old king clancy

Episode 18 Original airdate March 23, 2009 Episode chronology ? Previous Next ? "The Front Porch" "Murtaugh" List of How I Met Your Mother episodes

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

Plot

In the cold open, Future Ted (Bob Saget) describes his work in the spring of 2009 on the GNB (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 (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, drinking and talking, when Robin brings up the fact that she was 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 hyperventalating 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(a real website) on a laptop and the gang starts guessing.

Ted walks in, bewildered by the cancellation of his project, 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 (but apparently not on company retreats to St. Croix). 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 headquarter 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." After a bit of corporate speak, Barney admits it is a room where people are fired, and a montage 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 (lashing out much like the other GNB employees). The next night, back at the bar, Ted says he quit to start his own firm.