If CBS had its way then How I Met Your Mother would become the Britney Spears Laffs & Distressing Outburst Hour.

But How I Met Your Mother‘s Neil Patrick Harris isn’t having any of it. He’s decided to speak out about the idea of making Britney Spears a How I Met Your Mother regular, because growing an audience naturally is much better than shocking viewers into watching by parading unwell megastars around in front of them every week.

Hear hear Neil Patrick Harris – finally, someone with the balls to speak out against this increasing over-reliance on chasing ratings through cheat stunt casting. Mediocre sitcoms that people only really watch because they’re lazy and nothing else is on, you now have your champion.

Britney Spears is now safely under the care of her father, who so far seems to have done an extraordinarily good job of keeping her out of the limelight to recover from her recent patch of mental illness in private. Which is good for her Britney Spears, but shit for the rest of us.

Because, now that Britney Spears is – ugh – getting better and – bleurgh – behaving normally again, do you know who we have to rely on for stories about alarming celebrity behaviour? Do you? Vanilla Ice, that’s who. Vanilla fucking Ice. Thanks a lot Britney Spears, you arsehole.

But when Britney Spears does briefly poke her head out of the rabbit hole, all hell breaks loose. For instance, Britney Spears was recently on How I Met Your Mother. On one episode of How I Met Your Mother. For less than three minutes in total. But from this barely-extended walk-on on a show that not a whole lot of people usually watch anyway came an avalanche of speculation.

First people were clamouring to give Britney an Emmy for the appearance and then, based on the fact that a few million extra rubberneckers watched the show when she was on it, people starting talking about Britney Spears becoming a How I Met Your Mother regular.

But enough is enough. Neil Patrick Harris – who plays adorably underage doctor Doogie Houser MD on How I Met Your Mother – has said that if Britney Spears becomes a regular on the show then he’ll run through the set killing indiscriminately before turning the gun on himself. We’re paraphrasing. According to the Associated Press, Neil Patrick Harris actually said:

“I’m in the minority that our show does not need stunt casting in order to succeed. I worry that if they start `Will and Grace’-ing us too much, that the show will suffer. And we’re all really proud of the content of the show. I mean, viewership is not our game. It’s the network and the studio’s game, you know. It’s the promotion department’s game… We wish we weren’t opposite an awkward reality dancing competition. But we have no say about that. I just am a real fan of our content. I think we have a great show going, and I hope it’s not screwed up by the desire for 700,000 more viewers.”

However much sense Neil Patrick Harris is making here, we can see the other side of the argument as well. Britney Spears would bring a brand new audience to How I Met Your Mother, and – if handled correctly – could really take the show to the next level.

Also, if Britney Spears doesn’t become a regular on How I Met Your Mother, then where else is she going to be able to make public appearances? Nowhere, that’s where. If Britney Spears loses How I Met Your Mother then none of us will ever see or hear from her ever again.

Actually, maybe Neil Patrick Harris does have a point…

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Neil Patrick Harris: Say No to Britney! – AP

Britney Spears made a huge impression on the set of How I Met Your Mother, and not just because she rubbed her vagina against a plywood set wall until she wore a hole in it.

In fact, since Britney Spears a) gave How I Met Your Mother its highest-ever ratings and b) managed to get through her entire cameo without puking directly into Doogie Houser's eyes, the show's producers have come up with a brainwave.

They want Britney Spears to be on How I Met Your Mother all the time. No joke.

How I Met Your Mother used to be just another mediocre, barely-watched sitcom. But now How I Met Your Mother is so much more than that – it's the mediocre, barely-watched sitcom that everyone watched that one episode of because Britney Spears was in it briefly.

And, let's be fair, Britney Spears delivered bigstyle in her role. Thanks to her stint in the mental hospital and the fact that she's still deemed too batshit to even see her own children, expectations were so low that when Britney Spears didn't break down in tears in the middle of a sentence or demand to play her character as a squawking British woman or smash up the set with an umbrella, people were actually quite impressed with her performance.

Not just that, but Britney Spears gave How I Met Your Mother its highest-ever audience. And a bigger audience means more advertisers. And more advertisers mean more money. And more money means that some people in the television business want How I Met Your Mother to become the Everyone Watch Britney Spears' Fragile Rehabilitation In Gut-Wrenching Close Up! Featuring The Ginger Girl From Buffy! show. Associated Press reports:

"We always said, 'You know, if her character pops, we'll bring her back,'" [executive producer] Carter Bays told The Associated Press on Thursday. "I thought she was great. I was very proud of that episode." On the following episode, which aired Monday, the show introduced a "mystery woman" who's been sabotaging Barney's usually successful attempts to pick up ladies. Asked if Spears might turn out to be the saboteur, Bays said: "Could be. There's no reason why not." He also suggested actress Sarah Chalke, who guest starred alongside Spears.

Sarah Chalke? Rubbish! She's just an actress! Who wants to watch that? Hey Sarah, come back when you've called yourself the devil and tried to hang yourself, OK sweetheart?

In all seriousness, though, a recurring role on a sitcom might be just what Britney Spears needs. The discipline and routine that goes with making a weekly TV show would be the perfect way to keep Britney Spears on the straight and narrow. It's fool-proof – just look at Britney Spears' own sister. She had her own sitcom and, um, well… never mind. Bad example.

But still, if How I Met Your Mother is famous for one thing – other than ridiculous stunt casting that exploits the mentally unwell – it that it gives people a second chance. People used to only know Alyson Hannigan as Buffy The Vampire Slayer's ginger lesbian mate until How I Met Your Mother, and the same goes for Neil Patrick Harris and Doogie Houser. Maybe How I Met Your Mother can do the same for Britney Spears. The show's weird transformative properties could mean that in the future we don't see Britney Spears as a dangerous unwell casualty of fame, but a a bitpart actress in a sitcom that nobody really watches.

We'd be OK with that.

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Will Britney Spears Return to 'Mother'? – Associated Press