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)
In-universe information
Alias	Doctor X, Galactic President Superstar McAwesomeville
Nickname	Teddy Bear, Teddy Boy, T-Mos, Teddy West-side, T-Dog, Schmosby, Architect of Destruction, Professor Brosby, Senor Tedifier, El Ganso con la Riñonera, Teddy Westchester, Lady Tedwina Slowsby
Gender	Male
Occupation	Architect (season 1-4 and season 6-present) Professor of Architecture (season 5-present)
Family	Virginia Mosby (mother) Alfred Mosby (father) Heather Mosby (sister) Clint (stepfather) Unnamed Grandmother
Spouse	"The Girl with the Yellow Umbrella"
Children	Penny (daughter, born in 2015, played by Lyndsy Fonseca) Luke (son, born in 2017, played by David Henrie)
Relatives	Jimmy Mosby (cousin) Stacy (cousin) Charity (cousin once removed, via Stacy) Unnamed cousins once removed

Theodore Evelyn "Ted" Mosby is a fictional character and the protagonist in the U.S. television sitcom How I Met Your Mother, portrayed by Josh Radnor. Ted also 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, was born April 25, 1978, is from Shaker Heights, Ohio (like show creator Carter Bays), a graduate of Wesleyan University (like Bays and show co-creator Craig Thomas), and an architect. After his best friend Marshall Eriksen gets engaged in the pilot episode, Ted decides to try and find his soulmate. 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.

Marshall and Ted’s relationship is an important aspect of the show. Marshall is Ted’s only stable relationship throughout the entire show. Lily leaves the group briefly in Season 2 to go to San Francisco. Robin goes to South America and doesn’t talk to Ted after their break up in Season 3. Barney and Ted have a fall out for a few episodes in Season 3 after Barney breaks the “Bro Code” by hooking up with Robin. Marshall was there for Ted through every one of his break ups and Ted was there for Marshall when Lily left him (Season 2). Marshall is Ted’s true best friend, although Barney will tell you otherwise.

Barney and Ted have an interesting relationship. Barney’s goal when he met Ted was to show him how to live. Throughout he seasons, Barney has been pushing Ted to live life to the fullest and do crazy stupid thing with him in order for every night to be “legend-wait for it- dary”.

Lily is one of Ted’s closest friends and seems to be his voice of reason. Ted goes to Lily for advice all the time and Lily takes it upon herself to break Ted up with girlfriends she knows are not “the one”.

Robin is Ted’s ex- girlfriend (as explained later in the article), but becomes a very good friend to him. Ted is Robin’s voice of reason throughout the seasons and she always goes to Ted for advice or when she needs cheering up.

Ted is prone to socially questionable romantic gestures; in the pilot episode, for example, he steals a blue French horn (nicknamed "The Smurf Penis") that was a topic of conversation in his first date with Robin. In a similar vein, in "Slutty Pumpkin", he 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 realize they've been deceived. Ted and Robin ultimately reconcile as friends, and, in "Come On", 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 falls for him some time later when Ted apparently summons a storm with a complicated rain dance. They date throughout the second season, breaking up in "Something Blue" upon realizing that they want different things from life.

Ted describes himself as "half-Jewish." 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 nine 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, and became best friends on a long, ill-fated road trip. 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 French and sign language (presumably American Sign Language), and has a strong tendency to correct everything that people around him say. He also can clumsily speak and read Spanish, as Pablo Neruda is one of his favorite writers.

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, an inebriated Ted gets a tattoo on his lower back (his "tramp stamp"). He goes to see Dr. Stella Zinman in order to have it removed, and goes on a date with the doctor in "The Platinum Rule." In "Ten Sessions," he falls for Stella, 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 her. She says yes at the beginning of the fourth season. In "Shelter Island", Ted invites Stella's ex-boyfriend, Tony, to his wedding; Stella and Tony rekindle their relationship, and Stella leaves a devastated 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 it is largely unsuccessful. In the season four finale "The Leap", Ted ultimately accepts a job as an architecture professor offered to him by 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.

He reaches a low point in his personal life in Season 7 and confides in Robin that he is beginning to believe he will never find "The One". This reaches a breaking point when he tells Robin he still loves her after she breaks up with her boyfriend Kevin. However, Robin does not reciprocate his feelings and moves out. Eventually Ted gives the apartment back to Marshall and Lily and moves into the apartment Barney's girlfriend Quinn used to live in. In the episode "Trilogy Time" it is revealed that by 2015, Ted's daughter will already be born.

