoms are funny and the audience can easily see themselves in the characters of both shows but if it came down to it, I feel that “Friends” would win in pure humor and entertainment and having charming characters. Their theme song says it best “I’ll be there for you”, and in the show, the cast really make us feel that, easily imprinting themselves on most of our hearts.
