How I Met Your Mother creator Craig Thomas questions some "insensitive" jokes from the iconic sitcom in light of Marshall's gay pirate gig

How I Met Your Mother creator Craig Thomas recently questioned some "insensitive" jokes from the iconic sitcom in light of Marshall's gay pirate gig. During the How We Made Your Mother podcast’s April 28 episode, they talked about the same.

While addressing the scene, co-host Josh Radnor asked:

“I have a question for you Craig.. I still thought it played, but I was just wondering how you feel about gay pirates."

To this, Thomas answered:

"There's a couple moments like that so far in these first few ones, where there's a joke’s kind of like... would we do that now... we should have been smarter and wiser and maybe not been cavalier with throwing things around like that could be perceived as insensitive? Or maybe they were insensitive? I mean, in the end, I found myself wondering about it."

For reference, in season 1 episode 6 of the show, titled Sl*tty Pumpkin, Lily dressed up as a parrot and Marshall dressed up as a gay pirate during Halloween. They then went on a double date with Robin and her then boyfriend, Mike.

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How I Met Your Mother podcast hosts talked about the Halloween episode from season 1

Josh and Craig went back to a popular early episode of HIMYM, which was written by Brenda Hsueh, in the recent episode of the How We Made Your Mother podcast.

In addition to establishing important relationship themes that ran throughout How I Met Your Mother, they also examined how the episode developed the characters of Ted and Robin, highlighting Ted's unwavering romantic optimism and Robin's dread of losing her independence.

They further reflected on the inspiration behind How I Met Your Mother's Ted’s ritualistic loyalty to the pumpkin party, and the show’s early use of attachment theory. They also discussed the origins of classic bits like Marshmallow and Lilypad, and why Ted’s unreasonable optimism often became his superpower.

Additionally, they also shared some behind-the-scenes stories about Jason Segel’s (who played Marshall) eyeliner, Neil Patrick Harris’ (who played Barnie) love of magic props, and the indie rock influences that shaped the emotional tone of How I Met Your Mother.

During the same episode, Craig Thomas suggested that some jokes written for Marshall's gay pirate might have been insensitive. For context, in the particular episode of the show, Marshal dressed up as a woman and later as a gay pirate.

Talking about the same, the How I Met Your Mother's creator said:

“There's nothing wrong with that, you know, but of course we we're making some point of it like, 'Oh what if people think of him in that way' But like Marshall doesn't want to be thought of as a gay pirate right like he's with his wife who's the little bird right but in the end he seems to embrace it and go like all right but we won and like what whatever.”

He then continued:

“The idea, it's a little bit thrown away, but it struck me as a little weird if I'm being honest it struck me as like why would that be bad why should that be a problem.”

Additionally, the hosts discussed Ted Mosby and Robin Scherbatsky's attachment style. According to Josh, the show was written before "attachment theory" gained widespread acceptance. Talking about it, the How I Met Your Mother actor said:

“It is becoming more and more clear to me as I watch this that Ted has an anxious attachment style and Robin has an avoidant attachment style. And the way they are, you can very simply identify what your attachment style is. When in a relationship, when intimacy comes into your life, do you fear engulfment or do you fear abandonment?”

Radnor went on to say that if someone is afraid of being left behind, they have an "anxious attachment style." Josh then clarified this by stating that in this circumstance, anyone would begin to cling on to another person.

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Meanwhile, one can catch all the episodes of the podcast a Spotify and YouTube.