The HIMYM creators initially didn't want Barney to have a catchphrase, but a single joke turned the character into an iconic one.
Barney Stinson summarizes How I Met Your Mother in 52 seconds
How I Met Your Mother has long been a fan favorite when it comes to sitcoms, and one of the biggest reasons it was so much fun was none other than Neil Patrick Harris's Barney Stinson. A literally beloved character, he simply could not deliver his lines without adding a unique, extraordinary touch to it with his remarkable – "Wait for it" – catchphrase.
But even though this very trait sets him apart from all other characters in the world of sitcoms, the show's creators, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, originally had no intention of giving him this trait. If anything, they desperately wanted to avoid adding this annoying feature to Stinson until a joke changed their mind and turned the character into one of the most iconic of all time.
As fans of the saga will agree, one of the most admirable qualities of Neil Patrick Harris' character in How I Met Your Mother is how he creatively manages to add his iconic catchphrase "wait for it" to many, if not all, of his sentences. of them. But, surprisingly, the creators of the show initially decided against such qualities for him.
