The Stinsons - Cultural References

Cultural References

• Ted recalls having seen Betty act in Brecht's Die Heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe (he refers to the play by its original German title).
• Barney's line "Call me crazy but child actors were better in the 80s", is a reference to the actor Neil Patrick Harris, who plays Barney. Harris himself was a child actor in the 1980s playing the title role in Doogie Howser, M.D.. After the line, a cutaway of videotaped stock footage of houses appears with an upbeat musical jingle, both reminiscent of 1980s sitcoms.
• Barney's fictitious wife's name Betty is a reference to Barney and Betty Rubble from The Flintstones.
• Robin says that Barney's supposed girlfriend must have come from Narnia to manage to make him a committed man.
• After Loretta states that she had been a "whore" back in the day, Marshall calls her "Barney's mom", in reference to the movie "American Pie", also starring Alyson Hannigan, where Paul Finch calls Steve Stifler's mother "Stifler's mom".
• Loretta mentions sleeping with the members of Grand Funk Railroad, when she spent three weeks being passed around like a bong.