Britney Spears to Appear on \"How I Met Your Mother\"

In an attempt to boost ratings, the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother is looking to Britney Spears for help. (Courtesy CBS)

Besides The Office, which has earned well-deserved praise, the genre of the sitcom has been home to such fright fests as The World According to Jim.

However, if you give the overlooked How I Met Your Mother a shot, you might find yourself cracking up at the comic chops of Neil Patrick Harris – we kid you not. The show is centered around a man named Ted, who tells his kids the story of how he met the love of his life through flashbacks covering 25 years. The bored kids sit on the couch and listen as dad recounts tales of his pursuit of romance, often only to learn at the end of the episode that the woman in the story didn't turn out to be their mom. Neil Patrick Harris plays Ted's smarmy friend, Barney, who often steals the show.

However, as in the case of Arrested Development, America tends to embrace crap rather than quality scripts, thus -- How I Met Your Mother is, as they say in the biz, is "on the bubble." TMZ first reported that execs at CBS are hoping Britney Spears will be the gimmick they need to boost ratings. Can a dose of Britney save the show?

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