How I learned to Hate HIMYM

Is it possible to hate something everybody else loves? If I think Publix’s supermarket bagels in Atlanta are a pale imitation of a fresh New York City bagel, could I possibly be mistaken? There’s a certain cable TV show that everyone thinks is fresh, hilarious and “clever”. I find it stupid, boring and unoriginal. I’m afraid this might be a generation thing because my 20 something kids and their girlfriends love it, or at least think it’s “mad funny”. I can’t even get myself to laugh along with the laugh track. I’m talking about How I Met Your Mother. I really really dont get it and it makes me question which one of us is crazy, or at least who has the severe humor disorder. Here’s my beef: 1) It’s concept is trite and derivative. It’s an obvious “Friends” knock-off but Friends was funny and the characters were likeable in their quirkiness 2) The show is hackneyed and overdependent on its laugh track to cue the audience when to laugh and guffaw over its cute but oh so predictable dialogue. Without it, one would merely hear the characters taking repetitious turns overplaying their stereotype roles 3) Some of the characters are completely unlikeable and lack authenticity. They are playing “forced” dramatic roles that dont even fit their personalities. Neil Patrick Harris is flaming gay, not that there is anything wrong with that, but in HIMYM he is a womanizing braggart sexist metrosexual. It’s not believable, just as nobody would ever cast me as a Fundamentalist preacher from Des Moines who used to play professional basketball. I thought Friends was funny. I thought Seinfeld was funny. I thought Sex and the City was stupid but believable in its elitist shoe fetish Manhattan Ortgeist and Zeitgeist circa 2000 AD. What world and subculture is embodied in How I Met Your Mother? Many of the television shows young people watch today and follow religiously, like Big Bang Theory, for example, start out relatively funny but devolve into predictable one liners that are only a nano step above a fart joke. Not that fart jokes arent funny. Not as funny as actual farts of course….but just as stale…as a bad bagel.

Anyway, am I truly all alone in this? Do I need an infusion or transfusion of Generation Y and Z yuks and an instruction manual? Am I suffering from early Alzheimers characterized by a marked deficit in ones sense of smell as well as sense of humor? Somebody help me, I cant get up….for this stupid TV show.