How Craig Met Carter [AKA: "The Backpack Boys"]
How We Made Your Mother
Audacy & Josh Radnor and Craig Thomas
4.8 • 922 Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2025
⏱️ 35 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When we sat down with Carter Bays to talk about the development of HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, we just couldn’t stop talking. And by the end, we found that we had two episodes on our hands: We had HOW WE GOT IT MADE, detailing the ins and outs of pitching, selling, casting, and finally making HIMYM. But we also have our first bonus episode, HOW CRAIG MET CARTER, about the legendary meeting at Wesleyan University of the HIMYM creators, their musical and comedy collaborations through their work at THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN, right up until the moment they first pitched HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER to their agent. (Read more in our Substack post.)
CONNECT WITH THE SHOW:
Official Website (Send us your audio and written messages)
Substack (Join the mailing list, get announcements, and read more from Josh and Craig)
HOW YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE:
Donate to our ongoing campaign to support congenital heart disease research
AND MORE:
Josh’s “Museletters” on Substack
Craig’s Official Website (with links to his published writing)
Alek’s “Dead Fathers Society” on Substack
ADVERTISING INQUIRIES:
AND IN CASE IT HELPS:
00:00 The Unexpected Journey Begins
03:11 From College Friends to Comedy Partners
06:01 The MTV Internship Experience
12:08 The Power of Collaboration
14:59 The Suit Connection: Identity and Choice
17:49 Breaking into the Industry
20:56 The Letterman Experience
23:56 Lessons Learned from Late Night Writing
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | At Betway Casino, new customers stake 10 pounds and get 150 free spins. Download the Betway |
| 0:08.7 | Casino app today. 18 plus T's and C's Apply. Be gamble aware.org. Hey Jack, I'm seeing your business |
| 0:17.1 | everywhere. Have you got a new marketing person or something? You could say I've got a new |
| 0:20.8 | secret weapon for print. Print? Oh, Vista print, right? That's not a secret. How did you know? Come on. Custom |
| 0:27.7 | posters, branded mugs, stylish flyers. Only one place prints all that. Vista print. Yeah, I got business |
| 0:33.8 | cards, stickers, t-shirts, booklets, signage, even photo books from my last holiday. |
| 0:38.3 | Print everything for your business with VistaPrint. |
| 0:41.0 | If you need it, we print it at vistoprint.co.uk. |
| 0:47.0 | Then he turned to us and was like, come in on Monday and you're hired. |
| 0:49.9 | And we walked out and we're so stunned that we got lost in the complex L-shaped floor plan of the 12th floor. |
| 1:00.2 | There's no way to get lost, but we got lost. |
| 1:01.5 | All the way down the hall. |
| 1:02.6 | We turned the only corner, the only corner of the whole hallway. |
| 1:06.3 | And we turned the corner and like you can film this in your mind. |
| 1:09.8 | It's high noon. And there at the other end is you can film this in your mind. It's high noon. |
| 1:11.2 | And there at the other end is David Letterman. |
| 1:13.6 | Like standing alone. |
| 1:15.4 | Like I think he was like tossing a football. |
| 1:17.5 | Just standing there like he's maybe going to kick our ass or something. |
| 1:20.6 | And we say to him, do you know where the elevator is? |
| 1:36.6 | Yeah. Do you know where the elevator is? Hey, it's Josh Radner. |
| 1:38.2 | Welcome to a bonus episode of how we made your mother. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Audacy & Josh Radnor and Craig Thomas, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Audacy & Josh Radnor and Craig Thomas and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.