Marshall Eriksen

Marshall Eriksen is a fictional character created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas for the CBS television series How I Met Your Mother, portrayed by Jason Segel. He is known as Ted Mosby's (the main character and the narrator) best friend, whom he met at college.

Character history
Marshall met Ted Mosby and Lily Aldrin on the first day of their freshman year at Wesleyan University. He is a Columbia Law School graduate originally from St. Cloud, Minnesota. Even though he's six-foot-four, he is the shortest male member of his family. A donkey supposedly had eaten Marshall's pants the last time was in Trenton, and at Bill's bachelor party in Memphis, they had to pump out several nickels from his stomach.

In the first season finale, his wedding plans are derailed when Lily pursues a painting fellowship on the West Coast, triggering a fight that ends their engagement. He and Lily rekindle their romantic relationship in mid-season 2 and get re-engaged (and are actually married for 12 seconds) in the episode "Atlantic City." Their wedding takes place during the last two episodes of season 2.

Marshall accidentally shot his fiancée Lily in the eye with a champagne cork the night he proposed. Another time, he (also accidentally) stabbed her with a sword during an impromptu duel with Ted.

Marshall is very good at games. He always wins, which prompts his friends to put him in charge of game night with the exception that he can't play. Marshall took this to mean he must make up a game, and so he does: Marshgammon. It incorporates the best parts of all other games. It is revealed in Season 1 that he, his brothers and his dad also play a made-up game every Thanksgiving: BaskIceBall, although Marshall states it's just an excuse for the men in his family hit each other. When the gang was gambling in Atlantic City, Marshall was the only person to figure out the crazy game Barney was playing. In college, Marshall and Ted play a game called "Zitch Dog" on their road trip. Marshall won even while he was sleeping.

Marshall has a great love of, and often preoccupation with, food. In episodes such as "The Pineapple Incident" and "Drumroll, Please," while other characters are curious about the details of Ted's love life, Marshall is more concerned about the origin of foods associated with these details. He eats very often, consuming food such as popcorn or ice cream as a result of emotional situations.

Marshall has an interest in and fear of the supernatural in general and cryptozoology specifically. He gives great credibility to ghost stories, to the point of being openly fearful when others describe encounters. Marshall and Lily took their honeymoon in Scotland in order for him to search for the Loch Ness Monster. He refuses to visit the Pacific Northwest of the United States because of his fear of Sasquatch, although he claims that he is not really afraid, but merely thinks that everyone should "be on alert."

Marshall is coerced into interviewing for a job at the corporation Barney works for after Lily ruins a very expensive wedding dress. This effectively derails his plan to intern at the Natural Resources Defense Council (or hippie lawyers from granola mountain earth pals, according to Barney). When he was sixteen, he got his Fiero from his older brothers after several "tests." A cassette tape of The Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" got stuck in the tape deck of the Fiero and played on repeat for years. Ironically, the cassette upon which the song is recorded is finally ejected as Marshall pays the car his last respects after it stopped dead just before reaching 200,000 miles. It is revealed at the end of this episode that as a teenager, Marshall inserted the tape claiming it was the best song ever, and that he would never get sick of it. Marshall and Lily recently married in two wedding ceremonies. The first ceremony was their ideal wedding, a small outdoor wedding, which was only witnessed by Robin and Ted whilst Barney performed the ceremony. The pressure of getting married gone, Marshall and Lily went inside to have the larger wedding merely for the benefit of everyone who had come to the wedding.

Marshall uses the Yiddish phrases "oy" and "oy gevalt" in season 1 episode 21.

In the episode where Marshall and Lilly are writing the letters for each to read after their respective deaths, at the end it flashes to the future and there is a framed newspaper clipping behind Marshall with the headline reading "NYC Lawyer captures Nessie." This is a reference to the Loch Ness monster and is one the many urban legends/ myths that Marshall believes in. And would lead viewers to believe that Marshall captured the Loch Ness monster.

Romantic interests

 * Lily Aldrin : Marshall and Lily met at Wesleyan University. They dated, fell in love and -- as one flashback shows -- lost their virginity to each other. They stayed together for 10 years. They planned to get married earlier but Lily got cold feet and backed out, deciding instead to go to San Francisco for an internship. She later returns, though at first Marshall refuses to take her back. When Ted's parents come to town, she and Marshall sleep together. The two are later married three times. The first time they are married for about 12 seconds while at sea before being unmarried, the second time they are married out in a garden surrounded by their closest friends and the third time, minutes after their second wedding, they go inside for a third one that was going horribly wrong. Lily plans to keep her maiden name. Future Ted (the narrator of the series, a Ted with teenager daughter and son now) has showed Marshall and Lily as an old couple, still happily married in 2036. As a married couple they share everything with each other. A running gag of the show (that starts in the second episode of the first season) consists of Lily and Marshall planning with each other to have sexual relations, only for the camera to back up and reveal Ted is listening, saying "Please don't", which they often ignore (this happened even at their wedding, and the first time this happened was revealed to be when Marshall and Lily lost their virginity to each other).

The Slap Bet
Barney lost a Slap Bet to Marshall over whether or not Robin was a porn star in Canada. His punishment was a choice of having to receive 5 slaps from Marshall that may be doled out at any time from then to eternity, or 10 slaps at that moment in time. Barney chose the former, meaning Marshall would be able to slap him 5 times at any time. After each slap, Marshall has held up a corresponding number of digits on his hand and said how many slaps Barney has received thus far.


 * 1) Barney was first slapped in "Slap Bet" after witnessing a tender moment between Robin & Ted.
 * 2) Barney was slapped in "Stuff" after writing a play entitled Suck It Lily in order to force Lily to admit that it was a terrible play. The play ended when Marshall slapped Barney.
 * 3) The third slap occurred on the "Slapsgiving" episode. Barney thought that he had escaped Marshall's third slap because Lily (the slap bet commissioner) said that no slaps could occur on a holiday. After Barney began taunting Marshall about the fact that he wasn't allowed to slap him, Lily changed her mind and permitted the slap to occur. Marshall slapped Barney and then sang a song about it.