It’s the season of trick-or-treating and ultimate jump scares, be it pranks or in movies. While there is no shortage of gore Halloween-themed content, the addition of entertaining specials from sitcoms surely make up for a time spent well with your loved ones. So, in this article, we’ll be taking you through one of the most beloved sitcoms of all time – How I Met Your Mother, or as fans popularly call it HIMYM.
If you’d been looking for the best Halloween-themed episodes ever aired in the history of Television, then you might as well follow us as we cover all the best movies and special programs circling around the Halloween season. With all of us officially stepping into the month of Halloween, finalizing your scary looks, making a spooky Halloween party playlist and the selection of the best entertainment is a no-brainer.
Talking about entertaining shows, there’s no doubt that the How I Met Your Mother series has created a legacy in the rom-com genre. And while the ending was a controversially debatable one, we’re going to overlook that for now. Throughout its run of nine seasons spanning almost a decade from 2005-2014, the show gave the audience a lot of laughs and cries in addition to some of the best life teaching quotes and messages.
Apart from the show’s clever and engaging storytelling technique played out by the remarkably marvelous cast of Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Josh Radnor, and Alyson Hannigan, the show also loved to feature its fair share of holiday specials, just as with other sitcoms including The Office and Friends.
How I Met Your Mother Halloween Episodes
With a total of 15 holiday special featurettes covering major holidays including Christmas and Thanksgiving (or rather Slapsgiving!), the production team of How I Met Your Mother only came up with three Halloween episodes. Surprised much? We’re too!
Read along with the article as we take a better look at each of these Halloween specials in the following subsections.
Slutty Pumpkin (Season 1 Episode 6)
If you’re a HIMYM re-watcher, then this episode needs no introduction. The whole Slutty Pumpkin saga plot is not only one of the most notable holiday specials but also a popular episode theme in general.
For beginners who have no idea of what this episode is all about, let us dive right into the happenings of the episode.
It all starts with the story of Ted meeting up with a girl wearing a sexy pumpkin costume in his apartment’s roof party four years back on Halloween night. Ted recalls the peculiar memory of the slutty pumpkin making him a mixed drink of Kahlua and root beer that she named Tootsie Roll. And while they exchanged numbers, Ted eventually ends up losing the KitKat wrapper that she put her number on.
And so with the dream of meeting her “perfect” woman, on every Halloween, Ted wears the same Hanging Chad costume that he wore the first time around waiting for the Slutty Pumpkin to show up. Talk about being the pinnacle of hopeless romantics, amirite?
Meanwhile in other events of the episode, Marshall and Lily are excited about their costumes for the couple’s costume competition at their usual pub – the MacLaren’s bar. With Lily dressed as a parrot and Marshall as Jack Sparrow, the duo wins the competition.
The episode also dives into the story of Robin informing the gang that she has been dating a guy named Mike. As the group hasn’t met Mike yet, Lily suggests going on a double date which doesn’t go as planned as the episode progresses..
The whole episode is one full entertainment package with Barney trying to get Ted to join him at a Victoria’s Secret Halloween party and Robin’s impressionable weirded-out date with Mike. This is also the first episode that features Barney’s magic along with the usage of the popular nicknames – Marshmallow and Lilypad.
Canning Randy (Season 6 Episode 7)
The second Halloween special episode featured after five seasons since the CBS show first picked it up in season 1. The plot of the episode takes on three narratives.
The first narrative follows Zoey who joins Ted’s architecture class. Eventually turning Ted’s students against him, Zoey makes the class attend the protest on account of destroying the Arcadian to make space for the new GNB headquarters.
In other events, Marshall has to deal with the incompetent fellow employee, Randy. While initially he didn’t want to fire Randy, Marshall ends up going against this decision. What follows is a turn of events wherein Marshall gets Randy rehired which the latter doesn’t take well as Randy wanted the severance package to set up his beer brewery.
Meanwhile, the third narrative takes on Robin who tries to cover up an embarrassing secret of her whereabouts on the night of Halloween. The gang comes up with the conclusion of Robin having a one night stand with Randy. Although Robin claims this to be the truth, to everyone’s amusement, it is revealed that she actually starred in a commercial for adult diapers.
The Slutty Pumpkin Returns (Season 7 Episode 8)
Ah! The story of the Slutty Pumpkin that began in the first season follows up towards its conclusion in the eighth episode of Season 7. Just as the mother wasn’t revealed till the show’s final season, the character of Slutty Pumpkin didn’t appear till this very episode.
It all starts with Ted randomly coming across the slutty pumpkin costume in a shop. Upon figuring out the name of the girl that rented the costume back in 2001, Ted eventually meets up with Naomi. The two start dating but Ted soon realizes that there is no chemistry and she is not the “one” he had hoped her to be. However, being the teddy boy that he is, Ted makes the situation more awkward by saying that he loves her.
Meanwhile Lily who is dealing with Pregnancy Brain impulsively decides to move to her grandparent’s house in the suburbs. In other events of the episode, Robin finds out that Barney is one-quarter Canadian. The whole episode is just full of roars of laughter right from the Classic Schmosby! Shenanigans to Robin mocking Barney for his Canadian heritage.
Wrapping Up
With this, it’s time to wrap up the article on Halloween-themed episodes from one of the best and my favorite sit-com, HIMYM. We are 101% certain you’ll have fun and end up with a smile on your cute little face watching these How I Met Your Mother Halloween episodes.
Share the article with your gang and let us know your favorite moments from the show in the comment section below. We’d love to hear from you!