Ted Mosby actor Josh Radnor calls How I Met Your Mother a Quentin Tarantino-esque sitcom

How I Met Your Mother actor Josh Radnor recently appeared on the podcast, The Puzzler, hosted by AJ. Jacobs. The actor who played Ted Mosby on the Emmy Award–winning CBS sitcom discussed in what ways he finds the show puzzling.

The 50-year-old actor, who is also a filmmaker, author, musician, and host of the How We Made Your Mother podcast, labelled How I Met Your Mother a Quentin Tarantino-esque sitcom. On June 29, 2025, an episode of The Puzzler with AJ. Jacobs, the How I Met Your Mother star, Josh Radnor, said:

“When I got the show and people would ask me when it was and I said, I would say it’s almost like if Quentin Tarantino created a sitcom, because it’s so non-linear and there were, you know, average of 40 to 60 scenes per episode, all kind of scrambled and told out of order.”

Talking of the central premise of the show, Josh Radnor reminisces about how his character, Ted, tells his kids in the future in the year 2030, the story of how he met their mother. Noting that the children know who the mother is, but the audience doesn’t, the actor added how the whole show is “structured as this mystery.”

“We know that there’s a meeting at some point, but he’s gonna take his time and he’s gonna fill in all the details. And sometimes individual episodes are structured as a mystery… So I think Carter and Craig just had a taste for almost like an elegant withhold of information.”

Josh Radnor talks about “loyalty” that How I Met Your Mother has garnered over the years

Josh Radnor, during his appearance on The Puzzler podcast, also talked about the loyal and growing fanbase of How I Met Your Mother. The 50-year-old star, while talking about his podcast, How We Made Your Mother, said that the CBS sitcom has still “maintained its level of popularity.”

Talking about how many teenagers are discovering the show and liking it, the actor added:

“Why is the show inspire such loyalty and devotion? And I think there’s a lot of reasons for that. But one of them, I think, is it really keeps you on your toes. I mean, it asks something of you, you know, it’s not something that, I mean, you can sit back and passively watch it, but it will also engage you in a kind of puzzly fun way.”

Meanwhile, according to People, in a March 10, 2025, published article, Craig Thomas, the co-creator of the How I Met Your Mother series, talked about how the show’s team was aware that HIMYM would draw “too much” comparison to the hit 1994 sitcom, Friends.

“A lot of shows before us had tried to replicate Friends, and not succeeded. So, there was a long trail of failed attempts to harness what Friends was.”

Noting that he was a huge fan of Friends, Craig Thomas added”

“I hugely love and respect Friends, but I really didn’t want to seem like we were yet another show trying to be that.”

How I Met Your Mother premiered in 2005. The CBS show ended its nine-season run in March 2014. Notably, Craig Thomas co-created the Emmy-winning show with Carter Bays. It also starred Neil Patrick Harris, Cobie Smuthers, Jason Segel, and Alyson Hannigan.