256 replies to this topic

[SteveJRogers]

Sorry I don't have a clever title, but I just thought of a good one. Was watching "The Bachelor Party" and Barney's speech to Lily references the plot line in "The Scorpion And The Toad" where Barney keeps stealing the girls Marshall is trying to hook up with.

Slight problem though, Lily is back in New York by the time TSATT's story begins, in fact she was there at the very end of "Where Were We?"

Of course one could say that Future Ted is blending all the stories together, but it doesn't seem as tight as some of the other continuity issues with the show.

[TWoP Barnes]

This is the thread for picking those little nits that drive you nuts, and for sharing your continuity-gasms. Enjoy.

Edited by TWoP Barnes, Apr 24, 2008 @ 10:43 AM.

[Maribel85]

I figure that Barney had been stealing girls from Marshall since before "The Scorpion and the Toad" (although he was probably more subtle). And he continues stealing them even after Lily returns, since she isn't back with Marshall yet. Because even though Barney did say that he couldn't steal girls from Marshall "forever," he didn't say he would stop trying right away.

[SteveJRogers]

Found one that may count as one. In Zip, Zip, Zip Lily and Marshall make such a big deal about the fact that Marshall has never seen Lily relieve herself, well in The Slutty Pumpkin Marshall goes into the bathroom to help Lily go to the bathroom because of her elaborate costume.

Now granted Marshall could have left during the time Lily answered nature's call, but that was not implied.

[SteveJRogers]

Almost had a HYKYAOWHIMYM moment when it comes to nitpicking, I was considering going through all of Season 2 to pinpoint various times Robin and Ted were in the same room where they heard a military title being used in normal conversation and obviously did not do the annoying repeating and salute.

Course that would be a major undertaking, Major Undertaking, to do!

[Adrianetts]

I think this Season 1 nitpick was discussed elsewhere: Robin missed prom because of field hockey nationals (or was it finals?), however, she mentions in a previous episode that she didn't play team sports.

[SteveJRogers]

This is more of a complaint actually than a Nitpick, but "Ray, whenever someone asks you if you are a God, you say YES!" is not an obscure quote from Ghostbusters, but one of the more famous quotes from the movie. Okay sure they needed a line that everyone would know came from Ghostbusters, but still, it is a rather famous line from the movie.

Either that, or I know way too much '80s pop culture!

[MiniShrink]

I don't know if this has been explained at some point, but I have a question: what happened to James in flashbacks? When Barney thinks Bob Barker is his father, why doesn't his flashback show James? And in a later episode, when Barney claims Marshall's sugar-fuelled grocery list is the kind of shopping a 10-year-old does when he's home for the weekend, why would Barney have ever been home for the weekend if he had James? I mean, sure, James might have gone to camp or something, but it seems like the writers have retconned James out of all flashbacks or something. Is there an explanation I'm missing somewhere?

[WashSqGal]

I just re-watched "Brunch" from season two, and noticed that Barney was all upset that Ted's dad "Rack Jacked" him at the bar. The conquest was Wendy the Waitress. Why would Barney go back to that well after we learned (in Platinum Rule, season three) that Barney hit that in 2005.

I do like how so far most of these nit-pics could, in theory, be explained away.

I'm still waiting for them to explain Marshall having boxed in the army . . .

[Snim Xis]

This has been bugging me for a while - Lily has her whole speech at the end of Season One about how because Marshall was in her life, she missed out on opportunities to see the world. But a few episodes prior, Marshall and Lily were giving Ted advice on how to cope with his long-distance relationship by recounting how they coped when Lily did a study-abroad program in Paris.

I guess this is a gray area - Lily was missing the entire Bohemian artist lifestyle she never got to have after college - but still, it isn't like she never got to go anywhere, or like she and Marshall were never separated for a long period of time.

[SteveJRogers]

I don't know if this has been explained at some point, but I have a question: what happened to James in flashbacks? When Barney thinks Bob Barker is his father, why doesn't his flashback show James? And in a later episode, when Barney claims Marshall's sugar-fuelled grocery list is the kind of shopping a 10-year-old does when he's home for the weekend,

-Young James wasn't really needed for those scenes. It was all about Barney, not about Barney and James.

-How does Barney saying that implies that he in fact did shop for himself for a home alone weekend when he was 10?

[SteveJRogers]

Just caught another one, watching the season 2 premiere, and Ted is retelling the story of how met Marshall for the first time as roomates. Marshall even adds the fact that he was stoned and thought Ted was the dean, well the point is that this is a year before Lily meets them.

