Ted Mosby

Ted Mosby
How I Met Your Mother character
First appearance	"Pilot"
Created by	Carter Bays Craig Thomas
Portrayed by	Josh Radnor Bob Saget (voice of future Ted)
Information
Nickname(s)	Teddy Bear, Teddy Boy, T-Mos, Teddy Westside, T-Dog, Schmosby, Architect of Destruction, Professor Brosby
Aliases	Doctor X, Galactic President Superstar McAwesomeville
Gender	Male
Occupation	Architect (season 1-4 and season 7-present) Professor of Architecture (season 5-present)
Family	Virginia Mosby (mother) Alfred Mosby (father) Heather Mosby (sister) Clint (stepfather)
Spouse(s)	Unknown wife (future, by 2015)
Significant other(s)	Karen Robin Scherbatsky Victoria Dr. Stella Zinman Zoey
Children	Unnamed son and daughter (future, by 2015)
Relatives	Jimmy Mosby (cousin) Stacy (cousin)

Theodore "Ted" Evelyn Mosby (born April 25, 1978) is the titular fictional character of the U.S. television sitcom How I Met Your Mother, portrayed by Josh Radnor. Ted serves as the show's narrator from the future, voiced by Bob Saget, as he tells his children the long version of how he met their mother.

Character history

Ted, the central character of the show, is from Shaker Heights, Ohio (like show creator Carter Bays), a graduate of Wesleyan University (like Bays and show co-creator Craig Thomas)[1] and an architect (unlike Bays or Thomas). After his best friend Marshall Eriksen gets engaged, Ted decides to try and find his soul mate. This quest informs the general direction of the show, and Ted's relationship with the other main characters Marshall Eriksen, Lily Aldrin, Robin Scherbatsky, and Barney Stinson.

Prone to socially questionable romantic gestures, he steals a blue French horn (nicknamed "The Smurf Penis") that was a topic of conversation in his first date with Robin Scherbatsky. In a similar vein, he also dresses up as a "hanging chad" every year for Halloween, in the hopes of meeting the "Slutty Pumpkin," a woman dressed as a jack-o'-lantern (complete with strategically placed holes) whom he once met at a Halloween party.

For a time in the first season, he dates a baker named Victoria, whom he meets at a friend's wedding. She accepts a culinary fellowship in Germany, prompting a long-distance relationship, which does not last, due in large part to his persistent feelings for Robin. Ted upsets Robin by implying that Victoria broke up with him when she didn't. Ted and Robin make out before both women realise they've been deceived. Ted and Robin ultimately reconcile as friends, and Ted makes one last attempt to win her over, hiring a chamber orchestra with blue instruments to play in her apartment while he makes his appeal. She finally acquiesces some time later when Ted apparently summons a storm with a complicated rain dance. After nearly a year together, they break up upon realizing that they want different things from life, and Ted no longer sees Robin as "The One", but doesn't reveal the identity of his future wife. Robin, however, does act as an "Aunt" to his future children.

Ted comes from Shaker Heights, Ohio (in real life, Josh Radnor grew up in the Columbus, Ohio area). He was seen cheering for the Cleveland Indians when they were playing the New York Yankees at a baseball game in the episode "Where Were We?" and also alluded to once being trapped under a fake rock at a mall in Ohio when he was 9 in the episode "Slap Bet." He also wears a Cleveland Indians t-shirt in the episode "Sandcastles In The Sand". He and Marshall were randomly assigned as freshman year roommates at Wesleyan but became friends on a long road trip that was deemed both "Fieroasco" (by Marshall) and the "100k Fiasco" (by Ted). This story was told in "Arrivederci, Fiero".

For a while Ted claimed to be "vomit-free since '93", meaning he had not vomited for any reason since 1993. However, in the episode "Game Night", he reveals that this is not true, and that he vomited on Robin's door mat. He knows sign language (presumably American Sign Language), and has a strong tendency to correct everything that people around him say.

It is revealed in "No Tomorrow" that at a St. Patrick's Day party he and Barney attended, his future wife was also present, although he (fortunately) did not meet her that night. Once he returns to the room of the party the morning after, he picks up a yellow umbrella which can be seen blowing in the wind in the season promo. Also, he becomes the second main character to actually own a car (a blue Toyota Camry Hybrid) after getting a raise at his job in "The Chain of Screaming." By the end of the episode, Ted decides to get rid of the car to help Marshall with his money problems.

In "The Goat," Ted tells Barney that he no longer wants to be friends after Barney breaks the "bro code" by sleeping with Robin. The two eventually reconcile in the Season Three finale "Miracles", after both were in accidents (Ted in a taxi crash, Barney being run over by a bus on the way to visit Ted in the hospital). At the end of season 3, it is also revealed that by Ted's 31st birthday, Robin will be living in the apartment.

At the beginning of the third season, Ted, while drunk, gets a tattoo on his lower back (his "tramp stamp"). He goes to see a doctor in order to have it removed, and goes on a date with the doctor in "The Platinum Rule." In "Ten Sessions," he falls for his doctor, Stella Zinman, and after the tattoo is removed, Ted takes her on a two-minute date. They begin dating, and at the end of "Miracles" Ted proposes to Stella. She says yes at the beginning of the fourth season. Ted invites Stella's ex-boyfriend to his wedding, which unbeknownst to him, causes Stella and her ex-boyfriend's feelings to reemerge for each other and Stella leaves Ted at the altar.

Ted's life continues to see a negative turn during the fourth season. After being left at the altar, Ted has trouble getting back into the dating world, and his job becomes a source of trouble as well. After being hired to design a project for Goliath National Bank, he is fired after weeks of unsuccessful work. He attempts to remedy this by starting his own firm, Mosbius Designs, but continues to be unable to get a client. In the season four finale "The Leap", Ted ultimately accepts a job as an architecture professor offered to him by Stella's ex-husband Tony as a peace offering, though Tony's movie The Wedding Bride, released in the next season, pits a caricature of Ted as its villain against a romanticized version of Tony and Stella.

Recently it has been established that he is a big fan of Weird Al Yankovic. Supposedly he wrote Weird Al a letter when he was a kid with the suggestion for Weird Al's parody "Like a Surgeon."

Future Ted

Future Ted, voiced by Bob Saget, narrates almost every episode to his children in 2030, framed as the story of how he met their mother. As of Season 6, the kids only know that Robin, Lily, Stella, Victoria and Zoey are not their mother, and the real mother has yet to be revealed.

Some clues given are that Ted's future wife is a college student learning economics, who was in the classroom on Ted's first day as a professor, is the roommate of Ted's one-time-girlfriend Cindy, and that their meeting involves her yellow umbrella. It was also mentioned that she was at the same nightclub as Ted and Barney on St. Patrick's Day. In the first season episode, Belly Full of Turkey, Future Ted jokes to his kids that a stripper he meets named Tracey is the mother. This could imply that the future mother's name is also Tracey. Future Ted has stated that Ted meets his future wife at a wedding in which he is the best man and Barney is the groom.

External links

• Ted Mosby is a Jerk - website set up by one of Barney Stinson's one-night stands after Barney gave "Ted" as his fake name in the episode Ted Mosby: Architect
• DOCTOR X - website of Ted's radio personality at Wesleyan University introduced in the episode The Possimpible.
• CULPA - Ted Mosby - Columbia students review Ted Mosby's teaching ability.