If you caught last night’s How I Met Your Mother, you may have glimpsed Conan O’Brien lurking in the background of the scene. We shared the video clip last night. But there’s more to the story than the late night talk show host merely happening upon the set of the CBS comedy and agreeing to lend the series his celebrity for an extremely random moment. Check out the video ahead to see how O’Brien won the walk-on part in “No Pressure.”
Before we get to how it happened, here's the snippet from last night's How I Met Your Mother in which O'Brien appears:
Vulture posted some comments from HIMYM co-creator Carter Bays on O’Brien’s appearance, including the fact that O’Brien just wanted to be an extra in the episode. Vulture references O’Brien mentioning on his TBS talk show last year that he won the part at a charity auction. We dug up the video from the Conan episode that has O’Brien and HIMYM star Neil Patrick Harris discussing the auction, during which Conan out-bid himself for the prize of getting to appear on Harris’ comedy. The conversation takes place in the second half of the video, although the whole interview with Harris is actually pretty great.
In addition to being determined to win the part, it sounds like he was set on his role being random and minimal...
?“The creators of the show were saying, we’re going to actually write you in as a character. And I was thinking, no! I think it’s much funnier if I’m in the bar, in the background...”
As great as it would have been to see O’Brien play a part in the show, even if it was just for one line, having him just standing around in the background is much more Conan.
It sort of reminds me of the episode of The Office years ago...
