Sick Day

"Strong Bad, my burps smell really bad."

Strong Bad is too sick to answer an email, and everyone else seems to be ill as well.

Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad, Homestar Runner, Strong Mad, The Cheat, Strong Sad (Easter egg)

Places: Computer Room, Strong Mad's Room (entrance only), Strong Sad's Room (Easter egg)

Date: Monday, October 3, 2005

Computer: Lappy 486

Running Time: 1:43

Page Title: Here Comes Sickness!

DVD:Everything Else, Volume 1

Transcript

{The Lappy is silently sitting on the desk, Strong Bad apparently absent, and the following email is on the screen:}

>subject: sick >Dear Strong Bad, >I've noticed you never seem to get sick. How do you
>stay so dang healthy all the time? >Sincerely Crap,

>Grant, BC

{Cut to a view of Strong Bad's desk. Strong Bad is severely ill and curled up into a ball under the table, coughing and shivering with bags under his eyes. The Stool is tipped over. An empty box of tissues that reads "Tish, You!", lies next to him along with a mess of used up tissues.}

STRONG BAD: {coughing} The Cheat! Get in here with my puke pail. {coughing} And bring me some tissues. Lots more tissues!

{Homestar walks in from the right of the screen with a thermometer in his mouth, obviously sick.}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Strong Bad, my burps smell really bad. Check this out. {breathes feebly, green puffs of air come from his mouth} Hang on.

STRONG BAD: Ugh. Go away. I can't smell anything anyways.

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Oh, I'm betting you can smell these!

STRONG BAD: Yeah, well, you're lucky it's your burps that smell. {eyes widen} DO NOT go into Strong Mad's room. Or, as I've taken to calling it, Rotten Egglünd.

{Cut to outside Strong Mad's room. The door is covered with police tape that reads "Quarantine!". There is a green haze coming out from the bottom of the door with an ominous ghostly noise.}

STRONG MAD: {from inside} SOMEBODY HEEEEELP!

{Cut back to Strong Bad and Homestar in the Computer Room. He lifts his head and opens his eyes wider, making the bags under them disappear.}

STRONG BAD: Ugh. The Cheat! What's taking so long with my tissues?

{Cut to a close up of a green bucket labeled "Puke Pail for Him!" with puke stains on and around it. The top of The Cheat's head is visible poking out of the bucket.}

THE CHEAT: {sobbing}

{Cut back to Strong Bad.}

STRONG BAD: {coughing} Oh well. I guess I'll just reuse some of these already re-reused ones. {He grabs a tissue, pulls it to his face and winces, dropping the tissue. The bags under his eyes are visible again.} Ow! They're pointy now!

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Strong Bad, I don't think you're going to be able to answer your word problem this week. So I'll take one for the team. {the camera zooms in on Homestar} Two trains enter a tunnel going four miles per hour. {As he talks, pictures of two trains, a tunnel, and the number 4 appear on the left of the screen.} At what time do they reach Poughkeepsie?

STRONG BAD: {groans and coughs while speaking} The Paapeeeer!

{The Paper comes down, with a distorted noise. It appears crinkled and says "Strong Bad, I can't come in today."}

STRONG BAD: Oh no, not you too! Can I blow my nose on you?

{The Paper goes back up.}

Easter Eggs

Rotten Egglünd

• Click on the word "healthy" at the end of the toon to see a short scene with Strong Sad.

{Strong Sad is lying in his bed. His face is green with spots and he has pink around his eyes. The rest of his body is normal.} STRONG SAD: Ooooh... Oooooooooh... This is the greatest day of my life. I feel like a few dollars.

• Also at the end, click on the word "Crap" to see a map of "Rotten Egglünd".

Fun Facts

Explanations

• A shire, in relation to the place named "Whatsitshire" on the map of Rotten Egglünd, is an administrative area of Great Britain and Australia. Examples of shires are Nottinghamshire and Hertfordshire.
• Quarantine is voluntary or compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease.

Trivia

• The label on the disk in the floppy disk container reads "swash buckler".

Remarks

• Homestar has the wrong end of the thermometer in his mouth.
• The quarantine tape over Strong Mad's door goes across the doorknob as if the doorknob were two-dimensional, or completely flat.
• When Homestar pronounces his "O" vowels, the thermometer seems to float in front of his mouth.
• The text on the paper is not distorted at all, even though the paper is crumpled.
• Strong Bad uses tissues despite not having a nose.

