How I Met Your Mother is reaching a huge milestone this coming Monday, as the CBS comedy airs its 200th episode. Not many TV series in history have reached that point, making it all the more notable HIMYM will do so shortly before the series finale airs at the end of March.

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What it Feels Like Reaching 200 Episodes

Cristin Milioti, Jason Segel, Alyson Hannigan, Josh Radnor, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris and Bob Saget celebrate How I Met Your Mother's 200th episode.

Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel in How I Met Your Mother.

Neil Patrick Harris and Josh Radnor in How I Met Your Mother.

Favorite Episodes or Moments

Alyson Hannigan and Cobie Smulders in How I Met Your Mother.

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I was among a group of journalists who paid a visit to the set of the 200th episode, titled “How Your Mother Met Me,” to talk to series creators, Craig Thomas and Carter Bays, and stars Josh Radnor, Cobie Smulders, Jason Segel, Alyson Hannigan, Neil Patrick Harris, Bob Saget and Cristin Milioti about the show’s big accomplishment. We also spoke about what to expect in the 200th episode, which lives up to its title by focusing on the Mother and showing what she was going through during the course of the series, on her way to inevitably meeting Ted.It's really freaking me out, actually! 200! It's really weird. We just recreated a little piece of our pilot [for episode 200] - like one little glimpse at it. We sort of reshot part of it and added to what you saw of it in the pilot. I don't want to say what it is - I don't want to give it away. But it was really weird to go, 'that's nine years ago!' So surreal.It's a stretch of time... there's no yardstick to compare it to. I remember in our fourth season saying, 'Wow, that was a college career. That's how long we've been doing this.' Nine years? There's nothing to compare that to!We were 29. We wanted to do one pilot. We're like, 'We'll just make one good episode! We'll have it on our shelf always, when it never gets picked up and never airs and no one ever sees it.' And that was 199 ago. And I remember that feeling so well. It's that feeling of, 'Let's just make one good episode! It's fine! We'll always know we went down swinging.' You don't think it's going to go anywhere. And then the cast was so good and you start to get hopeful, but you don't want to get your hopes too up and then all of the sudden, 200 episodes... It's just surreal.It’s really cool. I'm so excited about the cake! It's so much better than our 100th episode cake, which was still partially frozen I think.Big milestones like this, I didn't know that I would necessarily feel anything. You're in the midst of it and you're doing it, but I had a 'Holy s**t' moment driving into work. 200 episodes is a real thing and nine years? It's been a decade of our lives and formative years, too. We're all together, side by side. It's pretty cool.Although it's fun too, because with us, we'd done quite a few episodes of other shows and stuff, and I just rememeber hitting the mark of, 'Oh, this is now the longest job.' So this is the longest job that all of us have ever had.It's amazing. It's the longest I've known anybody besides my family. There's people I knew, but high school is four years. I didn't go to college. This is the longest day in and day out I've spent with people ever. It's unbelievable.And he finally learned our names!Yeah, most of them... It took us a while to find our stride, but once we were kind of locked in there, it just became really, really easy. I think that's one of the creative myths, is that it somehow has to be hard for it to be good or successful. And it hasn't been hard at all for us.No, it's been a joy. And also, we came in and everybody was telling us, 'The sitcom is dead. Multi-camera is going away.' And we were on the bubble for quite a few seasons and then we were just the little engine that could.I mean statistically, it's just... I don't even know if anyone's crunched the numbers, but not a lot of shows get here. It's a very cool club to be a part of, so I feel really grateful. I love the people I've gotten to work with. I love this one [Cristin] being folded in. I love how passionate the fans are about it and how they don't seem to want it to end, which is great. Certainly, you don't want to go so long that people are like, 'Please, for the love of god, end this thing!' You want to leave them wanting so more. Yeah, I feel really grateful.I didn’t think there'd be an episode 100. That's the number that you're trying to hit. Season 1, 2, 3, we were very much on the bubble right until they said they were going to pick us back up. So I would read in the newspaper and it would actively say, 'How I Met Your Mother probably not going to get picked up.' And then it would get picked up. And it happened over and over, because we were in this weird Monday night thing with CBS. They liked having the comedy block but they were against Dancing with the Stars, which was a juggernaut for X number of years and then The Voice comes along. So you're sort of dealing with reality, so I just never thought it would continue on. And I'm very grateful and privileged to be able to do this for as long as we have, given that so often networks retool things when they're a little bit nervous and want to do better. CBS and Les [Moonves] and Nina [Tassler] have been truly extraordinary in keeping our show on the same night for nine years and have always represented us well, even though we're not one of the top 5 shows. They've treated us with great respect. And I think the fans know they can come to Monday and see us and its comfort food. But yeah, 200 is a lot!We've been asked this before and I feel like I should update my answer, but I love that finale of Season 1. The finale of Season 1, where Marshall is crying in the rain on the stoop. Ted's at his highest point. He got the girl. He comes back and see his best friend lost his girl... in the rain, crying, with a returned engagement ring in his hand. To me, that's like the essence of the show and why the show works, is its life all happening at once. It's joy and its sadness. And it's reality. Marshall is in the worst moment of his life, while Ted's at one od his highest points and that's reality. And that's the thing that gave us the courage... Especially the end of Season 1, culminating with that episode. It gave us the courage to go dark sometimes on the show. To be introspective, to be emotional and I like to think that's why the show has succeeded as much as anything. As much as comedy or wackiness, it's succeeded maybe more so because of a moment like that. So that's always my touchstone of a moment where I said, 'We're doing this right. We have to keep doing stuff like this.'This is going to be weird and it's going to sound like I'm calling my shot, but this one that we're shooting this week... The 200th episode, I don't know, right now it's really something special. So much of the credit goes to Cristin Milioti. She's fantastic. She's been fantastic this year. That's the one that's on my mind at the moment… I like Carter's answer better, because mine's suggesting we peaked at episode 22!I was very honored to get the arc where my father passed away. That was a really nice thing.There was one I did in New York, because I was doing a play. It was my favorite episode, for me. 'Oh my god, I'm so heavy [in the story] this week! This is crazy!' It was all narration. But they recorded it on a mic where my voice didn't sound right and my voice was at a higher midrange. People were going, 'Where's Bob's voice?': My memory goes in moments, so I couldn't tell you what the show was about, but the moment at the airport where Marshall comes in with the orchestra. I was pregnant at the time, so I was highly emotional. So to be surrounded like that, it was so great.I love that time travelers episode that ended with Neil and me singing "For the Longest Time." That was such a weird, interesting, sad episode. It was really haunting and super hard to film, but it was great. Other things... Little moments stick with you, like when Ted decorates the apartment for Robin when she can't have kids. There's certain things that are just so kind that he does. I loved any time college Ted and college Marshall could be together. I just love putting on that silly wig and those glasses. He can be extra pretentious as a college kid.Anytime Robin Sparkles is in an episode, I like it, because we get to shoot music videos. You have to understand, when we shoot music videos, our weeks go from like three day shooting weeks to four day shooting weeks, because we have to use an entire day to shoot the music video. But I'd like to think our crew has fun. My backup band are all crew members or writers. So I really like those. 'Let's Go to the Mall' has a special place in my heart, just because it was the first one and it was the upbeat version and it was new territory.

Continue to Page 2 as the HIMYM crew preview what's to come in Episode 200 and beyond.