After a few months, Ted decides to patch things up with Robin, and she helps him realize that none of the women he pursued previously, including her, were right for him, with the exception of Victoria, whom she encourages to call. When Ted calls Victoria, she shows up in a wedding dress and says she is ready to run away with him. Initially, he tells her that he would take her back to her wedding, but after realizing how much he likes her he changes his mind and they ride off in the sunset. After dating for a few months, they again break up when Victoria only agrees to marry Ted on the condition that he is no longer friends with Robin. Ted tells Victoria that although he is no longer in love with Robin, that she is like family and is too much a part of his life to not be friends with her anymore.

After Victoria, in Season 8 episode "P.S. I Love You", Ted meets Jeanette Peterson. Jeanette is Ted’s final girlfriend before meeting the mother. She is important because she is the girlfriend that makes him realize it is time to settle down. Jeanette is a Lieutenant with the NYPD and a potential stalker. Ted and Jeanette meet on the subway after Ted notices they read the same book. Jeanette’s character seems to be there to make fun of Ted’s widely romantic gestures drawing a very fine line between creepy and romantic. Ted finds out that Jeanette has been stalking him for a year and half (since his appearance on Time Magazine), bought the same book as him 10 minutes after him (the book they were both reading on the subway), and started a fire outside his lecture hall to meet him. Despite all these stalker and downright crazy attributes, Ted finds this romantic and ignores the crazy warning signs. Marshall and Lily try to discourage Ted in going after her, but he ignores them and enters a world of crazy. In "Bad Crazy", even though Jeanette destroys Ted’s apartment after Ted attempts to break up with her Lily changes her mind and tells Ted to stay with Jeanette. Lily realizes that although Jeanette is crazy, Ted is a little crazy now too and that he needs the crazy. Ted does stay with her. In "Weekend at Barney’s", Jeanette breaks up with Ted. In "The Final Page- Part Two", Barney tries to set up Ted with other women to get his mind off Jeanette, although Jeanette finds him at the bar and they get back together. However, this does not last long. Jeanette finds Barney’s playbook in Ted’s apartment and destroys the place locking Ted out and throwing his things out the window to the street below. She also blows up the Playbook. Jeanette and Ted’s relationship did end in flames like Lily predicted it would in Bad Crazy. At this moment, Ted decides he is done with the single life and ready to settle down, making room for his final love, the mother.

Although happy for them, Ted is upset when Robin and Barney get engaged. All of his best friends are now involved with each other. In "The Time Travelers", future Ted fantasizes about seeking out The Mother weeks before they actually meet, so that he can tell her how desperate he is to meet her. He is supportive of his friends' engagement, but ultimately realizes his lingering feelings for Robin would make it difficult to be around them once they're married. He plans to move to Chicago the day after they get married.

Future Ted

Future Ted, voiced by Bob Saget, narrates every episode to his children in 2030, framed as the story of how he met their mother. It is known that Robin, Lily, Stella, Wendy the Waitress, Cindy, Zoey, Cathy, Janet Mcintyre and Victoria and Tracey the Stripper are not the children's mother. The mother was finally revealed in the season 8 finale "Something New," played by Cristin Milioti.

In the third season premiere, "Wait for It", Ted's children already know the "short version" of the story of how he met their mother, and that it was an incident involving her yellow umbrella. Some clues given are that Ted's future wife is a college student studying economics, as she was in the classroom on Ted's first day as a professor, where he initially went to the wrong room and started teaching Architecture 101 to what, actually, was Economics 305. It was also mentioned that she was at the same nightclub as Ted and Barney on St. Patrick's Day, 2008. 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. Future Ted told his kids that he met their mother "on the day of the wedding" which is later revealed to be the day of Barney and Robin's wedding, in which Ted is the Best Man. In the season premiere of the 8th season, Ted is reading a book while waiting at the "Farhampton" train station after Barney and Robin's wedding when "the mother" (indicated by future Ted's voiceover and the appearance of the signature yellow umbrella) is shown arriving at the same station via taxi cab, though whether or not they meet at that time is unconfirmed as the episode fades to credits with the two unaware of each other. In the Season 8 episode entitled "Band or DJ?" Future Ted reveals in a flashback that "the mother" played bass guitar in the wedding band that performed at Barney and Robin's wedding. Although the flashback shows that Ted does see the mother at the wedding, it is implied that they do not actually formally meet at the wedding. Ted and his wife are shown in a flashfoward standing outside a movie theater advertising The Wedding Bride III during the episode "No Pressure", although the wife's face is not shown nor is her identity revealed.

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.
• Quotes by Ted Mosby