The trend of musical artists rerecording new versions of their hit songs to acknowledge the current pandemic and urge people to respect social distancing guidelines has largely fallen off in favor of big celebrity reunions or special episodes of beloved TV shows, but Cobie Smulders is combining all of that by reuniting with How I Met Your Mother creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays (plus songwriter Brian Kim) for a new version of her HIMYM character’s hit pop song “Let’s Go To The Mall”—well, her HIMYM character’s Canadian pop star alter ego, Robing Sparkles, to be more accurate.
Of course, people can’t actually go to the mall these days, so this new version of the song is more about staying at home and how we’ll all go to the mall someday when it’s safe. This sort of acknowledgement of our horrible, miserable reality is often depressing, but considering how HIMYM ended, this is really the best kind of reunion/revival/whatever they could’ve done. Unless… is it possible The Mother died from a new strain of the coronavirus? That seems about on par with how the show ended. Anyway, Smulders’ video is a cute update to a good recurring gag from the show, and if the Canada jokes seem a little ham-fisted (Canadian bacon-fisted?) just remember that things don’t make it to Canada until a few years after they come to America, so they’re probably very fresh up there still.