The Best Time Lily Ever Broke Character On How I Met Your Mother
When it comes to blooper reels, "How I Met Your Mother" is full of laughs: Most of the bloopers consist of the cast cracking up at themselves as they attempt to deliver their lines or purposefully goof around. As they're all working on a comedy, this isn't surprising — they were hired to be funny, after all. Ted's best moment was an out-of-character crude joke, but Lily's is playing off of a mistake by one of the other cast members.
Alyson Hannigan played Lily Aldrin for nine years on "How I Met Your Mother," already a TV veteran from her role as Willow on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and stints on shows like "That '70s Show." She has a few great moments over the course of the series' blooper reels — there's her awkward making out with Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) for an imaginary sequence, followed by her squealing "I kissed Neil!" But, as the partner of Marshall (Jason Segel), many of Lily's scenes and best bloopers are opposite him. In fact, it's a moment with Segel that makes for her funniest moment in the blooper reels. Here's the best time Lily ever broke character.
When Jason Segel makes a mistake, Alyson Hannigan is quick to joke about it
In the Season 1 episode "Belly Full of Turkey," Lily and Marshall visit Marshall's family in Minnesota for Thanksgiving. All of the men play a dangerous family-invented game called "bask-ice-ball," but during halftime Marshall comes inside, decked out in his winter gear, to ask how Lily's doing.
The blooper comes at around 9:34 in a behind-the-scenes video when Jason Segel screws up his line and curses, then apologizes to ABC. The problem? CBS was the show's network, not ABC. Hannigan catches his error immediately, telling him, "CBS," with no small amount of incredulity. Everyone around them erupts into laughter and "ooooh's" before they're wrangled back into the scene. But before they say their lines, Hannigan says, jokingly, "Should I even do it with him or should we wait for the new guy?" That quip earns her a round of laughs from all the members of Marshall's very tall family crowded in one small kitchen.
Altogether, it's an amusing moment from early on in "How I Met Your Mother" history that shows just how new the series was. At that point, Segel didn't even know what network they were on. Nine seasons and many years later, it's easy to forget that a lot happened in Season 1 that was pivotal to the show as a whole. Luckily, CBS did not kick Segel off for his mistake!