“When I met Robin’s mother I slaughtered a bear with my bare hands and gave her the meat. Do you know what they call that in Canada? Manners.”

Robin’s dad in How I Met Your Mother

Oh Canada, get ready for some major prime-time ribbing and every hoser cliché imaginable when the popular American sitcom How I Met Your Mother unveils its ode to the Great White North.

Alan Thicke, Geddy Lee, Jason Priestley, k.d. lang, Alex Trebek and Luc Robitaille are just part of the constellation of Canadian stars featured in the all-things-Canuck episode that airs Monday (City and CBS at 8 p.m.).

“From the guest stars to the references about Canada, I’m really hoping that Canadians love it,” star Cobie Smulders, who plays Robin, said in an interview.

The Canadian connection has been a long-standing one on the popular CBS series, which is in its eighth season and was recently renewed for a final ninth season.

Smulders hails from Vancouver, B.C., while executive producer Chuck Tatham is from Listowel, Ont.

“My greatest fear, and I’m totally sensitive to it, is that I don’t want Canadians to think that I’m making fun at their expense,” says Smulders.

Producers didn’t release a preview of the episode to the media, but there’s not much chance Canada is going to be spared a good ribbing.

Rest assured there will be plenty of Tim Hortons double double shots and Robin has a run-in with some Mounties. The barrage of Canadiana starts when Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) stumbles on a lost episode of Robin’s TV show from her days as Canadian pop star Robin Sparkles.

“It’s kind of this behind-the-music exposé on Robin Sparkles. We shot the music video that ended her career; it was a really bad song that bombed. But it was also because she kind of wanted it to,” says Smulders.

Smulders says they shot the “P.S. I Love You” video in so many locations she lost track.

And when she went into the studio to record the song, producers kept telling her to “make it worse,” she says.

“The song is so funny and so catchy. But they kept telling me to sound more whiny.”

Most of the guest stars were filmed separately in other locations, so she didn’t get to have a Canuck reunion. But Smulders says hockey star Robitaille was the most popular Canadian on the Los Angeles set.

So just how far did the writers go with the Canadian episode?

Smulders says she didn’t have to put the brakes on any segment, although she has had to in the past.

“There have been a few table reads where things really get whacky and they all know it’s too far, and I look and say, ‘Hey guys . . . really!’” says Smulders.

One episode where her Canadian father pushes her out of a helicopter so she can learn “Canadian” bush survival skills was so “out there” that even she had a hard time with it, she adds.

“That wasn’t even about being Canadian really, but you have to really suspend your disbelief sometimes when you watch the show, and that’s hard for me because I’m very realistic and grounded. But what I love about Canadians is that we can take a joke, that we think it’s funny and don’t obsess over things. We’re so down to earth.”

Our home and ridiculed land This is not the first time that Canada has been parodied in prime time. We’ve long been a favourite target of sitcoms and talk show hosts. An abbreviated list:

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South Park: In the animated show Canadians were depicted as being addicted to Kraft Dinner and maple syrup. And of course, Canadians famously stopped an invasion by Saddam Hussein at a football game by all farting at the same time. And of course, who can forget that catchy South Park tune http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxPRHXgYVlk“Blame Canada”END? “Should we blame the government? Or blame society? Or should we blame the images on TV? No, blame Canada!”

Jimmy Kimmel Live: After the 2011 Vancouver hockey riots, the talk-show host made a Canadian tourism ad that featured fighting fans with the tag line “Canada: Where People Aren’t Nice Anymore.”

The Colbert Report: Stephen Colbert isn’t sure where the “earth’s rectum” is, but he figures http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaWfIeEGKk4it could be either Windsor or WinnipegEND. “As a journalist it’s my job to ask these probing questions,” he says. Tony Wong

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