10 Best Halloween Themed TV Episodes You Have To See

At its best, How I Met Your Mother was able to capture both the feeling of hanging out with a good group of friends, and the feeling of optimism. Slutty Pumpkin, only the sixth episode in the series, functions as a Halloween special while also fulfilling both of those goals.

The main plot is pretty simple, as a Halloween with friends would be in real life: everyone dresses up for a costume party at the bar, with Marshall and Lilly going as Jack Sparrow and a green parrot. Of course they win because they're just that adorable. Meanwhile, Ted tells the story of the "slutty pumpkin," a girl dressed as a pumpkin he met at a Halloween party years ago whose number he lost, and so every year he goes to the same party hoping she'll come back. Everyone's kind of sick of Ted wasting his Halloween doing this every year, but it also reflects the endearing hopefulness of the series. No matter how unlikely it seems that the girl will ever come back, Ted refuses to lose faith that things will turn around for him.

Plus, the episode also features flashbacks to previous Halloweens allowing for even more costumes than usual, and any excuse to see Jason Segel dressed up as Cher is always welcome.