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How I Met Your Mother’s Robin Sparkles is back with an updated, quarantine-themed cover of her hit single “Let’s Go to the Mall.”
Of course, Robin Sparkles is actually Cobie Smulders, who posted an Instagram video of herself playing the piano and singing the new version of the song, complete with new lyrics penned by How I Met Your Mother screenwriters Craig Thomas and Carter Bays. The new version of the song is called “Let’s All Stay At Home” and as you might’ve guessed, rallies friends to stay at home instead of go to the mall. Smulders performs with an over-exaggerated Canadian accent.
In case you’re behind on your How I Met Your Mother trivia, Robin Sparkles is the Canadian teenage pop sensation alter ego of Smulders’ character, Robin Scherbatsky. The gang finds out about Robin’s secret double life in season 2, which is when the original “Let’s Go to the Mall” music video appeared. The catchy, synthy song is full of bubblegum pop and 1980s references. When asked why the music video was full of eighties schlock when Robin Sparkles’s career took off in the 1990s, Robin replies that Canada is always a bit behind on trends.
Robin Sparkles would make multiple appearances through the series, with follow-up songs such as “Sandcastles in the Sand” and a television appearance on the in-fiction edutainment show Space Teens. Late in her brief career Robin Sparkles also pivoted to an edgier personality, known as Robin Daggers, with grunge song “P.S. I Love You.”
For now, think of this as an in-universe comeback — Robin Sparkles, but in the time of the coronavirus. Let’s all stay inside, today!
How I Met Your Mother is available to stream on Hulu.
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