# Sam(Cheers) vs Barney(How I Met Your Mother)...Why is Sam so much creepier?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-cheers-vs-barney-how-i-met-your-mother-why-is-sam-so-much-creepier/782128>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [March 14, 2017, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-cheers-vs-barney-how-i-met-your-mother-why-is-sam-so-much-creepier/782128 "2017-03-14T02:45:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2017, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-cheers-vs-barney-how-i-met-your-mother-why-is-sam-so-much-creepier/782128/61 "2017-03-18T00:09:19Z")

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> [@WOOKINPANUB](#):
>
> I never understood the casting of NPH as an over the top womanizer. Not to take away from his talents as an actor - I think he’s great - but he’s average looking and the Barney character isn’t particularly charismatic or even charming, IMO. Pretty much everything **Mr. Dibble** said.

He wowed them in the audition. And the original character design was that he’d be a lying creep. But because NPH is so charismatic, the character became charismatic. Because people liked him, they never did make him turn out to be some PUA asshole lying about all his exploits.

Instead, it became more like women liked him so much they didn’t mind.

I can’t remember where I got this info–probably interviews I watched with my sister.

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2017, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-cheers-vs-barney-how-i-met-your-mother-why-is-sam-so-much-creepier/782128/62 "2017-03-18T00:17:16Z")

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> [@Jophiel](#):
>
> I don’t know. I’d think that if you wanted to put someone in a bad light, you’d portray them as stupid or incompetent and not so successful at nailing random young women that it’s ironically bad and leads to a line of [physical books](https://www.amazon.com/Barney-Stinson/e/B001J8XGXK). I realize that the books don’t exist in the HIMYM universe but it’s hard to argue that he’s being ironically portrayed as terrible and then run a bunch of books promoting his awesomeness.
> 
> Maybe Ted is as poor at being spiteful as he is at everything else. Anyway, I tend to view events in the show as happening as described simply because we have no other baseline and could spend forever making up our own versions and saying “But he’s an unreliable narrator”.

In my opinion, he’s not so much portraying him in a bad light as portraying him as completely and totally wrong for Robin, since he’s just a womanizer.

That is, as the conceit at the end. It doesn’t really work as well with Robin and Barney being together for so long and Barney basically changing. That made it seem more like Robin and Barney were perfect for each other, as Robin “fixed” him.

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