Barney tries to get his dad drunk in order to connect with the reckless party animal that Jerry was when Barney was just a kid.
This episode provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: When Barney tries to get Jerry to stop dancing at the club, Jerry calls him “a small-town preacher from the Midwest” and asks if dancing is banned, referencing Footloose and, more specifically, John Lithgow's character in the film. Also, before the gang goes out on the town, Jerry asks them if it’s time to “cut loose.”
- Call-Back: All the things Jerry did before he left Barney as a kid get a nod later. Magic, partying, and a drunk audience.
- Continuity Nod: When Robin asks Ted to end their fake relationship so she can go hit on her secret crush after Barney and Jerry leave the club, Ted obliges by saying, "I would have stolen you a whole orchestra," in a deadpan voice. This is what he said to Robin when they actually broke up in "Something Blue", though with considerably more emotion.
- Crazy-Prepared: Barney gives each of his friends "personality modification" cards to impress his father. Ted receives a stack of topics to avoid talking about; right as he starts quoting Oscar Wilde, Barney tells him to read the cards, and the first one says, "No quoting Oscar Wilde".
- Five-Man Band Concert: The opening sequence
of this episode features the adults doing a rendition of the Title Sequence's song. They are Five Temperament Ensemble — Ted (Leukine) and Barney (Sanguine) are the guitarists, Lily (Choleric) is the bassist, Robin (Melancholic) is the drummer, and Marshall (Phlegmatic) is the keyboardist. - Indy Ploy: Jerry wants to connect with Barney, so he pretends to do half a dozen shots, actually dumping each on the ground before lifting it to drink. Then he improvises a series of wild shenanigans, taking advantage of random things on the street and a drunk audience.
- Once More, with Clarity: The scenes of Jerry's drunken escapades are replayed as they actually occurred, after Jerry informs Barney that they didn't really happen the way he thought and that he, Jerry, has been Playing Drunk.
- Playing Drunk: Jerome tricks Barney by pretending to drink whilst secretly disposing of them and switching his bottle of alcohol with milk so that Barney would think he got his cool "Crazy Jerry" back to teach him a lesson.
- Special Edition Title: The gang performs the theme song as the band Barney claims they're in. With everyone on vocals, Lily and Ted lead, Barney's on electric guitar, Marshall on keyboard, and Robin on drums.
- Shout-Out:
- Jerry references Footloose while dancing at Hopeless. Doubles as an Actor Allusion, since John Lithgow played Reverend Shaw Moore in the film.
- Lily insists on pretending to be Meryl Streep from The Devil Wears Prada as part of the fake identity given to her by Barney.
- Who's on First?: The entire gang and Barney's father engage in this when trying to figure out which club to go to. Barney's father even lampshades the conversation by uttering lines from the original skit... and then the lampshading is incorporated into the joke.
