‘How I Met Your Mother’ season 9, episode 10 video: John Litghow and a classic sitcom theme

Who knew that “How I Met Your Mother” was going to try to create a show within a show on Monday night’s new episode? That may sound strange and a little surprising (mostly because it is), but this is precisely why we’ve come to love the show in the first place.

What makes this little twist work on “Mom and Dad” is simply that there is more than one character who is secretly hoping for some sort of 1960s sitcom sort of family reunion courtesy of their parents. For Barney Stinson, this involves getting John Lithgow and Frances Conroy’s characters to spend a ton of time together, in hopes that there is some sort of spark from the past that is spontaneously lit and sends the two back to a very familiar place. Of course, the irony here is that Barney’s father is already married, making it pretty darn unlikely that he is suddenly going to destroy his current happiness just for the sake of making Barney happy.

Meanwhile, Wayne Brady’s James wants the same thing for his dad (Ben Vareen) and Conroy’s character, and he has almost the same sort of alternative dream sequence about it, complete with a song-and-dance number. The advantage here of course is that James’ dad is actually single, and could use a woman in his life.

The reason why both of these guys are probably going to be unsuccessful is pretty simple when you think about it: Barney’s mother has had decades to get back with either one of these guys if she wanted to, and she clearly decided that she didn’t want to. You want to see your children happy, but you also never want to see it come at the expense of your own happiness.

Want to check out some more “How I Met Your Mother” season 9 scoop? Then just click here, where you can find out what classic 1990s group is going to be coming together to re-record one of the show’s classic songs in an upcoming episode.

Photo: CBS