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Rabbit or Duck

episode of How I Met Your Mother (S5 E15)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 24, 2025
Entity authorityQ7278639
Source-derived summary

"Rabbit or Duck" is the 15th episode of the fifth season of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother and 103rd episode overall. It originally aired on February 8, 2010. In a nod to CBS hosting that year's Super Bowl, the episode features NFL commentators Jim Nantz and Phil Simms in guest appearances as themselves.

Plot

Ted, Marshall, Lily, and Robin hang out at Ted's apartment to watch Super Bowl XLIV, where the camera catches Barney holding up a sign in the crowd asking women to call him. It pays off as his phone keeps ringing with women on the other end. He hires Ranjit as his personal driver. Robin also reveals that, while they were on the air, she accepted an offer from her colleague, Don (Ben Koldyke), to go on a Valentine's Day date. The gang debates whether Robin is attracted to Don using the duck-rabbit illusion. This leads to an intense fight among the group, with Marshall supporting rabbits as an object of desire, and Ted, Robin, Lily and Ranjit supporting ducks. Marshall eventually concedes the point.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Rabbit or Duck” as episode of How I Met Your Mother (S5 E15). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2010—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2010-02-08. The account is most persuasive where Rabbit, Duck and episode can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as episode of How I Met Your Mother (S5 E15). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7278639. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Rabbit or Duck primary sources, Rabbit or Duck archive and Rabbit research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Rabbit or Duck” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.