Hidden messages in How I Met Your Mother

But how many times did they have to watch all episodes to notice that!

Did they skip sixteen or am I going insane?

They stole that from an old TV show called MASH where an iconic and loved character finally got to go home from the Korean War. He was the leader of a MASH unit and a surgeon there as well. On his plane home it was shot down and he died. When the cast was told, during the shooting of a sence, they had no idea that he was going to die and all of the reactions in the operating room were real