How I Met Your Mother Features A Sneaky Cameo From Its Two Creators

There's nothing more delightful than when a director/creator inexplicably shows up in the thing they're making. That's why I'll always love M. Night Shyamalan movies, even the bad ones, and why I love every Gordon Cole scene throughout "Twin Peaks." Sure, sometimes the guy doing the cameo isn't good at acting, but that's often part of the charm, like when writer John Green awkwardly stumbled through a deleted scene of "The Fault in Our Stars."

"How I Met Your Mother" got in on this schtick too with its season 1 episode, "Milk." This episode features a scene where Barney attempts (and succeeds at) an elaborate pick-up line, one that starts off with him scaring a woman at the bar by acting like she's having some serious health crisis. As part of the trick, Barney even brings in two paramedics who are apparently in on the ruse. Those paramedics are played by series creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. They aren't officially credited for the episode, but the serious "HIMYM" fans can easily recognize them:

The two never showed up again in front of the camera in "HIMYM," although Carter Bays can be seen in one of the bloopers for the season 2 episode, "Stuff." It seems like Bays and Thomas' cameo was a case of them making sure they got one in before the show got canceled, which was a legit possibility for the first couple of seasons. But after they did it once, they're seemed to be no rush to squeeze in another. 

As far as creator cameos go, the one in "Milk" wasn't that memorable. I much prefer what happened in season 8 of "Scrubs," where showrunner Bill Lawrence (who co-created /Film staff favorite "Shrinking") stopped by to officiate the wedding between the Janitor and Lady. Lawrence had a lot more lines than Bay or Thomas in his scene and got to better show off his acting chops. Then again, his cameo calls far more attention to itself, which might not be to everyone's tastes. 

My personal favorite showrunner cameo is Michael Schur's in "The Office." In season 3, he shows up for the first time as Dwight's awkward cousin Mose. The guy is not evil or ill-intentioned, but good lord is he off-putting. If not for Dwight's reassurances we'd probably assume Mose was the Scranton Stranger, and even with Dwight's reassurances I'm still suspicious.

Schur's role in "The Office" is great because it doesn't have cameo vibes at all. It doesn't feel like the show is stopping to give a wink to the audience; Mose just seems like one of the many oddball minor characters who populate the show's world. Most "Scrubs" fans could probably have figured out Lawrence was the showrunner from the strange vibes of his cameo scene, whereas a lot of casual fans of "The Office" had no idea who played Mose until years later when it became a popular fun bit of trivia shared around. That's why when it comes to surprise sitcom showrunner appearances, Michael Schur's on "The Office" is still a tier above the rest.