Craig Thomas finds fresh comedy in the way a romantic story is told. His work with Carter Bays is worth our time, though the elaborate construction sometimes seems to matter more than the joke.
Fi1m perspective
Ted Mosby's search for love is complicated by the way he tells it. In How I Met Your Mother (2005), creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays let an imperfect narrator move backwards and forwards in time, making familiar romantic situations worth another look. We laughed at the anticipation itself, because the wait for an answer becomes part of the joke. This is a good romantic sitcom whose inventiveness usually earns the attention it asks for. It also establishes the reservation we have about Thomas: sometimes the writing seems too pleased with how everything fits together.
Thomas spent five years writing for Late Show with David Letterman before co-creating a programme that would run for nine seasons, from 2005 to 2014. The continuing character stories in How I Met Your Mother reward that longer commitment, with earlier behaviour still mattering as the seasons pass. Its broad sitcom humour can accommodate emotional moments without treating them as an interruption. Thomas and Bays use those moments to prepare stronger jokes, so a scene need not stop being funny just because somebody cares about what is happening.
The cast does essential work when the writing falls short, with Neil Patrick Harris our strongest reason to stay. Some jokes are ordinary, however ingenious the route taken to reach them, and there are stretches when a straightforward conversation would be a relief. The later seasons' reliance on catchphrases makes the repetition harder to forgive.
Thomas also created The Goodwin Games (2013) with Bays, then served as executive producer on the spin-off How I Met Your Father (2022). His debut novel, That's Not How It Happened (2025), takes the writing beyond television. For our purposes, though, How I Met Your Mother remains the reason to pay attention: it shows how much a sitcom can gain from letting the telling shape the comedy. We would welcome another series, preferably one willing to leave a few conversations alone.
Biography
Craig Thomas is an American television writer, producer and musician. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1997 and wrote for the Late Show with David Letterman for five years before co-creating the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014) with his writing partner Carter Bays.
Thomas and Bays also wrote episodes of American Dad! (2005) and created the spin-off series How I Met Your Father (2022). Thomas is a founding member of the band The Solids, which performs the theme song to How I Met Your Mother, and has received seven Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
