HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER Caused The Creation of BREAKING BAD's Mike Ehrmentraut

Here's a weird story for you. How the heck is How I Met Your Mother responsible for the creation of Mike Ehrmentraut, the stone-faced fixer played by Jonathan Banks on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul? According to a new Rolling Stone interview with Saul himself, actor Bob Odenkirk, it was because he was booked on the sitcom and the Breaking Bad writers needed a way to deliver some key exposition while he was temporarily out of the picture.

“I promise you I thought I was up for three episodes of Breaking Bad — well, they wanted me for four, but I could only do three ’cause I was in How I Met Your Mother. They actually added the character of Mike because I couldn’t make that fourth week, and they needed another character to get that information across, so that’s amazing right there.”

I knew that series creator Vince Gilligan initially planned on killing off Jesse Pinkman in season one of Breaking Bad, but I had no idea that the creation of Mike stemmed from the existence of Ted, Robin, Barney, Marshall, and Lily. That's crazy - I wonder what kind of long term effect that one scheduling conflict had. We've already seen how it played out in Breaking Bad, but will Mike become an even bigger presence in Better Call Saul as the show moves toward its first season finale and into its second season? I'm guessing the answer is yes, so we'll probably have to thank HIMYM again every time Mike does something awesome as the series goes on.

H/T: Uproxx