Katie Holmes Will Guest-Star on ‘How I Met Your Mother’

Over the years, "How I Met Your Mother" has been very fortunate in attracting seasoned actors to guest-star as love interests for Ted (Josh Radnor) — ladies like Rachel Bilson, Sarah Chalke, Jennifer Morrison, and Laura Prepon. Today, New York magazine's Vulture blog revealed the latest example of "HIMYM" stuntcasting: Katie Holmes.

The actor has been invited to appear on the show's Halloween episode next month, in a role that, on a family site, I will paraphrase as "The Pumpkin of Loose Morals." Fine: It's actually The Sl--ty Pumpkin, a role so important in Ted lore that the sixth episode of the series was titled for her. At a Halloween party Ted attended in 2001, he met a woman dressed as a free-loving gourd, learned a handful of facts about her, and wrote her number on the wrapper of a candy bar, only to have Lily (Alyson Hannigan) give it away. Since then, Ted has attended the same party every year, hoping against hope that this particular Pumpkin will return. It's sort of like Linus and the Great Pumpkin, plus the hope of casual sex.

Still best known either as Joey Potter of "Dawson's Creek," or as Mrs. Tom Cruise (depends whom you ask), the 32-year-old Holmes was last seen on TV playing First Lady Jackie Kennedy in the Reelz miniseries "The Kennedys"; she's also currently in theatres in the feature "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark."

Vulture's report doesn't indicate that Holmes will appear in more than one episode; rather, her, er, "Promiscuous Fruit" is part of what series co-creator Carter Bays has described as Ted's "exorcising...his demons" by revisiting some of the women in his past. It's too bad Holmes probably won't recur: Victoria is fine and all, but can her cupcakes really compete with a jack-o'-lantern costume embellished with strategic (erotic) cut-outs?

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