10 TV Deaths That Totally Trolled Audiences
4. Marvin Eriksen Sr. - How I Met Your Mother
How I Met Your Mother was all about dating, relationships, and finding true love. The show was 99% comedy, 1% drama, but it wasn't always like that. Occasionally, and by that, we mean, only once, the show flipped the script and opted for an episode with 99% horrific sorrow with only 1% comedy.
In the episode, "Bad News," something about the visuals in the series changed, and eagle-eyed viewers noticed it first with the number 50 prominently displayed on a pamphlet in a doctor's office. As the show continued, it became clear that the numbers were counting down from 50, but with no indication why.
Fans sat around their television sets, counting down as they saw Marshall's dad drinking a beer called "Old Number 36" or the more obvious winning lotto numbers of "32 31 30 29 28 27." Fans Tweeted about the numbers with speculation flying about what they could mean.
Then, after the entire episode passed, and it was about to end, a taxi rolled up to Marshall on the street, and it had the number one on its hood light. Lilly steps out of the cab to reveal that Marshall's father had a heart attack and died. It was a masterful gut-punch, and nobody who regularly watched the series saw it coming, making it an expert-level of trolling that played out entirely throughout the episode's 21-minute runtime.