How I Met Your Mother S04E18 – Old King Clancy
Ted’s project to design a new building for Goliath National Bank gets
scrapped but Barney and Marshall pretend it wasn’t to spare his
feelings. Robin admits she once went home with a celebrity who made an
unusual sex request.
Mirror
Future Ted describes his work in the spring of 2009 on the new Goliath National Bank headquarters. While he felt inspired when he started the project, including naturalistic features like wood beams and natural sunlight, Ted feels restricted by the executive supervising the project, Bilson. Eventually, a new task force is put together to supervise Ted, and he feels engaged again. But, after an awkward pick-up attempt in the elevator, he is told the building was scrapped a month ago.
The gang is at MacLaren's, drinking and talking, when Robin brings up the fact that she was once invited over to a Canadian celebrity's house to see his collection, but, after being offered a profane Canadian sex act, she left. Lily is desperate for the specifics, and starts hyperventilating until she gets the hiccups. Robin says she will tell them the details if they guess all three things correctly (the celebrity, the sex act, and the nature of the collection). Barney quickly brings up www.canadiansexacts.org (an actual website, but created for the show) on a laptop, and the gang starts guessing.
Ted walks in, bewildered by the cancellation of his project and fearing for his job security. After a brief exchange, Barney and Marshall admit they lied to Ted, and reveal the elaborate nature of their ruse. Bilson had told them to fire Ted after the corporation decide to cut back on new expenditures (he complains about having to cut back on their bi-quarterly St. Croix retreats). The company was still contracted to pay Ted for the next two months, so after Marshall blurted out a lie about Ted's success, the two GNB employees decided to fool Ted. They hired, Roy (one of the office's janitors), Louisa (the cafeteria worker who can only speak Spanish), Arthur (a crazy street musician who follows advice of Reginald, his pet chipmunk), and interns to pose as the new task force for reviewing the headquarters plans.
Ted is furious, insisting that he would never lie to make his friends feel better. Barney refutes this, citing the time Ted encouraged Marshall's unfunny standup set (basically a list of fishes' names). Barney then mentions that a smaller job is available at GNB designing a copy of the ETR, or "Employee Transition Room" which Barney admits is a room where people are fired. A montage of close circuit TV footage shows angry employees lashing out at Barney after being fired in the room.
Though he is asked to simply duplicate the room, Ted decides to add his own flair, recreating the ETR as a "rebirth canal." After a presentation to Bilson, Ted is taken down to the ETR, where he himself is promptly fired. The next night, back at the bar, Ted says he quit to start his own firm. After a bit of prodding, he quickly admits he was fired, and smacked Bilson over the head with a chair. Ted still wants to start his own work without the noose of corporate thinking.
Throughout the story, Lily and the gang use the pauses in conversation to guess Robin's celebrity encounter (ex., Rick Moranis [Canadian celebrity], the Reverse Rick Moranis [Canadian sex act], antique Judaica [collection]). After 3 days, they give up, and Robin gives in and tells them, but the items are all unrecognizable to the gang, so she has to explain. She met "The Frozen Snowshoe" (a famous Canadian wrestler), he showed her his collection of Harvey's Trays (simple orange plastic trays from a fast-food chain), and offered her an "Old King Clancy" (apparently, a "Sacramento Turtleneck," but with maple syrup). The gang is disappointed at the absolute obscurity of Robin's story.
In a flashback (known only to the audience), Robin's 2002 celebrity meeting is portrayed, but we find out that it was Robin that offered the Snowshoe the Old King Clancy (pulling a small bottle of maple syrup out of her purse), and it was he who rejected her, not the other way around.
The gang is at MacLaren's, drinking and talking, when Robin brings up the fact that she was once invited over to a Canadian celebrity's house to see his collection, but, after being offered a profane Canadian sex act, she left. Lily is desperate for the specifics, and starts hyperventilating until she gets the hiccups. Robin says she will tell them the details if they guess all three things correctly (the celebrity, the sex act, and the nature of the collection). Barney quickly brings up www.canadiansexacts.org (an actual website, but created for the show) on a laptop, and the gang starts guessing.
Ted walks in, bewildered by the cancellation of his project and fearing for his job security. After a brief exchange, Barney and Marshall admit they lied to Ted, and reveal the elaborate nature of their ruse. Bilson had told them to fire Ted after the corporation decide to cut back on new expenditures (he complains about having to cut back on their bi-quarterly St. Croix retreats). The company was still contracted to pay Ted for the next two months, so after Marshall blurted out a lie about Ted's success, the two GNB employees decided to fool Ted. They hired, Roy (one of the office's janitors), Louisa (the cafeteria worker who can only speak Spanish), Arthur (a crazy street musician who follows advice of Reginald, his pet chipmunk), and interns to pose as the new task force for reviewing the headquarters plans.
Ted is furious, insisting that he would never lie to make his friends feel better. Barney refutes this, citing the time Ted encouraged Marshall's unfunny standup set (basically a list of fishes' names). Barney then mentions that a smaller job is available at GNB designing a copy of the ETR, or "Employee Transition Room" which Barney admits is a room where people are fired. A montage of close circuit TV footage shows angry employees lashing out at Barney after being fired in the room.
Though he is asked to simply duplicate the room, Ted decides to add his own flair, recreating the ETR as a "rebirth canal." After a presentation to Bilson, Ted is taken down to the ETR, where he himself is promptly fired. The next night, back at the bar, Ted says he quit to start his own firm. After a bit of prodding, he quickly admits he was fired, and smacked Bilson over the head with a chair. Ted still wants to start his own work without the noose of corporate thinking.
Throughout the story, Lily and the gang use the pauses in conversation to guess Robin's celebrity encounter (ex., Rick Moranis [Canadian celebrity], the Reverse Rick Moranis [Canadian sex act], antique Judaica [collection]). After 3 days, they give up, and Robin gives in and tells them, but the items are all unrecognizable to the gang, so she has to explain. She met "The Frozen Snowshoe" (a famous Canadian wrestler), he showed her his collection of Harvey's Trays (simple orange plastic trays from a fast-food chain), and offered her an "Old King Clancy" (apparently, a "Sacramento Turtleneck," but with maple syrup). The gang is disappointed at the absolute obscurity of Robin's story.
In a flashback (known only to the audience), Robin's 2002 celebrity meeting is portrayed, but we find out that it was Robin that offered the Snowshoe the Old King Clancy (pulling a small bottle of maple syrup out of her purse), and it was he who rejected her, not the other way around.
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