How I Met Your Mother was a popular sitcom beloved by viewers and critics alike. It owed its zest to the variety of quirky and zany characters, both those in its main cast and those other recurring characters. Everyone who appeared on the show felt as though they had their own story to tell.
Even the titular Mother, whose appearance was greatly hyped, felt just as awesome as Future Ted had described her. However, for every amazing person who featured on the series, there were other characters in How I Met Your Mother who didn't reach their potential, or just really annoyed the viewers watching at home.
Darren
Darren was a very minor character who featured briefly in Season 9. However, his personality was absolutely horrible. Darren actually knew Tracy before the gang did, as he had taken over her band and had started the process of kicking her out.
Naturally, this made fans hate him automatically, but Darren then went round the group and attempted to split them up by being sly and back handed. Everyone has a 'friend' like that who loves to cause drama and the viewers just weren't there for it.
Mickey Aldrin
Mickey Aldrin was Lily's father and his first impression definitely left a lot to be desired. Lily didn't have the happiest upbringing, as her father frequently neglected her because he was too busy gambling or thinking up crazy board game ideas.
Although Mickey definitely got better as the show went on, there was always that underlying selfishness about him. Whenever he turned up in Lily's life, something would always go wrong and Lily had to practically beg her dad to put it right.
Hammond Druthers
Hammond Druthers (Bryan Cranston) first appeared in Season 2 of How I Met Your Mother as Ted's insufferable boss. Bosses aren't there to be liked, but they do need to be able to boost morale and actually be a little bit skilled at their job. Druthers managed neither.
His company were tasked with designing a new building for the New York skyline, and the best Druthers could come up with was a phallic shaped model. After Ted was put in charge, Druthers handled the change very immaturely, forcing Ted to take drastic action.
Stuart
Stuart was married to Claudia and had known Ted, Marshall and Lily for a very long time. However, he didn't appear to be the nicest person to be around. He and Claudia were always arguing and it always seemed as though they hated each other.
What's more, he was never that great a friend to the gang. He had a problem with alcohol, and there was even an episode in the ninth season which revolved around the fact that he had stolen Ted's wedding present to Lily and Marshall, causing grief between the friends.
Sandy Rivers
Sandy Rivers was a hilarious, yet completely obnoxious, character who was played by Alexis Denisof, Alyson Hannigan's real life husband. He was a news reporter who, in his very first episode, starred in a news segment where he literally read out headlines from newspapers.
Over time, though, Sandy got even worse. He was a total womanizer and came off more creepy than amusing on more than one occasion. When he and Robin worked with each other for the second time, even she couldn't contain her disgust, and Robin married Barney.
Zoey Pierson
Ted Mosby dated many, many women on the show, but only a few lasted for multiple episodes. Zoey was Ted's main love interest during Season 6. While Zoey had a lot of admirable qualities, they were incredibly well hidden beneath her overly passionate exterior.
Zoey was an activist and loved to fight for what she believed in. Unfortunately, this caused her to clash with Ted. The couple tried to reconcile their differences throughout their relationship, but Zoey took things too far, especially when she bugged Ted when he was trying to be nice.
Clint
Poor Ted went through a lot of family drama on How I Met Your Mother, from him discovering his parents had divorced without telling him, to watching his mom move on with another man. That would have been fine, if that man had been anyone other than Clint.
Clint was truly the worst. Everyone found him incredibly annoying and he was also way too graphic when talking about his sex life. Even Marshall, the most tolerant of the gang, ended up abandoning Clint on the side of the road because he couldn't stand him any more.
Stella Zinman
At first, Stella seemed like the perfect match for a lovelorn Ted. They first met when Ted went to her to get rid of his butterfly tattoo he had gotten on a wild night out, and the two shared an obvious and initially adorable connection.
However, things took a turn for the worse. They almost broke up in the Season 3 finale, and Ted was forced to move to New Jersey. The main reason why Stella is mentioned, however, is because she left Ted at the altar and then her husband made a movie about it.
Jeanette Peterson
Jeanette was Ted's last girlfriend before he met the Mother, and she was the most selfish, irritating character ever. Their meet-cute was anything but cute, as Jeanette basically stalked Ted both physically and online to make herself more appealing.
When Jeanette and Ted were together, things just got worse. Jeanette was incredibly controlling, and violent; she constantly made Ted fear for his safety. Their relationship was essentially mocking domestic violence, which was pretty tasteless on the writers' part.
Ted Mosby
Although there were many times when Ted was likable, selfless and courageous, there were many more times when he was the complete opposite. Despite being the main protagonist on How I Met Your Mother, Ted proved to be a very problematic character.
He constantly moaned about being single and how he wanted to find The One, but he treated women like a commodity and broke up with his girlfriends for shallow reasons. Ted was also extremely pretentious, to the point where fans wondered how he had any friends at all.