How I Met Your Mother
How I Met Your Mother (often abbreviated to HIMYM) is an American sitcom that originally aired on CBS from September 19, 2005, to March 31, 2014. The series follows the main character, Ted Mosby, and his group of friends in New York City's Manhattan. As a framing device, Ted, in the year 2030, recounts to his son and daughter the events that led him to meet their mother.
How I Met Your Mother
The show's frame story depicts Ted (voice of Bob Saget, uncredited) verbally retelling the story to his son Luke (David Henrie) and daughter Penny (Lyndsy Fonseca) as they sit on the couch in the year 2030. This future-set frame is officially the show's "present day" and "How I Met Your Mother" exploits this framing device in numerous ways: to depict and re-depict events from multiple points of view; to set up jokes using quick and sometimes multiple flashbacks nested within the oral retelling; to substitute visual, verbal or aural euphemisms for activities Ted does not want to talk about with his children (sexual practices, use of illicit substances, vulgar language, etc.); and even to add some elements of humor: in the episode "How I Met Everyone Else", Ted describes his dates with a girlfriend whose name he has forgotten, leading all characters to act as though her given name were "Blah-Blah"; later in the series, Ted remembers her name as Carol.