The Scientific Reason How I Met Your Mother Is Better Than Friends

As long as human kind has walked the Earth, man has not been able to see eye to eye with his fellow man when discussing which is the better show about twenty-something New Yorkers navigating relationships and personal challenges in a group with a funny womanizer, a bookish romantic who buys a car he shouldn't because it's New York and a couple who will end up getting married by their womanizing friend. OK, maybe not that long (I am referring to the disagreement getting started when man started walking the Earth; I know it was hard to keep track of that sentence), but still, people never say Friends and How I Met Your Mother are equally good, there is always a favorite.
Such a discussion has come to an end and all thanks to How I Met Your Mother's illustrious similarity to seven great classics of literature (or six classics and a postmodern stand out, if, like me, you believe a book needs about a century of life to be considered a classic) the superiority of the more recent show can be shown to its excellent though not as bold predecessor.
The Encyclopedic Narrative (as suggested by professor Edward Mendelson) is the type of book that How I Met Your Mother shares an outstanding amount of similarities with. So many that one might, indeed call it by itself a Encyclopedic Narrative.
Watch how Renaissance Man Barney Stinson and unreliable narrator Ted Mosby play with every possibility of storytelling in endless attempts to catalogue, categorize, exhibit and explain the world they inhabit. Learn what Dante's The Divine Comedy, François Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, Miguel de Cervante's Don Quixote, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, James Joyce's Ulysses and that camera lover Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow have in common with this amazing sit-com.
And yes, Marshal’s speech about the burger is a nod to Amadeus.
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[@ivantereshchenko3785]

This is the greatest film youtube channel in the world

[@MiguelAlonsoLavandero]

Great video! I think that the book that most resembles HIMYM is The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, a very long, winding, encyclopedic narrative about a guy who just can't get to the point of the story he's trying to tell.

[@albertoflanolombardo4155]

Don't tell him. He is already on its way to become the MrBtongue of cinema, and you know how MrBtongue shattered our hearts.

[@MiguelAlonsoLavandero]

@@albertoflanolombardo4155 Actually, I don't know.

[@albertoflanolombardo4155]

You should watch the excellent video about The Shandification of Fallout, then. PD: Un poco absurdo que estemos hablando en el idioma de los piratas con los nombres que tenemos. @@MiguelAlonsoLavandero

[@benjamingentile1660]

I guess Watchmen could be added to that list. For a graphic novel it sure incorporates a lot of different writing styles in those sections between books

[@paulscott1792]

For me what sets HIMYM apart is it’s use of time. We get episodes told as stories told as stories, an episode recalling events through consecutively more reliables narrators, stories told over again from different characters perspectives or even different rooms. Even a story secretly split over 3 days to reveal a completely different narrative.

[@ccmp7]

Muito bem explicado. Mas continuo achando Friends melhor! 😬😂

[@James-Tanner]

How dare you 😂 Thanks for the in depth explanation, thoroughly enjoyed. Wouldn’t presenting the best argument for friends then destroying it have been a better way to… blah blah blah. Loved the video

[@mattresbert]

Well done Brilliant stuff

[@dedula5247]

I was watching a movie moviewise video when my phone got stolen. I blame him but damn his videos are class. I'd really appreciate if he commented on this

[@Moviewise]

On the bright side you might have introduced the thief to the channel 😬

[@drluizfelipelima]

Good job, my friend

[@bobbyjosson4663]

Being better than 'Friends' isn't that hard, being better than 'Seinfeld', 'The Larry Sanders Show' and 'Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge' - the three highest quality sitcoms of the '90s might be. 'Frasier' was superb for 5 seasons, unfortunately it went on for eleven.

[@denroy3]

Yea...this was a battle of lightweights

[@ziwawe]

@@denroy3HIMYM is actually better than any of the shows they mentioned.

[@watsbrewing]

Ps love the your content. You are my favourite movie KZbinr.

[@erinaltstadt4234]

Thank you

[@MontagTheMagician]

I can't stand either shows. They are both simply not funny or cute. But you make some good points.

[@lcdubs7847]

How I Met Your Mother is not just better than Friends, it's the best show that's ever been on tv.

[@aristidemoari]

Amazing

[@cesardiaz8774]

Today, the first actor of the cast of Friends, Matthew Perry, passed away. I was told about it halfway through this video. For that reason, and although I find this argument fun and provocative, I have to ask: HIMYM is better than Friends at what? Friends was playing a different game, based, in no small measure, more in empathy than dettachment (good old Russian ostrenanie, so dear to folks like Greenaway). A fair comparison, given the temporal difference and demographics, would be between Seinfeld and How I met your Mother. If you read Italo Calvino's conference about Multiplicity in Six Memos for the Next Millenium (which very much sums up a lot about what you call encyclopedic narratives), Seinfeld scores a lot higher that HIMYM in every respect you point at, because, in many ways, to the sitcom format, they were the quintessential encyclopedia, and they had a fixation with breaking the rules of the game that was uncommon for their time, but became a staple of mainstream pop culture a decade later. On the other hand, Friends was not as risky in structural or narrative terms, but it was so good at what it did do, that my late father, who was way out of Friend's demographics and didn't speak a word of English, used to watch the show just because there was something about Chandler's way to f**k up that he could relate to, even being 30 years older than the actors of that sitcom. I don't know. You're still right in many ways. I still love your video. What a way to complicate your own life, brother. RIP Matthew Perry.