So in HIM Everyone else, somehow it gets retconned that Ted, Marshall and Lily all start college in the same year.

Very 90210 when you think about it!

That is a reference to David on Beverly Hills 90210 started the series a year behind the main cast, yet somehow got caught up over one summer and ended up graduating with the main cast. Never mind of course that the entire cast spent an extra year in High School!

[Maribel85]

Just caught another one, watching the season 2 premiere, and Ted is retelling the story of how met Marshall for the first time as roomates. Marshall even adds the fact that he was stoned and thought Ted was the dean, well the point is that this is a year before Lily meets them.

I think you've misunderstood what Ted was saying (or else I have). Ted was saying that on the first day of college freshman year, Marshall had not yet met Lily and he was happy and fun. That night was the party where Ted and Lily did not make out. The following morning, Lily stops by Marshall's room to get help setting up her stereo. As far as I recall, Ted didn't say anything about it having been a year before they met Lily, just that single Marshall, even a day before meeting Lily, was an okay guy.

[Colors]

Another continuity mistake would be Ted claiming to be puke-free since '93, when in flashbacks later, we found out he puked on Robin's personalized doormat after their first date.

[Adrianetts]

Another continuity mistake would be Ted claiming to be puke-free since '93, when in flashbacks later, we found out he puked on Robin's personalized doormat after their first date.

I would disagree. This was acknowledged in 'Game Night' at the time that Ted makes the story of the re-entry when Marshall reacts with the "hey, weren't you vomit free since '93?". Just because Ted said it doesn't make it true. Besides, it made sense for him to stress it (at the time of The Pineapple Incident) because he wasn't planning on telling everyone that he went back to Robin's after the first date and retched on her doormat.

Edited by Adrianetts, Mar 3, 2008 @ 1:05 PM.

[Maribel85]

Ever since "Something Borrowed" aired in Season 2, it's bugged me that Lily and Marshall no longer think of VanSmoot House as a good place to have the wedding. In Season 1 ("Best Prom Ever"?), they are dying to have their wedding there. Marshall even says something about it being "the dream" and they set a super-soon date, just so they can have the wedding at VanSmoot. Then suddenly a year later, and they want totally different things? I suppose it's not completely unreasonable that they changed their minds, but it seems forced for the purpose of the storyline/comedy.

[SteveJRogers]

Here is one that may or may not be a nit. In the pilot, FutureTed says one day years later he and Robin talked about the "long hand shake" at her apartment and how that was a "signal" for Ted to plant a nice long kiss on her.

Okay fine, but over the course of the next couple of seasons, both with Ted and others, it is clear that Robin is a complete neophyte for the whole dating scene. I mean being replused at someone saying "I love you" on the first date is one thing (come on, at that point you are more in love with an idea than the person you just met days earlier) but it seems odd that Robin, even after several years after the fact and being "in the game" would know that a long hand shake is a signal for the guy to put the moves on her.

[Violette363]

SteveJRogers, I don't think it's considered part of dating knowledge that "long handshake = signal," I think the point is that, when a woman wants a man to put the moves on her, she will do something that indicates that. Whether it's a hair flip or lingering touch is irrelevant -- in other words, a lot of times it's not a totally conscious maneuver. In Robin's case, it was the lingering handshake. Years later, Robin tells Ted it was the signal because she remembers what was going through her mind at the time.

Plus, Robin doesn't strike me as a complete neophyte -- I'll never forget Ted's stricken look when Robin is going through the litany of her sexual partners in Slapbet (it is Slapbet, right?). She comes off a little disaffected but I wouldn't say she's new to the dating scene (maybe it seems that way since Cobie is so young, younger than Robin?).

[SteveJRogers]

Found another good one, in The Pilot, Ranjit (the cabbie that ends up back at the bar with the gang) is wearing a bluish sweater, but when they flashback to the rest of that night in Game Night Ranjit is now wearing a red sweater.

Interestingly enough, TPTB do get better at matching up those details as in Lucky Penny when Ted is showing off the penny to Robin at the bar, they are wearing the same exact outfit as they did in The Scorpion & The Toad when Ted shares with Robin the news that he found a real old penny at the same time she tells him that Lily is back in town.

[divinemadness]

Ever since "Something Borrowed" aired in Season 2, it's bugged me that Lily and Marshall no longer think of VanSmoot House as a good place to have the wedding.

