Old King Clancy

"Old King Clancy"
How I Met Your Mother episode
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 18
Directed by	Pamela Fryman
Written by	Jamie Rhonheimer
Original air date	March 23, 2009
Guest stars
Aaron Hill ("The Frozen Snowshoe") Bryan Callen (Bilson)
Season 4 episodes
"Do I Know You? "The Best Burger in New York" "I Heart NJ" "Intervention" "Shelter Island" "Happily Ever After" "Not a Father's Day" "Woooo!" "The Naked Man" "The Fight" "Little Minnesota" "Benefits" "Three Days of Snow" "The Possimpible" "The Stinsons" "Sorry, Bro" "The Front Porch" "Old King Clancy" "Murtaugh" "Mosbius Designs" "The Three Days Rule" "Right Place, Right Time" "As Fast as She Can" "The Leap"

"Old King Clancy" is the 18th episode in the fourth season of the television series How I Met Your Mother and 82nd overall. It originally aired on March 23, 2009.

Plot

In the cold open, Future Ted describes his work in the spring of 2009 on the Goliath National Bank (GNB) 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 (Bryan Callen). 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 when Robin brings up the fact that she was once invited over to a Canadian celebrity's house to see his collection, but, after he propositioned her to perform 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 on a laptop, and the group of friends starts guessing.

Ted walks in, bewildered by the cancellation of his project and fearing that he is going to lose his job. 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 a cafeteria worker, a janitor, a street musician, 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 lame 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 closed-circuit television footage from the room shows angry employees lashing out at Barney after he fires them on the spot.

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 hit Bilson over the head with a chair. Nevertheless, Ted still wants to start his own business, 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 three 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), who 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, Robin's 2002 celebrity meeting is portrayed, but the viewer finds 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.

Production

Old King Clancy is based on a true story. One of the show writers told of an incident involving a friend who had met an American celebrity with a strange collection and also a strange sex proposition. The writers tried to guess who it was, what they collected and the sex act. After spending a lot of time on it they decided to incorporate the idea into the show.^[1]

During the show Barney make references to http://www.canadiansexacts.org/ which is a real website produced by the writers of the show.

Continuity

• This episode follows up on the GNB Headquarters project Ted received in "Woooo!".
• Marshall uses his fish joke stand-up act again in "Right Place Right Time" to buy time as Ted finds his charts and also in "Field Trip" when Marshall is rejecting a settlement offer and begins to ramble.
• Ted pitches the idea of starting his own company. We see this materialize in "Mosbius Designs".
• Ted recalls this episode in his life in "The Leap".

Cultural references

• When Marshall and Barney are explaining to Ted how they hired the fake task force, its members are presented in a similar way as the cast of the movie Snatch.
• Some of the celebrities that were used as guesses included singer Bryan Adams, hockey player Wayne Gretzky, game show host Alex Trebek, members of the rock band Rush, and actors Kiefer Sutherland and Rick Moranis.
• The celebrity Robin dated collects trays of Harvey's.
• King Clancy was the nickname given to Francis Clancy who played in the National Hockey League for the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs from 1921 to 1937.

Critical response

Donna Bowman of the AV Club gave the episode a B rating.^[2]

Michelle Zoromski of IGN gave the episode an 8.5 out of 10, citing the episode's ability "to stay light, even while dealing with topics like Ted losing his job."^[3]

References

1. ^ Maureen Ryan (2009-04-10). "How 'How I Met Your Mother' dealt with 2 pregnant stars, and what's coming next on the comedy". Chicago Tribune. http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/04/how-i-met-your-mother-cbs-alyson-hannigan.html. Retrieved 2010-04-12. 
2. ^ How I Met Your Mother "Old King Clancy" B by Donna Bowman March 23, 2009 http://www.avclub.com/articles/old-king-clancy,25627/
3. ^ How I Met Your Mother "Old King Clancy" review by Michelle Zoromski March 24, 2009 http://tv.ign.com/articles/965/965766p1.html

External links

• Old King Clancy at the Internet Movie Database
• Old King Clancy at TV.com
• canadiansexacts.org