This document discusses the sitcom genre and provides details about the popular sitcom "How I Met Your Mother". It defines key characteristics of sitcoms like short episodic plots and laugh tracks. It then analyzes specific elements of "How I Met Your Mother" like the main characters, narrative structure, cultural impacts, and camera techniques. Overall, the document examines what makes sitcoms successful and how "How I Met Your Mother" achieved widespread popularity and influence.

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2. What is a sitcom?
• Sitcom is a short for situation comedy, it is a sub-genre of comedy
that usually features the daily lives of a group of characters that are
trapped in a particular situation or in a complicated relationship.
(Flatten, 2001)
• The idea of the sitcom is for viewers to form a long-term relationship
with the characters and return to view them repeatedly.
• A continuing story
• It is often to have a huge impact towards its audience as well as the
society.
•

3. Background
• Sitcoms were TV versions of established radio
programs
• Popularity during the 1990‟s
Currently, sitcoms are popular to an extent. However,
not all are completely successful. Though there are
exceptions, there are few sitcoms that heavily
influence society. Such as How I met your Mother.

4. Characteristics of
sitcoms:
• Each episode has a situation that must be resolved in
approximately 30 minutes
• Simple plot which revolve around small issues and everyday
crisis
• Presented to the audience with a “laughter” audio track
• Have few central locations
• Characters which resembles “regular people” in a society
• Characters are faced with regular people situations that
people can relate to
• Often centered on families
• Most of the conflicts involves relationship, work, career
choices, and family
• Known to use common comedy techniques in the script such
as; “One liner”, “Irony”, and in most cases “Slapstick”.

5. Sitcom’s audience
Audience vary greatly between teenagers, and adults in
their 40s or even 50s
However of course the audience of each sitcoms depends
on the sub-genre of the sitcoms itself whether it‟s a
romantic drama or more of a family oriented kind of
sitcoms.
In addition, access to TV cable, and online streaming in this
day and age have increased the amount of audiences of
popular sitcoms, which then can be concluded that
sitcom‟s audience have now reached a global level.
The huge variety of sitcom‟s audiences also contributes to
the fact that successful sitcoms have tremendously high
rating on television.

6. Sitcom and How I met
your mother
How I met your mother is one the example of a very
successful sitcoms in history. It has proven to be the
most appealing sitcom since “Friends” mainly due to
its formulas on narrative, characters and cinematic
features.

7. The Gang
Ted Mosby
The central character of the show, Ted serves as the
series narrator telling his children the story of “How I
Met Your Mother”. Ted‟s journey has thrown him into
many failed relationship but he isn‟t giving up on his
search for the perfect woman. Each episode brings
Ted one step closer to meeting his future wife.
Robin Scherbatsky
Robin was introduced in the very first episode
where she went on an awkward date with Ted
which leads her befriending other members of the
gang. Robin serves as an on-and-off girlfriend of
Ted throughout the series. As of the current
season, Robin is to be wedded to Barney Stinson.

8. Marshall Eriksen
Marshall is Ted‟s best friend and the husband to
Lily Aldrin, his college sweetheart. Out of all the
members of the gang, Marshall is the most
compassionate member of the gang. Through his
progression, we see him quitting his job as a
corporate lawyer to pursue his dream of saving
the world through environmental law.
Lily Aldrin
The wife of Marshall, Lily is the best friend of Robin
and Ted‟s closest friend since they met in college.
An avid painter, Lily quit her job as a kindergarten
teacher to become an art consultant to The
Captain. As of season 6 of the series, Lily gave
birth to Marvin, Lily and Marshall‟s first son.

9. Barney Stinson
Self proclaimed best friend of Ted, Barney is a
serial womanizer with father issues. He first met Ted
in their usual hangout MacLaren‟s Pub. Since then,
he has been a big part of the gang. Barney
Stinson‟s character development throughout the
series is most unique because he realise that he is
capable of love and being in a relationship.

10. The Narratives
• The Act
• Recurring Storylines
• Nonlinear Storytelling
• Typical Sitcom Situation

11. Impacts on Society
The impact of “How I met your mother” is massive to its audience.
It has influenced a global audience into westernization
• Lifestyle – Hanging out with friends in bars, clubbing, going to strip
clubs, never appear to be working, perception of adult life being
easy
• Point of view towards life – The best city in the whole world “New
York”, implying how easy the “Adult life” is.
• Relationships – Ted‟s views on married life, Barney‟s love of the
bachelor life
• Careers look easy – Lawyer, Teacher, Bank executive, Architect,
News reporter
•

12. Pop cultural references
towards its audience
Smoking weed
• The drug is playfully thrown around, as if it‟s socially
accepted in this society
• Referred to as a „sandwich‟ in an attempt to shelter
the other characters, however the message is
implied to the audience
Star wars
• “Best movie ever”
• Encourages audience

13. Becoming a pop culture
itself
“HIMYM” is so successful that it has turned itself into an
iconic symbol of pop culture.
• Popular phrases like emerging into everyday
conversation, “Legendary”, “Challenge accepted”,
“Bro-fist”, “Suit up” and “Sandwich”
• Characters becoming a meme on the internet
• ‟The Bro Code‟ being published

14. Product Placement
“HIMYM” is the first sitcom that introduces the next level of product
placement in a TV series.
To capitalize profit, the editor of “HIMYM” decided to introduce different
product placements on the reruns of “HIMYM”‟s episodes.
Product placements can be changed based on the producer‟s
necessity and demographics
For example in area 1 the rerun might show a product placement for
product A while in area 2 the rerun will show a product placement for
product B, even though it is on the exact same spot and episode.

15. Which Episode are we
looking at? Season 8
Episode 2

16. Camera Techniques

17. The Close Up
Close up:
• Displays tense situation between characters
• Sets the tone for the scene, serious/intimate/personal

18. The Mid Shot
Mid shot:
• Allows characters body movements to further determine the mood of the scene
• Allows characters to interact
• Shows character body language

19. The Mid-wide Shot
• Display of what is happening around the characters
• Mid body shot, allows audience to interpret character interaction
• Allows for wider range of body movements

20. The Zoomed Close Up
• Allows audience to interpret facial expression/reaction
• Shows audience that serious
• Allows for the scene to end by zooming into the characters after the
conversation has ended

21. Editing
Location transition
• Outside bank- implies next scene is inside bank
Close up
• Implies tense situation
Panning camera
• Implies something is happening fast, from person to
person

22. Mise en scene
Characters
• Attitude towards real life events- superficial/self involved
Sound Effects
• Audience applause- Implies that you are watching a sitcom
• Phone ringtone- Implies danger, however portrayed in a
humorous/unserious manner
• Music towards end of scene- Concludes the scene, mysteriously

23. Conclusion
To conclude, we believe that How I met your Mother is
a successful sitcom.
• Heavily impacted its audience
• Has emerged itself into our society
• Has set a basis for future television series
• Contributed to the progression of popular culture