90210 actor’s doughnut dream becomes a reality
By Maryn Edwards on Thursday, February 7, 2013
On Tuesday night’s Canadian-themed episode of the popular American comedy How I Met Your Mother, the 90s pop starlet past of character Robin Scherbatsky (played by Canadian Colbie Smulders) was once again explored, as a spoof-style documentary showcased the fall of “Robin Sparkles”, known for her hits “Let’s Go to the Mall” and “Sandcastles in the Sand”.
Robin Sparkles (played by Colbie Smulders on How I Met Your Mother)
Our friends at canada.com set up the PR stunt nicely:
In the episode, several Canadian celebrities including former Barenaked Ladies frontman Stephen Page, Rush’s Geddy Lee, Alex Trebek and Jason Priestley appeared on fictional MuchMusic program Under The Tunes to discuss the breakdown of the show’s Canadian teen superstar Robin Sparkles.
During a scene in which each celeb remembers which Tim Hortons [famous Canadian coffee and doughnut chain] they were in and what doughnut they were eating when Sparkles “lost it,” Priestley claims to have crammed a Timbit inside a strawberry vanilla and invented ‘The Priestley.”
Tim Hortons wasted no time in capitalizing on this exposure, and produced the following tweet:
.@jason_priestley, we loved the idea of ‘The Priestley’ so much, we made a batch. A Timbit IN a donut? Genius. #HIMYM twitter.com/TimHortons/sta…
— Tim Hortons (@TimHortons) February 5, 2013
Thanks! We were inspired! MT @jason_priestley: Thnx Tim Hortons! Proudest day of my life! A donut named after me at Timmie’s? #bestdayever
— Tim Hortons (@TimHortons) February 5, 2013
Read the whole story at canada.com
This led to a giddy Twitter exchange between Tim Hortons, Jason Priestley, Colbie Smulders and the producers of How I Met Your Mother, along with droves of Timbit addicts wondering when they could pick up their own ‘Priestley’. Alas, due to the manufacturing process of the doughnuts Tim Hortons is not mass producing any, but it has led to some other spin-off campaigns, including this one from the National Post (Canadian newspaper), imagining a new line of doughnuts based on other Canadian icons (it is likely that other than Bieber, most of these won’t make sense unless you’re Canadian).
The National Post imagines alternatives to the Priestley