Celebs Are Bored: Cobie Smulders Revives Robin Sparkles for Quarantine Parody

As much of America continues to self-quarantine, the propensity to go stir crazy increases with each passing day. Celebrities are no different: bored out of their minds while sitting at home indefinitely. Maybe they are ceaselessly launching Instagram Lives just for some human connection. Maybe they’re teasing us with some quarantine writing session. Most likely, they’re sitting in their very large homes, marathoning movies until their eyes glaze over. Relatable! Celebs Are Bored highlights the absurd, inane and mundane decisions made by people who have an unexpectedly large amount of free time.

Cobie Smulders rekindled the memory of her Canadian Eighties pop-star alter ego, Robin Sparkles, on Thursday with an Instagram performance reminding everyone to stay home.

The actress — who played Robin Scherbatsky in How I Met Your Mother — sat down at her piano to update her playful Sparkles hit, “Let’s Go to the Mall” to the  shelter-at-home version, “Let’s All Stay at Home.” Show creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays wrote new lyrics replacing the iconic single for a more time-relevant twist.

In true Robin spirit, Smulders sings it in the infamous Canadian accent for all the How I Met Your Mother fans. Instead of the usual Eighties pop beat that Robin Sparkles was known for, Brian Kim, who helped compose the song originally, reworked it into a piano version.

Smulders renovated her bubble-gum pop character to ask her fans to donate to coronavirus-related charities like Save The Children, Canada Helps and the Daily Bread Foodbank.

Smulders became the punchline for many jokes throughout the six-season show due to her haunting past as pop sensation Robin Sparkles. When Barney digs up an old video in Season Two, the group never lets her forget about her secret persona. In Season Three, it’s discovered that Robin released another song after “Let’s Go to the Mall,” called, “Sandcastles in the Sand,” which was not as successful for her career as Robin Sparkles. The video features Robin’s ex-boyfriend, Simon, played by James Van Der Beek.

“Here it is. I hope it takes your mind off some things. It certainly did for me!” Smulders said of the new song. “It was a wonderful journey down memory lane.”