How We Met More Ashley Williams | S1E14 "Zip, Zip, Zip"
How We Made Your Mother
Audacy & Josh Radnor and Craig Thomas
4.8 • 922 Ratings
🗓️ 10 July 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Part 2 of their conversation with Ashley Williams, the How We Made Your Mother team explores the legacy of the episode “Zip, Zip, Zip” while also reflecting on its tonal whiplash following the romantic “Drumroll, Please.” Ashley, Josh, and Craig discuss the writers’ room debate about couples’ bathroom practices, what it’s like to shift from lead storyline to comic side note, and how multi-cam shows use genre to balance intimacy and laughs. Ashley shares touching and hilarious stories about her relationship with her husband Neil—including Snickers-fueled declarations of love. The group also breaks down favorite “Zip, Zip, Zip” moments (like Robin and Barney’s first spark and the sad return of “What’s taking so long?” girl), and consider the challenges of protecting characters’ emotional dignity across episodes. The show ends with a love letter from a fan named Emily, who may have met her Ted at the Bowery Ballroom fundraiser.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm alone. What a pity, I won't be soon in New York City when I see you. Please permit me to tell you |
| 0:15.0 | everything in New York City. Welcome to How We Made Your Mother. |
| 0:21.5 | This is part two of our interview with Ashley Williams. |
| 0:24.2 | If you haven't heard the first part, go ahead and check that out. |
| 0:27.1 | And do stay until the end of the episode we left our microphones rolling after the interview |
| 0:31.2 | was over. |
| 0:32.3 | And now we join Josh, Craig, and Ashley already in progress. |
| 0:36.1 | Here's the biggest, one of the biggest room debates, |
| 0:38.4 | the writer's room debates, certainly the biggest in season one that we had. |
| 0:42.2 | And one of them was for that limo show, that limo episode before Ashley was on the show, |
| 0:47.2 | should the song be, you know, the Bon Jovi song or the Journey song. |
| 0:51.9 | And Bon Jovi went out. |
| 0:52.7 | That was, on fifths almost flat on that one. But here was a second, the close, no, I think even bigger one. Do couples pee in front of each other. Do couples pee in front of each other? Is obviously a big part of the Zip, zip, zip episode. And it was very funny in the room because I think whoever pitched that initial idea of Marshall and Lily have never peed in front of each other is probably me because my wife and I |
| 1:14.4 | don't do that and still now to be in together like 30 years. |
| 1:18.6 | And half the writer's room was like, absolutely, what sort of an animal? |
| 1:24.7 | What animals would be peeing in front of each other? |
| 2:02.4 | And we're kind of with me on it. And then the other half of the room was like, what the fuck is wrong with you? The fucking Queen of England, we're peeing, we're shitting. Everyone's just doing everything out and open. And the divide in the room was like crazy. And then we submitted this episode to the TV executives. I thought you're going to say we submitted the list of who was doing what, which writers were on which side of the beat. I'd love to see that list, by the way. I need to see that list. Alex, show notes. So we'll list out all the writers who are in front of their significant other. And then we submitted the episode of the executives. And the executives were like, we have a note on this Marshall Lilly story. |
| 2:07.8 | Both it was the studio executive and the network executive was like, I don't think this Marshall Lilly story makes any sense. |
| 2:09.8 | And the network executive was like, yeah, I agree. |
| 2:10.5 | It was really weird. |
| 2:14.3 | And the studio executive goes like, I pee in front of my husband all the time or whatever boyfriend. |
| 2:17.0 | And the network executive was like, I was going to go the other way with it. |
... |
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