How I Met Your Mother always has unique Halloween costume choices for the characters. The details can be confusing, so I’ve put together images and dates in chronological order. Happy Halloween all!
1997 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
Marshall as salt, Lily as pepper and Ted as cumin
1998 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
Lily as Lady, Marshall as the Tramp, and Ted as their bowl of spaghetti
1999 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
?
2000 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
Marshall as Lewis, Lily as Clark, and Ted as their canoe (or is Lily Lewis and Marshall Clark? idk!)
2001 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
Lily as Sonny, Marshall as Cher, and Ted as a hanging chad.
This is the Halloween where Ted meets The Slutty Pumpkin, aka Naomi.
2002 HIMYM Halloween Costumes & 2003 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
Ted is still a hanging chad. At one point Marshall was Dracula so I assume Lily was one of his vampires…
The woman on the left side of the picture is A slutty pumpkin but not THE slutty pumpkin.
2004 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
Marshall as Tarzan, Lily as Jane. Ted was a hanging chad again. Sadly no picture available of this.
2005 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
Marshall as a gay pirate (Captain Jack Sparrow), Lily as his parrot, and Ted as a hanging chad. Barney as Maverick Iceman from Top Gun, a devil, & a penguin. Robin was supposed to be Gretel (her new guy was Hansel) but she didn’t dress up.
10-30-06 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
Barney as Borat
2006 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
Lily as Dr. Frankenstein, Marshall as his monster, and Ted as a scared villager
2007 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
Lily as R2D2, Marshall as C3PO, and Ted as the robot Luke’s Uncle almost bought from the Jawas
2008 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
Marshall as a wedding present (that looks like a Christmas present), Ted as a thank you note, and Lily as Paulie Bleeker from the movie Juno. Marshall was supposed to dress as a “pregnant teenager”, aka the title character from Juno.
This is shown in S9E5 “The Poker Game”, but described as occurring after Lily and Marshall’s wedding. That wedding was in May of 2007, so the logical assumption is that this happened in October of 2007. But, we already know that in 2007, they had Star Wars robot costumes (see above). 2008 becomes the only choice when we consider that Juno came to theaters in December of 2007 and was released on DVD in April of 2008.
Nice cameo by the Slutty Pumpkin (Katie Holmes) in the background of this rooftop Halloween party. It shows that she has been coming back to the same party, in the same costume, looking for Ted. She might not do it every year, but she did it this year. Sadly, Ted wasn’t dressed in his memorable hanging chad costume, so she did not recognize him. That being said – his thank you card costume looks like he drew it on the back of his hanging chad costume, so it isn’t much of a stretch. Ted’s costume creation is apparently limited to cardboard hanging around his neck.
2009 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
The year they decided to go as The Breakfast Club but failed to coordinate their outfits…
This Halloween flashback is not dated. It is shown in a flashback from S7E23 “The Magician’s Code, Part One”, which aired 5/14/12. Robin and Barney are included, so it has to be from Halloween 2005 through 2011. The only missing year in that span was 2009.
Also in 2009
Marshall and Lily get in a fight, because Lily doesn’t want to dress up as penguins with Marshall.
This fight is mentioned in S5E18 “Say Cheese” (aired 3/22/10). They describe it as happening “last Halloween”, which should indicate October of 2009. If this is the case, then Lily wanted to go as The Breakfast Club with the gang, and Marshall wanted penguins. This could explain why Lily and Marshall both showed up in the same costume (along with everyone else). If they were fighting they might not have discussed the costumes, and both could have been trying to one up the other by showing up as the coolest character.
2010 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
Lily as a matador, Marshall as a bull, Ted as a hot dog, Robin as a nurse (for a commercial, not really for Halloween), Barney as Johnny Lawrence from the Cobra Kai dojo in The Karate Kid, and Randy as a lobster.
2011 HIMYM Halloween Costumes
Lily & Marshall as suburbanites (not in costume), Ted as the hanging chad, Naomi as the slutty pumpkin, Robin as a Vancouver Canuck (Canadian hockey player – if she is a specific player and someone knows who please let me know) and Barney as Apollo Creed in Rocky (and/or as Uncle Sam). Except that Barney lost a bet to Robin and was supposed to be a Canadian Mountie, but he just couldn’t handle anything less than all-American.
2012 -2015 HIMYM Halloween Costumes….?
If you want to dress up as HIMYM characters for Halloween, you can of course go as any member of the gang. But if you want to mix things up, consider going as their doppelgängers (Mustache Marshall, Stripper Lily, Mexican Wrestler Ted, Lesbian Robin, and OB/GYN Barney). Or, go as fun bit characters like Korean Elvis and Not Moby. My favorite idea will always be Robin Sparkles and Jessica Glitter though!