Why I love 'HIMYM' (hint: slap bet)

Why I love the slap bet episodes of 'How I Met Your Mother':  Because my friends and I may give each other a lot of crap, but we’d never actively slap each other on the face. For fun. At least, I don’t think we would. (Let’s not try it).

In all honesty, the parts of ‘HIMYM’ that I like the least are the ‘realistic’ parts.

Robin having a crappy job, and then having to move around the world for a job that seemed better, only to find out it was even crappier…did anyone enjoy that?

Ted pursuing Robin endlessly, while we’re forced to watch, despite the fact that we knew all along that their relationship would fail because after all she’s not the mother…that’s no fun.

Robin and Barney finally, finally getting together, only to realize that they’re not right for each other, causing a break-up filled with emotional pain, causing them to enter into other relationships, causing them to cheat on their new significant others with each other, leading Robin to reject Barney, leading to a potential reunification via baby, leading to a devastating reveal about baby…really, really not fun.

Also, evidently I like Robin (or maybe just Cobie Smulders) way too much, since the parts that annoy me the most are those where she’s put in bad situations.

Anyway, my point (if I ever get there!) is that the slap bet episodes of ‘HIMYM’ are some of the strongest aspects of the show. They’re completely ridiculous, of course, but in the context of the characters they’re somehow believable. Plus, watching people slap each other is just funny. Don’t judge me, you know it’s true.

Slap Bet Episodes (in order of appearance):

as an added bonus, a lot of these episodes also have Robin Sparkles, my other favorite part of 'HIMYM', but that's a story for another day

“Slap Bet” (S2Ep9)

“Stuff” (S2Ep16)

“Slapsgiving” (S3Ep9)

“Slapsgiving 2: Revenge of the Slap” (S5Ep9)

“Disaster Averted” (S7Ep9)

All of ‘HIMYM’ is currently on Netflix Instant, so go and watch some slapping!