Ted’s telling the kids that there’s a fine, fine line between a good story and a bald-faced lie. Barney’s especially good at skirting it (especially with the skirt-wearing set) as evidenced by the fact that he manages to convince a girl that he’s Neil Armstrong. We also learn that Barney’s 34 by the way that Ted reminds him that Apollo 11 happened seven years before he was born.
Inexplicably, the girl buys it. Ted thinks Barney’s lying about “knocking space-boots” with her, but he pulls out his iPhone, and to their dismay there are pictures.
Robin enters. She hates her job. An interview went wrong (again), and she wants just one good interview. Ted offers to go on, but Robin doesn’t want the guy whose only claim to fame is catching seven peanuts in a row. Ted announces that she wouldn’t be getting that guy; she’d be getting the guy who built the full-scale miniature model of the Empire State Building for the world’s largest recreation of New York City. Robin asks if that was the thing he was playing with the other night, and even though Ted claims he wasn’t “playing,” the flashback clearly shows him recreating the final scene of Sleepless in Seattle with his mini-puppets.
The pizza arrives, and Marshall insists that he doesn’t like pizza. When the gang confronts him, Marshall admits that he was mugged and that’s why he doesn’t have any cash. Barney appropriates the story for sympathy sex; Lily doesn’t know if she can sleep. Then Robin pulls out a huge gun and goes, “Put this under your pillow, and you’ll sleep like a baby.” They all back away from the gun and Marshall insists that he just wants to put it all behind them. Lily agrees that it won’t change them.
Cut to the shooting range. Lily’s changed. She’s a gun person now! Even Robin’s scared. Lily wants a cute little pink Baretta that matches the strappy shoes she just bought. It’s even more dangerous to have one in their home because he’s ALWAYS accidentally injuring her. Marshall tells them that the mugging didn’t exactly happen the way he originally told them. It turns out, he was at the Central Park Zoo and got a little too close to the monkey cage. The monkey stole his wallet. It’s true: he was mugged by a monkey.
Robin comes in, and they tell her about the monkey mugging. The perp’s behind bars now; he was caught because there was a tail on him. Robin thinks it’s a great story and wants him on her show. Ted wants to know about his interview, but Robin doesn’t want a guy on the show who plays with dolls. When Ted asks about the guy who was just on twice, Robin admits that the only reason he got the second interview was because the FBI asked them to keep him busy while they searched his house. Marshall agrees, but only if she doesn’t make it sound like a joke that he was mugged by a monkey. Lily’s still laughing.
Barney uses the mugged story on a girl at the bar when the Neil Armstrong girl approaches him. He tells Ted that he was able to get out of both lies and into a three-way, but Ted says that he looks like he just had two vodka tonics thrown at him, and Marshall sees a chunk of lime in his hair. Robin comes in, thrilled that the monkey mugger story is definitely a go for her show, and it might even get picked up nationally. She leaves, and Marshall confesses to the guys that he wasn’t really mugged by a monkey. The real story was the original one, but he made up the monkey story to prevent Lily from getting a gun. He could lie to the gang about it, but he can’t lie to the nation. Ted can’t tell if Marshall’s telling the truth, but he knows that if Marshall spins the story on Robin’s show, she could lose her credibility. People just don’ t like being lied to. No, Barney points out, they just don’t like finding out they’ve been lied to. There’s a difference. People want the lie.
The next morning, the gang heads to Robin’s show. Ted brings his model under the sheet, and the doll guy is back as well. Oh, and the Monkey is too. Captain Bobo is making one last appearance in New York before being split up from his mate, Millie, and being shipped out to a wildlife sanctuary. All because of the incident.
The interview does not go well. Marshall’s feeling guilty about Millie and Captain Bobo. He wants to see what’s under the sheet. They go to break, and Robin wants to know what the hell is going on. He keeps going back and forth between stories because Lily keeps threatening to buy a gun, and Bobo is going away. Cracking under the pressure, Marshall walks off the set. The gang never found out what really happened, but Robin’s credibility remained intact, Lily never bought the gun, and Bobo and Millie weren’t split up after all. Frustrated, Robin tells Ted to mic up. Barney keeps making up another ending for the story, and Ted tells him to quit it with the lies. Barney points out that one day, Ted will make up his own ending for the story. And then Ted gets all Paul Harvey on his kids…
Bobo gets loose from his cage and grabs one of the dolls. He climbs to the top of Ted’s ESB, and Dave sends a fleet of paper airplanes flying up to knock him off.
And now you know the rest of the story!