[@deltsovshot]

How I met your mother - great love, best sitcom)

[@drluizfelipelima]

Mas discordo de uma coisa: o final de How I Met Your mother é excelente!

[@ProuvaireJean]

HIMYM owes, I think, a lot to Coupling. Coupling, ironically, was basically the British version of Friends with more inventive storytelling. Arguably Steven Moffat's best TV show.

[@graphosxp]

"Gilligan's island"!❤💯

[@jesuslopezponce4634]

now I wanna hear what you have to say about How I Met Your Father

[@lux_fero]

Don't tell the creators of the show about the last point, they could later say that this was the intent

[@thatguy3421]

Have you considered that Goliath National Bank is the reference to Gargantuan? Goliath and Gargantuan are synonyms for big and for eachother. But Gargantuan National Bank does not have that ring to it

[@achtfaden7723]

This is genius

[@AETorrePuerto]

I mean, yeah, it sets itself high, but does it deliver? It is midcult it kind of wants to be highcult but it's mostly just referential and derivative. Friends owns its status as a product for the masses.

[@axxo]

Legen ... wait for it

[@zetectic7968]

In the UK Friends had a regular Friday night slot, so I saw most if not all of them. How I met your mother seem to have an early evening slot & the day varied with each season. I missed the start (I think all of season 1) and only watched random episodes. Barney was fun, Ted boring & Jason Seigel was just a dope. As for Coby & Allyson I could never figure out what was going on with them or why they were with their partners. I couldn't understand why the story was so long & drawn out. Waiting for Godot it was not. I could never get interested enough to be a regular viewer. Friends was of its time: not tempted to rewatch it. How I met... not interesting enough to watch it.

[@thatRyzzle]

I like both shows. But I re-watch Friends more in its entirety, while HIMYM I only re-watch S01-S05. So, yes, to me Friends is the better show. Though, I admit, the laugh track and the editing for the laugh pauses, and the multi-camera'ness of it all-I could do without any of those…

[@marieparker3822]

What about Sterne's 'Tristram Shandy'?

[@johngreek8239]

When i watched through all episodes of Friends, i thought it was best sitcom of all time. Than i watched How i met my Mother and thought it is even better and nothing could beat it. And than i watched Scrubs... which instantly become my favorite. After that i though that there are many great shows out there and they often beat each other in my top 1. Buti was wrong. Scrubs it is till now the best sitcom. It is most funny, creative and deep storitelling i saw on tv. Sadly, nothing beat it

[@paulog.marinho]

Coupling is better than both.

[@WildFungus]

Maybe I just didn't like Friends when it was on and I was watching it so much as it was the least unpalatable thing on tv. Then I missed sitcoms cuz of reality tv but then I just stopped watching TV. I had a childhood crush on Alison Hannigan that neve rwent away and I still can't get through an episode. You're right but it's still a sitcom, which is banality unwound. nothing can change that.

[@LukeRanieri]

Hahah now I have to see HIMYM.

[@Faliat]

As a Scot, it's no contest. I will never forgive HIMYM for trashing Mexican Scottish fusion like Scottish Mexican food isn't godlike as a mere concept let alone in practice. My auntie's enchilada recipe she adapted from the ones she had in Cancun, man... So good.

[@genin69]

Well i havnt met ur mother yet but lets be friends

[@MA-go7ee]

Only downside about HIMYM is its tendency to return to the tropes of the genre as though the creators were too afraid to really go out there. The show often resorts to old hat sitcom sappiness and tedious progressive messaging. It's all very twee in the end. Of course, it is a far more creative show than Friends, which is a mediocre show carried by a pretty great cast. I haven't finished the video yet, but my favourite episode of HIMYM was a *magical realism* epjsode where they had a friend who missed out on a legendary night and was after wards cursed to miss out on anything exciting - as soon as he leaves somewhere, something incredible happens. In the episode, the 'curse' is passed onto one of the main characters, and thus, hijinks ensue. What a great premise. HIMYM does things like that and then ends the episode with a sappy 'we are all friends and dont we just love each other so much, let's hug now' and just ruins it. Good, sh9w, bit could've been great.

[@belpop]

*whispers* Bliiiiiittttzzzz

[@luizfelipecottadecastro897]

Boa mr robot

[@watsbrewing]

As a fan of both. I have to respectfully disagree with you. As a teen ager I grew up watching HIMYM and later discovered F.R.I.E.N.D.S . The later is objectively better.

[@foljs5858]

Don't know about Friends vs HIMYM, but Bruegel pisses all over Rubens

[@russellandrews1177]

Infinite Jest?

[@jlovebirch]

Never liked Friends as all the characters are dumb (making the Joey character redundant) and all the humor is based on their dumb choices.

[@Tigerfire75]

Friends was a show about terrible people and I was never a fan

[@ahenathon]

Friends are better. It is from the 90s. Also being "encyclopaedic" does not mean anything. It is a gimmick of the times taken from the films. Correct title sounds "The Scientific Reason How I Met Your Mother Is Better Encyclopaedic TV Show Than Friends".

[@HolographicSweater]

wtf…

[@Off-Brand_Devin]

While Friends lacks literary allusions, numerous storytelling styles, etc., it has the advantage of being funny from time to time. It is nice to see that HIMYM's writers' literature degrees didn't go to waste. Good for them.

[@denroy3]

Yawn

[@henrymach]

The truth is that both are atrocious. Seinfeld is the best one