He or she suggested: I've always assumed it is a direct reference to Jerry Garcia, because the superflu would make you Grateful to be Dead.īut this story isn’t called Superflu or Captain Trips. Though I like reddit user theshallowdrowned’s explanation more. So maybe the flu’s called Captain Trips because it boils people’s brains so badly they hallucinate? Maybe.

There’s no explanation within the book or its adaptations about where that came from, though it was a nickname for Jerry Garcia, who apparently had a penchant from dropping LSD into people’s drinks. This is the flu to end all flus, and it’s nicknamed everything from A-prime to choking sickness to superflu to tube neck, though it’s Captain Trips that obviously prevails. People die in hospitals, in their beds, they’re dumped by the thousands into the seas-all the while waiting, hoping to get better, to get a cure.īut there is no cure-two hundred and eighteen million or so die just in the US. People are mowed down in panics across the nation. Because it can’t look like the US violated the Geneva Convention, god forbid.Ĭhaos ensues, of course. The general premise was previously touched on in the short story, “Night Surf,” which we talked about as part of the Night Shift collection a few videos back.īasically, a deadly flu-like disease with 99.4% communicability accidentally gets released from a top-secret research base out in California, and like a horrible chain-letter gets passed from one person to the next until the whole of the United States is seemingly stricken with it, including all of man’s best friends, too-most notably in this story, the poor dogs.Īnd then dumbass secret agents proceed to infect the world-at-large, including Russia and China.

Plus, why fix something that ain’t broke?

Which makes sense, given Stephen King had a hand in each of them-he wrote the show’s teleplay, and served as Creative and Executive Director for the comic. The TV show has four: The Plague, The Dreams, The Betrayal and The Stand.Īnd the comic has six: Captain Trips, American Nightmares, Soul Survivors, Hardcases, No Man’s Land and The Night Has Come.ĭespite breaking the narrative a little differently, each version basically tells the same overall tale, with just a few unique differences.

The book has three: Captain Trips, On the Border and The Stand. Every version of The Stand we’re talking about today-the book, the TV show and the comic -is broken into different acts.

Wise Men Say by drunkonwriting