How I Met Your Mother: 10 Best Supporting Characters

How I Met Your Mother was an incredibly successful series that ran for nine seasons of 208 episodes, and if there's one thing the show had a lot of, it's great supporting characters. The romantic misadventures of Ted wouldn't have been complete with his long list of would-be wives, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Barney, Lily, and Marshall all had their supporting characters, which included everyone from the children in Lily's kindergarten class and the gang's usual driver to a certain waitress whose last name was never mentioned and everyone's parents. For every main character, there were dozens of folks supporting them.

When you're dealing with a show that consistently follows its own continuity from the pilot to the series finale, there are numerous supporting characters who play a large role in moving the main folks from the beginning to the end. Someone introduced in the first season is often incredibly important in the last, and a lot of characters match this description.

Determining which supporting characters are the best requires looking at how they impacted the main four cast members. Did they help or hurt Ted's drive to find the love of his life, and did they get some serious laughs along the way? These ten definitely fit that description and are easily contenders for being the best supporting characters on How I Met Your Mother.

Marshall first met Daphne, as played by Sherri Shepherd in the final season, as he's trying to get to New York City from his hometown in Minnesota. As he's sitting next to her on the plane, he finds that his mother sent a picture to Lily, which reveals he took a job as a judge.

Since he hadn't discussed this with her, he does everything possible to get his mother to remove the image, but nothing he tells her works, and both he and Daphne get thrown off the plane. The two become locked in a bitter rivalry over a rental car, but eventually, they agree to drive across the country together.

Their drive begins with a great deal of animosity, but over time, they become less adversarial. This changes when Daphne lets Marshall know she ended up telling Lily about the job, resulting in Marshall's leap to fury and insistence that he picks the music -- it was, of course, "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" on repeat.

Ultimately, they make it to New York, and Marshall takes Daphne to see her daughter perform at the model UN, where she captures her mother's heart by proclaiming that oil is the future of energy (in stark contrast to Marshall's environmental beliefs).