Best Prom Ever

Infobox Television episode
Title = Best Prom Ever
Series = How I Met Your Mother


Caption = Lily at the prom in a flashback.
Season = 1
Episode = 20
Airdate = May 1, 2006
Production = 1ALH19
Writer = Ira Ungerleider
Director = Pamela Fryman
Guests = David Burtka (Scooter), Keith Slettedahl (Keith), Brent Tarnol (Shlub #2), David Henrie (Son), Lyndsy Fonseca (Daughter), Richard Brown (Mr. Corke), John Reha (Shlub #1), Alek Friedman (Todd)
Episode list = List of How I Met Your Mother episodes
Prev = Mary the Paralegal
Next = Milk

"Best Prom Ever" is the 20^th episode in the first season of the television series "How I Met Your Mother". It originally aired on May 1, 2006.

Plot

In the opening of the episode, Marshall finds out that Van Smoot, the dream place where Marshall and Lily would like to have their wedding, is suddenly available. They rush over and take the opening, but that sets the date of Marshall and Lily's wedding, which would be in 2 months. Lily is stressed out about everything, even to the point of almost being a bridezilla, and all she can think about is her wedding. Marshall finds a possible band for the wedding, The 88, but Lily will not sign off on them until she hears them play Marshall and Lily's song ("Good Feeling" by The Violent Femmes), and the only way she can hear them is if she sneaks into a high school prom. Thus, Lily goes along with an idea of Barney's, and decides to sneak in with Robin and Barney (Barney suggests the idea because he thinks there will be no issues for them sneaking in, since he tells Lily, "I'm ageless, Scherbatsky just needs a good night's sleep, and you have statuatory written all over you."). Robin is excited, because Robin never got to go to prom in high school due to field hockey tournaments. However, when they arrive, they find tight security, so Lily and Robin offer to be the dates of two nerdy high school seniors, while Barney decides to find another way in. Meanwhile, Ted and Marshall are stuffing wedding invitations on their "Guys Night Out" until Robin calls Marshall and asks him to bring the sheet music of "Good Feeling" to Lily. Meanwhile, Lily is remembering her senior prom, and beginning to have doubts about getting married, since she never did a lot of what she wanted to do in life. She tells this to Robin, who convinces her that she is marrying her best friend in the world, and that she could possibly be an artist and live an artist's lifestyle later in life, and then kisses her on the lips to give Lily a "Lesbian experience," even though neither of them are lesbians. Ted and Marshall sneak in the back, and find Barney dressed as a turtle mascot. Marshall asks the senior who is Lily's date for the night where she is, and he pulls out a pair of Nunchaku and hits Marshall with them. Ted then tackles the senior to show Marshall that Ted will always have Marshall's back in a fight. The two seniors, Marshall, Ted, and Barney are taken outside, but Marshall and Ted sneak back in when Barney grabs the head of the turtle mascot suit and runs off. Marshall and Lily dance together, and agree to have The 88 play at the wedding, while Ted dances with Robin, who wants to try to restore their friendship now.

Music

* The Verve Pipe - "The Freshmen"
* The 88 - "Hide Another Mistake"
* The 88 - "Head Cut Off"
* The Violent Femmes - "Good Feeling"
* The 88 - "Good Feeling"

Notes

* Barney wears his second animal costume of the series, the first being a penguin suit in "Slutty Pumpkin," again to hide his identity.

Trivia

* The episode's writer Ira Ungerleider plays the chaperone who refuses to let Lily, Robin, and Barney into the prom.
* A song by The 88 was previously featured in the episode "Belly Full of Turkey."
* Lily makes a reference to John Bonham in this episode. Jason Segel's character on "Freaks & Geeks" is very depressed in "Beers and Weirs" because of Bonham's death.
* In this episode Robin gives Lily a friendly kiss so that she can have a "lesbian experience" before she marries Marshall. Lily's desire for a lesbian experience may be a reference to Alyson Hannigan's character Willow on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", who is a lesbian. Cobie Smulders also played a lesbian on "The L Word".
* Lily's ex-boyfriend, Scooter, is played by David Burtka, real-life boyfriend of "How I Met Your Mother"'s own Neil Patrick Harris.
* The second episode where Robin is assumed to be a prostitute (The Duel, Slap Bet).

Cultural references

*Barney references many young women that most teenage girls idolize when he tells Robin and Lily that they are dressed too classy, saying, "It’s so classy and nice; you’re going to stick out like a sore thumb. Have you seen how the kids are dressing these days? With the Ashlee, and the Lindsay and the Paris. They all dress like strippers. It’s go ho or go home."
*Marshall says that The 88 are "The Wiggles" of wedding bands, as The Wiggles are a famous children's band from Australia.
*At one point Lily believes that Ted's cousin Bonzo was John "Bonzo" Bonham from Led Zeppelin.
* Lily tells Scooter that she thinks she dated him because he looks a little like Kurt Cobain.
* Ted teases Barney that "slow and steady won the race," referencing "The Tortoise and the Hare."

Continuity

* In "The Duel" Lily mentions that the bangs she had in her Homecoming picture were a mistake, and Lily indeed has unflattering bangs in the flashbacks to Lily's high school prom.
* Scooter later reappears at Marshall and Lily's wedding in "Something Borrowed."

Barney's Blog

*In his blog, Barney completes his 2 part investigation into online dating. This time, he advises his readers on creating an attractive online profile [http://www.cbs.com/primetime/how_i_met_your_mother/barneys_blog/05_05.shtml .]

Errors

* Throughout the episode, they mention that the wedding is in two months. Lily says that she has "nine weeks to plan a wedding", but she later says that there are "71 days" before her wedding. She may, however, mean that she intends to have finished planning the wedding before the week of the wedding. At the end of the episode, two months is again mentioned.
* Robin claims that she never went to prom because she had field hockey nationals in the spring, but in "Slutty Pumpkin" Robin claims that she played singles tennis because she couldn't stand playing team sports. Robin lied because of her "Robin Sparkles" identity.

External links

* " [http://www.tv.com/how-i-met-your-mother/best-prom-ever/episode/649807/summary.html Best Prom Ever] " at TV.com
* " [http://imdb.com/title/tt0760776/ Best Prom Ever] " at the Internet Movie Database