The carousel from "How I Met Your Mother"

LOCATION

The carousel near which Robin buries her locket in "How I Met Your Mother".

ADDRESS

Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round
4730 Crystal Springs Drive
Los Angeles, CA
laparks.org

STORY & PHOTOS

In the final two episodes of the eighth season of "How I Met Your Mother", the show is ramping up to Robin and Barney's wedding. In 823, "Something Old", viewers learn that as an androgynous child, Robin (Cobie Smulders) had visited the Central Park Carousel with her father and had buried her grandmother's locket on the lawn behind the carousel. She intended to return and get it later in life -- it would be the "something old" at her future wedding.

Flash forward to current times, and Robin is desperate to find the locket before marrying Barney (Neil Patrick Harris). She and her father visit the Central Park Carousel nearly ten years later, but Robin's dad can't be bothered to help Robin look for the locket -- in fact, he has plans to play laser tag with Barney.

Robin calls Ted (Josh Radnor) and, of course, Ted shows up to help her. He helps her look for the locket and, when they find the empty box but no locket, they have a sad and quasi-romantic moment in the rain.

"How I Met Your Mother" is set in New York City, where Central Park is, but is filmed in Los Angeles. So the carousel seen on the show is not in Central Park... it's actually the Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round in Los Angeles' Griffith Park.

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I visited the carousel and it looks exactly like it does on "How I Met Your Mother". The striped awnings and the fence and gate are the same, so you can tell it's the same carousel. The crew obviously added some set dressings for filming, like the vendors along the walkway and the boulders on the lawn, but other than that it will be very recognizable to fans of the show.

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This carousel is an oft-used location. It has also been seen on "Castle" and "Bones". In fact, Griffith Park in general has been used in countless shows and movies -- "Chuck" and "The Mentalist" have used the park in a ton of episodes, and the Griffith Observatory appears in a lot of movies or TV shows that use Los Angeles establishing shots.

STORY & PHOTO CREDITS

Written by Christina LeBlanc
Location photos by Christina LeBlanc and Tess Sorrentino