Goofs

• Initially, clicking on the Lappy's screen did not cause the screen to ripple. This was changed within ten hours of the toon's release, but was still only a very faint effect. During the scenes focusing on the Lappy, clicking anywhere on the toon causes a ripple, as opposed to just on the Lappy's monitor.
• When the bags under Strong Bad's eyes disappear, the tint of his face changes.

Ow! I'm armless now!

• When Strong Bad reaches out for a tissue, he has no arm connecting to his glove.
  • This happens again when he hurts himself on the pointy tissue.
  • His arm usually wouldn't be able to stretch far enough to reach the tissue.
• When the scene zooms in to Homestar answering the "word problem", the desk behind him disappears.
• After the scene with Strong Mad's room, the Lappy's screen moves a little to the left.

Inside References

• The email on Strong Bad's screen is signed with the word crap.
• Strong Bad asks for his pail because he's going to puke.
• The map of Rotten Egglünd is based on the map of Peasantry in Peasant's Quest.
• The odors emitted by the ailing Homestar and Strong Mad are another instance of green fumes.

Real-World References

• "Here Comes Sickness" is a song by Mudhoney.
• Poughkeepsie is a city in New York located in the Hudson River Valley between New York City and Albany.

Fast Forward

• The puke pail is later seen in Decemberween Short Shorts, this time saying "PUKE PAIL FOR WHOEV!"
• The Paper later makes the same sick-sounding noise in more armies.

DVD Version

• The sound quality is inexplicably the same quality as on the website in this cartoon, instead of enhanced as with all other cartoons.
• The DVD version features hidden creators' commentary. To access it, switch your DVD player's audio language selection while watching.

Commentary Transcript

(Commentary by: Mike Chapman, Matt Chapman)

MIKE: Well, Matt?

MATT: {sounding sick} Oh, Mike!

MIKE: Are you feeling better?

MATT: {sounding sick} My tomatch hurks!

MIKE: So, we had to do this because last— this was just last week, Matt really was pretty sick and couldn't do the voices.

MATT: No, they sounded like they all had colds!

MIKE: We were gonna do Teen Girl Squad number ten last week, but, uh, he wasn't gonna be able to do the voices. So we, uh, did this.

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: We'd thought about doing this before. We'd almost had to resort to it 'cause whenever Matt gets sick, or goes out to a show or a smoky bar and his voice isn't quite up to it the task.

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: Or in a compromising position.

MATT: There's definitely been times where Strong Sad has been written out of cartoons because—

MIKE: Yeah, 'cause he's the first voice to go, usually, for you.

MATT: Yeah. Umm—

MIKE: Strong Bad's kind of gruff, so you can usually get away with that, if you—

MATT: Strong Bad and Bubs. Strong Mad, obviously. He's sounding pretty normal. {pause} Aww. Strong Sad's got— Strong Bad's got the shivers, Mike.

MIKE: And The Cheat is in a pail of puke.

MATT: That's— {laughs} that's rough. That's the way I always end up when I've got a fever and I get the chills: I just curl up on— I want to find a nice shag carpet.

MIKE: I want to find a nice puke pail.

MATT: {laughs}

MIKE: For him!

MATT: To crawl into?

MIKE: Yeah.

MATT: We have this great, like— what color would you call it?

MIKE: It was kind of a—

MATT: Disgusting green...

MIKE: {simultaneously} —celadon color.

MATT: {laughs} Is that a color?

MIKE: That's a real color!

MATT: Oh, wow.

MIKE: Ask Martha Stewart! She'll know all about celadon.

MATT: There was this big, wide puke pail that Mom would have us use.

MIKE: In fact, right now, because both— I was a little sick last week too, and I'm drinking... {trails off, cartoon starts wrapping up}

MATT: Hurry, hurry!

MIKE: I'm drinking Airborne, for fun, because I like the taste of it now, and it's medicinal!

Fun Facts

• The commentary states that the incident behind the toon happened "just last week". Therefore, the commentary was recorded around the week of October 10, 2005 (about a month before the DVD's release).
• Martha Stewart is a famous home decorator.
• As stated, Celadon is a real color.
• Airborne is a brand of medicine designed for treating airborne viruses, such as colds or the flu.

External Links

• watch "Sick Day"
• watch "Sick Day" on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "Sick Day"
• forum thread re: "Sick Day"