One big family
Syracuse University graduates may not yet know how Ted Mosby met his children’s mother, but they will eventually be the ones to reveal it. CBS’ Emmy Award-winning television comedy ‘How I Met Your Mother’ is the workplace for many SU alumni.
Seven graduates of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, all television, radio and film majors, are currently some of the creative minds behind one of today’s most popular sitcoms. When the talented group is not writing, producing and perfecting the show millions of viewers look forward to every Monday at 8 p.m., they are reminiscing about their time in college.
‘It’s a pretty cool thing we’ve got going on,’ said co-producer Missy Alexander, from the Class of 2001.’We’ve got a big bowl of Oranges out here.’
Though the graduates all earned their diplomas in a span of more than 20 years, their bond is still very tight. They have hired, promoted and helped one another succeed in the job about which they all speak fondly.
‘When you have Syracuse on your résumé, other grads are a little more eager to talk to you,’ said Stewart Halpern, the show’s post producer from the Class of 1989. ‘It’s like, ‘Oh, you went to SU? I went to SU, too!”
Co-executive producer and writer Jamie Rhonheimer, a Zeta Beta Tau brother from the Class of 1996, said that there is a lot of Syracuse gear worn around the office. ‘We definitely talk SU sports,’ he said, ‘these days mostly basketball.’
Craig Gerard, the show’s script coordinator from the Class of 2004, said that when the NCAA Tournament comes around, the office completely shuts down.
Gerard’s writing partner and the assistant to the show’s co-creators, Matt Zinman, also from the Class of 2004, said, ‘Someone will walk up to my desk and say, ‘Don’t tell me the score of the game because I’m TiVo-ing it.’ It’s pretty cool.’
When the show did a ‘Dirty Santa’ exchange this year, a fittingly funny take on the classic ‘Secret Santa’ routine, Rhonheimer’s gift was $75 worth of different Dinosaur Bar-B-Q sauces, which another SU graduate ended up taking home.
Alexander said the team is always happy to bring in a Syracuse alumnus. ‘We all have tons of things in common that other people don’t,’ she said. ‘It’s been raining all week in Los Angeles, and we keep joking about the weather in Syracuse. We all have a little bit of pride about how we’re able to weather the weather.’
But their pride for SU is not just behind the scenes. Gerard and Zinman, who have been a writing team since their senior-year writing classes, have thrown SU references into both of the episodes they have written.
Their first collaborative writing credit was for the episode ‘Sorry, Bro,’ which aired during the show’s fourth season. Gerard said they snuck in a No. 44 reference and named a character Wisniewski, after an old SU friend.
The writing duo’s second episode airs a week from Monday, and both writers said they are really excited. Zinman said that their biggest jokes and ideas have endured the many rounds of editing and have made the final cut.
‘I’m over the moon about both of our episodes,’ he said. ‘Writing them is just so much fun – I can’t wait until the next one.’
Gerard said they have spent the past few weeks editing the episode. He said he enjoys watching it all come together. ‘It’s really a dream come true. It’s so exciting and fun, and we have a really great time doing it,’ he said.
In the episode ‘The Goat,’ in the show’s third season, Missy the Goat is named after Missy the SU graduate. Alexander says the goat was awarded her name out of respect for her extreme effort to find it. She said she has started an SU college fund for the goat.
Rhonheimer, who joined the talented writing team during the show’s second season, says he is most proud of the ‘Lucky Penny’ episode, which reverses through time.
‘It was an episode where we really jumped around and played with time,’ he said. ‘Writing in a non-linear fashion was a real challenge, but I feel like it turned out well.’
Halpern, who perfects the show from the moment it is shot to the moment it airs, is most proud of a season one episode, ‘The Pineapple Incident.’ He said the episode was the first time the show did something really special with visual effects.
In the episode, Halpern was responsible for the story’s flying letters, a crazy dream sequence and a big red dragon. ‘It was the first time we did anything like that,’ he said. ‘And we’ve continued ever since.’
Matt Blitz, the show’s production assistant and an Alpha Epsilon Pi brother from the Class of 2006, said his job is ‘totally awesome.’
Blitz said, ‘It’s great to work at a place where we not only have fun, but we put out a great product. I couldn’t ask for a better job, working for better people, at a better show. Everyone is encouraging in every sense of the word.’
He said he gets as excited as anyone when he reads all the new scripts, but he got particularly excited while this season’s episode ‘The Playbook’ was shot.
‘I was on set, and they needed a name,’ he said. ‘Jason Segal (the actor who plays Marshall Eriksen) looked at me, and all of a sudden I hear him yell, ‘Matthew Blitz’ and do a whole runner about it. Basically, I’m the butt of a big joke and I’m forever known as a guy who works as Marshall’s firm’s accountant.’
When the former SU students are not creating a hilarious television episode, they are reminiscing about hilarious times in upstate New York.
‘We all graduated from such different years,’ Halpern said. ‘We love comparing which bars have come and gone and which dorms we lived in freshman year. It gives us all something to talk about.’
But the show’s ending is one thing they do not talk about. While they wish that the show could go on forever, they know that all sitcoms eventually conclude. As for the mystery of meeting ‘the mother,’ they said the creators are very tight-lipped about it. But all the SU graduates agree that it will be ‘legendary.’
Published on January 24, 2010 at 12:00 pm
