News out of the TCA this week is that “How I Met Your Mother” — currently in its 7th season and contracted by CBS for eight — may actually extend beyond 2013, despite earlier suggestions that the sitcom would wrap up next year and the identity of Ted’s wife would be revealed. That’d be a lousy idea. Even if most of us have moved beyond caring about the show’s initial premise, eight seasons is enough. In fact, notwithstanding a number of great episodes over the last two years, five seasons probably would’ve been enough.

Nevertheless, despite record ratings, I doubt “HIMYM” will go beyond eight seasons anyhow: Jason Segel is a big Hollywood star now and probably has no desire to stick around; Cobie Smulders’ movie career may get a boost from The Avengers; Neil Patrick Harris probably has an awesome talk show in his future; and Josh Radnor has been expressing frustration with working on the sitcom for years now. Those guys don’t want to come back. If “HIMYM” were to stick around, it’d have to move ahead 20 years and replace Radnor with his voice over, Bob Saget. And then the show would really run off the rails.

But it wouldn’t be the first — or last — beloved show to do so. Here are ten other initially adored television shows that overstayed their welcomes.

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On last night’s episode of “How I Met Your Mother” – y’know, the show that airs before “2 Broke Girls” – everyone’s favorite character and everyone’s least favorite character, Barney and Ted, opened a bar in the latter’s apartment called Puzzles. Why Puzzles? That’s the puzzle.

The bar’s a mixture of Barney’s debauchery and Ted’s high-class pretension, with more than a hint of “Cheers” (check out the font in the picture above). To further the concept, CBS also purchased the domain name PuzzlesTheBar.com, so if you want to go to “a place where wit and wisdom bloom…A place to bang chicks in Ted’s room,” you can, virtually-speaking.

Like the show’s other online tie-ins, including Barney’s Video Résumé, Puzzles’ website does the small details well, including a calendar for January 2012, with everything from “Tolstoy Tuesday” to “Co-Ed Strip Dart Tournament.” But the show itself still doesn’t get the big picture: TED=DOUCHE, and Puzzles is a perfect example of this. I know you need a straight man to act against Barney’s sexual antics (oh, the irony), but does Snob Ted have to be written to such an annoyingly exaggerated, yet underwritten extent? In last night’s episode, he began a philosophical conversation about Ulysses while smoking a pipe…on New Year’s Eve. There’s nothing inherently funny about that concept. Ted’s stuck in an obnoxious middle-ground, where the show can’t make him a full douche, like Dennis Reynolds, because he’s the lead character on a CBS sitcom, but they also can’t make him intentionally unlikable, like Joffrey, for pretty much the same reason.

Has any other recent sitcom been hampered more by its lead than “How I Met” and Ted Mosby?

How I Met Your Mother (CBS) — Katie Holmes guest stars as the show’s infamous “Slutty Pumpkin.” I’m sure it will be just as disappointing as every role since Joey on “Dawson’s Creek.” Also, to my knowledge, this concludes my coverage of Halloween episodes in the daily listings. Let’s have one more corgi in costume for the road, shall we?

Ghost Hunters (Syfy) — Per tradition, the team goes to a supposedly haunted place for a live special. This year they’ll be at Pennsylvania’s Pennhurst Asylum for a six-hour special. It’s the perfect show for people who loved the low-fi dullness of Paranormal Activity but wished the movie was longer with fewer scares and commercials.

Dancing with the Stars (ABC) — How the hell is Nancy Grace still on this show? Screw you, America.

Rock Center with Brian Williams (NBC) — Series premiere. I think Brian Williams is great. However, because I’m not 60 years old yet, I don’t think I’m going to watch a newsmagazine.

Hawaii Five-O (CBS) — Nightmare on Elm Street‘s Robert Englund guest stars as, in Yahoo‘s words, a “creepy old drifter.” Is there another kind of drifter I don’t know about? I mean, if there were sexy young drifters, I wouldn’t make so many jokes about killing drifters.

Night of the Living Dead (TCM) — I admit it: I’ve never seen George Romero’s 1968 horror classic. I suppose I should DVR this so I can have some street cred the next time I talk about “The Walking Dead.”

LATE NIGHT GUESTS: Conan kicks off four nights in New York with his “Late Night” successor Jimmy Fallon on the couch, plus comic Reggie Watts. Elsewhere: Jesse Eisenberg on Letterman; Justin Bieber and World Series hero David Freese on Leno; Paul Reubens on Kimmel; Zooey Deschanel and Neil Gaiman on Ferguson; Heidi Klum on Fallon; and Mindy Kaling on “The Daily Show.”

This clip of a Russian “How I Met Your Mother” knock-off made the rounds yesterday, although I have no idea why because it’s in Russian and there aren’t any subtitles. It’s hard to tell if the Russian Ted Mosby drags the show to a halt like he does in America, but I definitely like the Russian version of Barney Stinson. Look at him: a successful Russian businessman. I bet he carries a gun and isn’t afraid to kill a Chechen prostitute.

[BuzzFeed]

The only test it passed was that I didn't go blind

When I first saw the “Simpsons” episode “Homer the Heretic” (9F01),  I wasn’t interested in skipping church, like Homer does in protest of waking up early on Sundays; instead, I wanted to make his Space Age Out of This World Moon Waffles (also, I’m Jewish, so yeah). So one day, my girlfriend, Nadia, who took all the pictures for this post, and I decided to make them, along with meals from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “30 Rock,” and “How I Met Your Mother.”

(We tried making a Flaming HOMER, but forgot to remember that some alcohols won’t catch on fire, which is to say our concoction of liquor, amaretto, rum, and children’s cough syrup didn’t work. Next time, though.)

On the following pages, I explain how to make TV’s most unholy food creations, AKA: How to Get Really Fat Really Quick.

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