But in the Atlantic City episode, isn't that all about Lily's fear of a big wedding/Marshall's family hating her for calling off the last wedding? That's why they are going to elope. Then they realize that they want family there for it, but maybe they changed their mind about the big, fancy wedding at first. Then we see how Lily's mom keeps inviting people and upping the numbers, forcing them to move the ceremony indoors. I think it's just a difference between what they wanted pre-break up/calling off wedding 1 and afterwards, dealing with awkwardness with family.

[SteveJRogers]

Couple of small nits from The Brackets;

-Robin giggles when she lies? Someone should have told her that back in Slap Bet as she very confidently told Ted everything about her fake wedding and husband. She hesitated with the name which was the reveal that she made up the story, but she said everything straight. Not to mention last week she coroberated with Barney's "folicliaphila" BS, again with a straight face.

All of a sudden Robin has no poker face? Small nit, but when you consider how much pain TPTB go through to get things right, it's weird that they would let something like that go through just because a writer thought it would be funny that Robin had no poker face and would almost ruin the illusion that Barney was hitting on a complete stranger.

-As neat as the Doogie call back was, it does seem to be a stretch that Doogie's 20-some year old word processor program would be compatable to a 2000s era laptop, and that someone like Suit Up Barney would still be using it for his blog entries. All I'm saying is that the joke would have carried over if Barney was shown typing away on some current HTML editior software, or Microsoft Word. It didn't have to be a late 1980s program for the joke to come across.

[Orion7]

Except that no computer ever looked like that on-screen. It was kind of a running joke at the time the show first aired, so I thought it was part of the joke to continue that anachronism.

[SteveJRogers]

Ahhh, I didn't realize that. So that wasn't some generic brand word processing software that was subbing for Word Perfect/Word or whatever was the big processing software back then? Hey I'm 31 I didn't have that much experience with computers back in that day!

[Orion7]

I've got twenty years on you, so no, it definitely wasn't. For one thing, the print was way too large. It looked a little like WordPerfect (which was the dominant program of the day), but there would have been more formatting coding on-screen. The computer was an IBM PC clone, though.

In any case, I thought it was a funny part of the shout-out.

[hjohnson]

One I just realized today while watching a few of the earlier episodes of this season. In The Bracket, Barney said he doesn't keep a list of all the girls he slept with, as it would be tacky or whatever. But in 304(not sure of the title) he states, while in argument with Ted about who has more game "c'mon dude, you've seen my list." So unless by list, he means scrapbook, which I doubt... kind of a continuity problem for the sake of being able to have the scrapbook idea.

[Detsl]

I thought of that too and think the writer just forgot about that short exchange. I tried to fanwank it:

In this episode:
Ted: Just start by checking your list
Barney:My list?
Ted: Dude, don't pretend that you're not the kind of guy that keeps a list of everyone he's slept with. C'mon let's see the list
Barney: Ted don't be crass. I would never demean the women I slept with by putting their names on some tawdry list.......this is a scrapbook of all the women I've slept with.

Now, in Little Boys when Ted and Barney have this conversation about "The List" It is just Ted, Barney and Marshall at the bar so I just think that Ted pulled out all this "don't pretend" stuff for the benefit of the girls(and Marshall who seemed to be thinking more of how he has more game than the other two judging by him not following their conversation "guys wanna hear one of my lines?" in the middle of talking about "the list") who didn't hear that conversation and maybe don't know of Barney's list.

And as for why it was known as a "list" and not a "scrapbook" back then -Maybe the scrapbook is a fairly new invention. He could have had a list before and just lied and said he had always had a scrapbook(rather than some "tawdry" list). Barney is a frequent lier. We know this.

[JodithGrace]

And he doesn't giggle when he lies. But oddly enough, I do. (giggle when HE lies, that is)

[WashSqGal]

I think the giggling when she lies can be explained away by the idea that she only giggles when she's being caught in a lie / the other party knows she's lying. She had no way to know that Ted knew her marriage was a lie, so she played it straight. But she knows Ted knows about the Ribs, and she knows that Barney knows she's not a stranger he's hitting on in the bar.

Also, when she says the whole "No. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no." in "Blah Blah", she does sort of laugh. So maybe she's laughing not because of the idea of her and Barney, but because she and Barney both know she's lying that she's not with him or into him.

[Miss Mishi]

Yeah I agree about it being a nervous tic when the other person knows you're lying.

[Pain Train]

Something that has been nagging at me is Marshall says his mom does not approve of junk food yet her seven layer salad has gummi bears and chips in it.