How We Raised Our Columns | S2E13 "Columns"
How We Made Your Mother
Audacy & Josh Radnor and Craig Thomas
4.8 • 920 Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of How We Made Your Mother, Josh, Craig, and Alek dive into Season 2’s “Columns,” which explores the unexpected loneliness of becoming the boss. The conversation centers on Ted Mosby’s role reversal with Hammond Druthers (played memorably by Bryan Cranston), drawing directly from Craig and Carter Bays’ real experiences suddenly becoming showrunners with no training and realizing that success can be isolating. The hosts reflect on gossip, power, firing people, and the strange emotional distance that comes with authority, while also celebrating writer Matt Kuhn’s first-ever TV script and his journey from writers’ assistant to successful showrunner—an example of raising your hand, doing the unglamorous work, and being noticed. Along the way, they unpack the episode’s old-school A/B story structure, the nude Marshall painting subplot, classic jokes (new d’art, Margarita Fridays), and behind-the-scenes memories, before closing with heartfelt listener letters that underscore how How I Met Your Mother continues to soundtrack people’s real lives in nonlinear, meaningful ways.
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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. |
| 0:12.0 | Please permit me to tell you everything in New York City. |
| 0:25.2 | Well, hello out there, and welcome to another episode of How We Made Your Mother. |
| 0:26.0 | I'm Josh Radner. |
| 0:27.7 | I'm joined by my friend Craig Thomas. |
| 0:28.5 | Hey, Craig. |
| 0:29.4 | Hey, there's Josh. |
| 0:32.3 | Hey, we're still talking about how I met your mother. |
| 0:35.3 | That's a TV show that we made together. |
| 0:40.5 | Craig co-created the show with his college buddy Carter Bays. I played Ted Mosby on that show. It ran from 2005 to 2014. Today we are, we're deep into season two. |
| 0:50.0 | We're talking about the episode columns written by our friend Matt Coon. Alec, give us a little history. Place us in the constellation. When did this premiere? |
| 0:59.0 | Absolutely. Columns premiered on the television on January 22nd of 2007. |
| 1:06.0 | Television was like this thing. |
| 1:08.0 | It was a new thing at the bad point, I believe. |
| 1:12.8 | Yes, yeah, it was a new invention. |
| 1:14.6 | Watching with their TV dinners. |
| 1:16.9 | I love Lucy was our lead-in. |
| 1:24.5 | So this episode, I got to say, when it was on the schedule, it's like, oh, we're talking about columns. |
| 1:29.2 | I was like, what the hell is a off of a bit of a stealth episode. I did not remember it. It doesn't have a title that jogged my memory. And I was kind of like, what is this? Once it started, I was like, okay, I know what this is. A couple of things I completely forgot, which were funny to me that I want to talk about. But give us a little, as you do, Craig, so beautifully, a little summary of what we, what did we just watch? |
| 1:50.0 | Yeah, this is, this is how lucky are we that Brian Cranston came back and played with us again. |
| 1:55.0 | He was in Aldrin Justice, and he came back a few episodes later into this episode, and he plays Ted's formerly asshole boss, who Ted has supplanted, and Ted is now the boss. And it's an investigation of what it's like to be the boss. Like, Ted used to be the guy making fun of the boss. Now he is the boss. Not only that, but now Hammond Druthers is this completely antagonistic, bitter employee whom he has to manage. |
| 2:19.1 | And then this is one of the more A-Story B-Stories hymnum episodes we've ever done where it really is like, |
... |
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