How I Met Your Mother and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle actor Neil Patrick Harris took to social media yesterday to share his annual family Halloween photo. The costumed pics are a tradition at this point, with Harris, his husband David Burtka, and their children Gideon and Harper posing for elaborate and usually hilarious photo shoots during spooky season. This time around, the family all posed as fast food mascots, with the parents dressed as the Burger King and Ronald McDonald, and the children dressed as Wendy Thomas and Colonel Harland Sanders. The latter two are real people, who served as the faces of Wendy’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken, respectively.
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In addition to the costumes themselves, the photo is taken in a living room strewn with fast food wrappers, food, and other detritus. The result is equally hilarious and a little off-putting.
You can see it below.
As Harris notes, Burtka shared a number of behind-the-scenes images (you can see his post below), which showed how the photoshoot took shape, including Harris (half in his Ronald McDonald makeup) applying the Burger King makeup and prosethetics on Burtka and creating the facial expressions and ketchup smears that make it a little creepy.
This year’s costume series is just the latest for the Burtka-Harris family. Last year, the family dressed as horror movie killers. Previous years included trips to Gotham City, Hollywood, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. One time, they dressed up as Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol, Vincent van Gogh, and Salvador Dali to create the “Burtka-Harris Boo-seum of Art.” In 2018, the family modeled their theme around Walt Disney Parks’ The Haunted Mansion ride while in 2017, the family channeled American Horror Story with their Freak Show-inspired theme, a theme that was especially fitting as Harris appeared as a stage magician Chester Creb in two episodes of that season. And like any good family of themed costumes, they were Star Wars characters at one point. How could you not?
Harris entered the world of The Matrix last year, not for Halloween but on the screen. Currently, he is appearing in Uncoupled, a Netflix series centering on a man whose life is turned upside down after his partner walks out on him after 17 years. The grounded subject matter and gay characters are a big change from the wild, zany character of Barney Stinson, a womanizing sociopath Harris played for years on How I Met Your Mother, helping to build out a cartoonish version of “NPH” that became a pop culture icon.