Battlestar Galactica

Even people who don’t watch How I Met Your Mother are talking about TedMosbyIsAJerk.com, the fake web site that made headlines this week after it was mentioned in Monday’s episode.  But very few people have picked up on the site’s Battlestar Galactica reference.

A twenty minute musical manifesto featuring watery vomit sounds, death threats, pleas for phone calls, and everything in between, TedMosbyIsAJerk.com also features these lyrics at approximately minute thirteen:

“I hate everything about you, and I will make sure that you die … I know the truth about you Ted Mosby, you look, and talk, and act like a real human being, but I know what you really are … You are a Cylon!  And your only goal is total annihilation of the entire human race … I talked to my best friend Dr. Baltar and he told me, so don’t tell me that you love me, don’t tell me that you have feelings, you can’t have feelings, you’re a frakking TOASTER!”

Nice! 

A bit of background:  HIMYM is about five friends living in New York City.  Barney is the womanizer, a completely immoral uber-yuppie whose outlandish ploys to bed woman literally know no boundaries.  He is disgusting, charming, unexpectedly wise, and quite a bit like Gaius Baltar.  But instead of being played by James Callis as a brilliant scientist, Barney is a mysterious businessman played just as brilliantly by Neil Patrick Harris of Doogie Howser, M.D.

Ted Mosby is his best friend, the “I” in How I Met Your Mother, and an architect who has all of Barney’s lust but none of his confidence (Ted also has a conscience, assuming he is not too drunk). 

One of the best episodes of HIMYM is a season two show where Barney attempts to prove to Ted that women think architects are hot.  Barney wants to show Ted that wooing women is often all about the attitude, so he goes around telling people he is “Ted Mosby, Architect” all night and of course causes a bunch of trouble in the process.  He also sleeps with a woman and sneaks out while she is in the shower, leaving her a letter saying not to contact him as he is a ghost who can only materialize every decade.  Trust me, it was funny.

Fast forward to season three, and the web site.  Barney as the Fifth and Final Cylon?  Nah.  It’s just a hysterical promotional item, a great inside joke, and a nice shout out to another show for smart people.  Although it is BSG, and if Tigh is a Cylon then anything could happen.