How I Met Your Mother 100th Episode Celebration

Last night at the Paley Center for Media, the cast and producers of CBS's How I Met Your Mother visited and celebrated their 100th episode of the popular sitcom.

The evening was a humorous look back on what the show has done so far - discussing the past storylines and the casting process of each actor as well as favorite guest stars and moments. Prior to the discussion, the Paley Center screened the 100th episode - which is called "Girls vs. Suits" and airs this Monday the 11th at 8pm.

If you were lucky enough to be in the Paley Center audience watching, I bet you didn't realize that the cast was in the back of the theater watching your reaction. In the episode, there is something at the end that has never been done before on the show, so you need to tune in Monday to see that. (There is also a line delivered by Neil Patrick Harris in the show that made Cobie Smulders (Robin) - who was watching in the back - laugh so hard she almost fell out of her chair and almost knocked down Alyson Hannigan (Lily) with her.)

Josh Radnor (Ted), Jason Segel (Marshall), Hannigan, Smulders and Harris (Barney) as well as writer/executive producer/creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas and frequent director Pamela Fryman all then chatted after the screening. Among the topics were Bays and Thomas still feeling they don't really know what they're doing; the direction of Fryman; the show's unorthodox shooting schedule as well storytelling; guest stars (Britney Spears, Chris Elliot and Bob Odenkirk's name came up), the casting of each actor and the success (as well as possible early cancellation) of the show during a time when sitcoms were not very popular.

Two of the more eloquent things during the discussion were Harris responding to a question about the excitement level of the show's cast and producers at the start of the show versus now and Segel's answer to what his favorite moment in the show was. (Harris responded beautifully that he felt that the excitement level now is the same as it was at the start, but for different reasons and Segel said his favorite moment in the show is in fact off-camera, with every actor 'growing up' together and gaining more success and life experiences while doing the series - Harris hosting the Tonys and Emmys; the two women having babies, Radnor directing a movie and Segel modestly summed up his own film success in movies like 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall,' 'I Love You, Man' and many other Judd Apatow films as, 'me doing my thing'.

Among the stories about making the show was one about the cast sometimes getting into a rhythm of trying to outdo each other with bad puns about a specific topic during a day of shooting. As soon as that was mentioned in the discussion (specifically, 'cat puns') the cast started doing it, which each person on the panel (except Fryman) throwing out a cat pun after another person told a story or answered a question. The best two were from Harris - who made a cat reference completely on accident during a story - and a member of the audience, who stuck one into a question.

How I Met Your Mother airs its 100th episode on Monday the 11th at 8pm. For clips about the episode of the show itself, go here

For more information on the Paley Center for Media, go here.

Photos by Kevin Parry/The Paley Center for Media.