# In The Stand why was the super flu called Captain Trips? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [February 12, 2024, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-stand-why-was-the-super-flu-called-captain-trips/997479 "2024-02-12T16:15:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2025, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-stand-why-was-the-super-flu-called-captain-trips/997479/21 "2025-11-22T20:44:57Z")
I’m certain it’s because of the delerium from later stages of the disease, which causes the sufferer to experience being in another place and/or time during hallucinations. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2025, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-stand-why-was-the-super-flu-called-captain-trips/997479/22 "2025-11-22T20:49:27Z")
Maybe in King’s mental backstory its building on from the benign Rock and Roll Fever, to the worse Boogie-woogie Flu, then to the engineered supervirus? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2025, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-stand-why-was-the-super-flu-called-captain-trips/997479/23 "2025-11-22T21:07:38Z")
The truth seems to be less interesting than what I had imagined. I had assumed that since it was such an odd and irrelevant name, that it had come from people trying to pronounce an initialism as if it were an acronym, i.e. like there is the Southwest Florida Water Management District, or SWFWMD, that people call “Swiftmud”. Something like Contagious Pulmonary Targeted Rhinovirus-like Pandemic. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-stand-why-was-the-super-flu-called-captain-trips/997479/24 "2025-11-23T01:35:03Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I haven’t read the book in while but I’m pretty sure “Captain Trips” was explicitly said to be the West Coast name for the disease. Yeah, that’s correct - Larry is calling a hospital on the west coast and someone there does say that. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-stand-why-was-the-super-flu-called-captain-trips/997479/25 "2025-11-23T01:48:09Z")
It’s been a while since I’ve read _The Stand_, but didn’t the virus essentially wipe out most of humanity in less than a month after it was released? It doesn’t seem like a lot of time for nickname to stick, but when everyone is dropping like flies I imagine we’d all be preoccupied with the virus. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-stand-why-was-the-super-flu-called-captain-trips/997479/26 "2025-11-23T02:51:00Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > It’s been a while since I’ve read _The Stand_, but didn’t the virus essentially wipe out most of humanity in less than a month after it was released? It was released June 13, 1990 and by July 4 it had wiped out 99.4% of the world’s population. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-stand-why-was-the-super-flu-called-captain-trips/997479/27 "2025-11-23T21:25:02Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Yeah, that’s correct - Larry is calling a hospital on the west coast and someone there does say that. My thought was that King, being a New Englander, was expressing a bit of disdain for the “trendiness above all” culture of California. Another possible influence (which admittedly would contradict the ‘disdain for the West Coast’ theory) is William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel _The Exorcist_, in which the girl who becomes possessed calls the spirit inhabiting a Ouija board “Captain Howdy.” The movie, also written by Blatty, came out in 1973, and of course _The Stand_ came out in 1978. The name could have stuck in King’s mind. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-stand-why-was-the-super-flu-called-captain-trips/997479.md?page=1)