How I Met Your Mother: Barney's 10 Most Brilliant Plays

4. Ted Mosby: Architect

In "Ted Mosby: Architect" (S2E4), Ted and Robin were dating and they had a fight because Ted was complaining about work and Robin complained that his work stories weren't very interesting. Barney told Ted that there are lots of women who think architects are hot and that he should use it as a pick-up. When Ted says it doesn't work, Barney said Ted's problem was he wasn't saying it with the right attitude. After Marshall and Barney left the bar, as a test, Ted asked a cute girl at the bar (Anna) what she thought of architects and she said architects were hot. Later, Robin and Lily discovered that Ted was at the bar with Anna and her friend, flirting with them. From there, Robin and Lily followed the trail, discovering that Ted took Anna to a party and then to a club, impressing people along the way and ending at the girl's apartment. Once Robin and Lily got to the apartment, they found Barney naked and tied to the bed while Anna was in the shower. Barney then told Robin and Lily that Ted left the bar to go back to work and Barney introduced himself to Anna as "Ted Mosby: Architect" since he'd recently received some bad press on the Internet. Barney left, leaving a form letter for Anna describing himself as a ghost and putting down "Resident" in the name field because he couldn't remember it. This act wasn't without consequences, although not for Barney. In "The Bracket" (S3E14), a scorned girl was going around, ruining Barney's pick-up attempts. In trying to track down the scorned girl, Barney checked to see if Anna was the one. She had set up a website called TedMosbyisaJerk.com (an actual website set up by the show's producers and features some fun tie-ins to the show). Barney announced to everyone in the coffee shop that Ted Mosby is a jerk to women and they should go to the website. It went on to get 400,000 hits. While introduced in the show before the Playbook, it's still worth mentioning.