Four colds in one TV show? That's an academy record!
"I've got a cold in my nose."
A character comes down with an illness, and may be bedridden. This may be in order to pad out the season, to provide an excuse as to why that character isn't present when their skills or powers would wrap up the plot neatly in a few minutes, or to give the love interest an excuse to nurse them back to health, often using bad-tasting medicine, a hot mug of whatever, and/or soup. In romances, the sickness is all about the worried, tender nursing. And in the comedies, they frequently end with the sick character now all healthy and looking forward to doing whatever... only for their friend to start showing symptoms, almost nearly out of the blue. The latter may invoke Caretaker Reversal if said friend was doing the nursing, but on the other hand, the "symptoms" might only be minor and lead to a Jumping-to-Conclusions Diagnosis, and if it's outright stated that the character isn't sick after all, that is a Shock-and-Switch Ending.
Cures for this illness can vary wildly by genre, and obtaining the cure may take up a small plot arc of its own. These illnesses are very rarely, if ever, fatal. The illness also mostly never has lasting implications for the main Story Arc, though it's not beyond the pale for a Monster of the Week to be responsible for a character illness or find a way to exploit the opportunity.
The Sick Episode may also entail characters having to work through their illness when they'd really rather be at home in bed with bowls of chicken soup. Or it may cover the remaining healthy characters scrambling to fill the hole left behind. In both of these cases hilarity sometimes ensues. Or, sometimes, the character insists on powering through their sickness or injury and continuing their work, even if what they have is severe and every other character suggests that they take time to heal. Often times, a family member, friend, or lover will stay with them and help them through their recovery.
If the sickness involved is discovered to be maybe life-threatening, you have a Wham Episode instead.
Sometimes, the character might deny being sick or claim they are less sick than they are. If the disease is serious and they do that, the trope is Definitely Just a Cold.
If the illness is caused by contact with evil, that's Allergic to Evil. See also Soap Opera Disease for diseases which are ultimately fatal and may or may not be used as Filler and Victorian Novel Disease for when a Soap Opera Disease shows barely any symptoms. Compare Hurt/Comfort Fic. Contrast Plot Allergy which may cause symptoms but isn't really a sickness, Playing Sick (and its subtrope You Don't Want to Catch This) for when they're not really sick, just pretending, and Hypochondria (and Induced Hypochondria) for when they're not really sick, they just think they are. Compare Lice Episode, when a character (usually a child) has to stay home to avoid spreading head lice. Also compare Injured Limb Episode, where a character's arm or leg (or wing or flipper, depending on the species) gets injured and Glitch Episode, where an AI or cyborg goes wonky. May lead to, or be defied by, a Disease-Prevention Aesop. Someone caring for the ill may show Non-Sexual Intimacy.
A Super-Trope to:
- Caretaker Reversal
- Chickenpox Episode
- Definitely Just a Cold
- The Dentist Episode (sometimes)
- The Disease That Shall Not Be Named
- Feigning Healthiness
- Fever Dream Episode
- The Food Poisoning Incident
- Getting Sick Deliberately
- Hot Drink Cure
- Illness Blanket
- Ill-Timed Infirmity
- Malfunction Malady
- Nurse with Good Intentions
- Plague Episode
- Polka-Dot Disease
- Ruptured Appendix
- Soap Opera Disease
- Somethingitis
- Soup Is Medicine
- The Tonsillitis Episode
- The Topic of Cancer
- Victorian Novel Disease
- Working Through the Cold
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Asian Animation
- Boonie Bears: In Season 4 episode 4, Logger Vick panics after having come into contact with Hoo Hoo the owl, remembering that the television was playing a news report earlier explaining that there's an outbreak of bird flu going around. Logger Vick does indeed get sick, but as usual he's forced to keep working by Boss Li. Thankfully, he learns at the end of the episode that the illness he has isn't bird flu, but a common cold.
- Crazy Candies: In Season 2 episode 36, Bubba comes down with a cold after taking a cold bath and alienates the customers and other workers at the Bao House by working there anyway and sneezing on them. Eventually, Marshyo and Jackey take it upon themselves to help Bubba get better.
- Happy Friends:
- In episode 8, Big M. and Little M. catch a cold and spread it all across Planet Xing.
- Season 3 episode 27 starts with Doctor H. actually being sick and going to the hospital, where he discovers Miss Peach is working as a volunteer nurse. After he recovers, Doctor H. feigns still being sick just to see her.
- Season 7 episode 8 is focused on Happy S. falling sick. He purchases a mysterious "cure-all" from Big M. that is said to cure absolutely any sickness, hoping it will, y'know, cure him.
- Noonbory and the Super 7:
- "Pongdybory's Cold Feet", despite the odd title, has Pongdybory attempt Working Through the Cold while on a mission to rescue the Dotoris. By the end of the episode, Noonbory has a cold as well.
- "Singeritis" features a breakout of the titular illness, which causes its victim to sing everything they say.
- "Tooba-Achooba!" has the Super Sensors sans Noonbory come down with the titular illness, which robs them of their Super-Senses.
- The Tooba Tooba Noonbory episode "Elephant Making a Rainbow" has a brief subplot of PinkAru having a cold.
- Episode 96 of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons is about everyone in the Green Green Grassland falling sick with the flu and having to be quarantined by Mr. Slowy's robots. Wolffy, after being separated from his wife Wolnie as a result of the quarantine, seeks to make himself sick to be with her.
Comic Books
- Baker Street: "A Case of the Blues" is a short story that appeared in the 1989 Christmas special A Caliber Christmas. In it, Susan is forced to spend Christmas Eve in hospital and receives a string of visitors who sneak in after visiting hours.
- Dial H for Hero: The story featured as a back-up in issue 31 of New Adventures of Superboy has Chris King suffer from having a cold, finding to his misfortune that using his dial to change into a superhero doesn't instantly cure him and still leaves him sick.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: One story
has Donald harassed by an anthropomorphic common cold that only he can see, able to counter medication by taking pills of his own. He manages to get rid of him after noticing machines can see him too, but since no story can end happily for Donald, on the last page he's greeted by an anthropomorphic headache.
- Futurama: In the comic "A Cure for the Common Cold", Fry catches a disease that's similar to a cold except with a few strange symptoms, the most noticeable being regressing to a primal state. He spreads it to everyone except Bender, Farnsworth, and Zoidberg. Eventually, everyone gets better but they sneeze up giant germs, except the mutants, who save the day by sneezing up giant antibodies.
- Jem and the Holograms (IDW): Pizzazz has a sick arc. She gets into a car accident and injures her larynx. She can't sing or scream, two things she's known for, and her bandmates have to find a temporary replacement (which turns out to be Blaze). The arc ends with Pizzazz picking herself up after the Trauma Conga Line of feeling useless combined with her father not caring at all that she nearly died leaves her a sobbing mess. Blaze ends up a permanent member of the band.
- My Little Pony: Friends Forever: In one of the comic books, Ponyville's population come down with something which makes them sneeze, become tired, break out in red spots, have sore throats, and occasionally lisp or talk nonsense. Zecora ends up contracting it too, but then the Sick Episode trope is subverted when it turns out to be an allergy to a certain type of mould, allowing Spike to cure it..
- Robin:
- During Batman: Contagion Tim was infected with the Ebola Gulf-A virus and lay dying in the Batcave for the last five issues before a cure is invented.
- During Batman: No Man's Land Tim had a fight in the sewers with Ratcatcher that left him ill after ending up in the sewage with scratches and bites and having to deal with Mr. Freeze and Killer Croc while trying to get back on his feet.
- Stephanie Brown (Spoiler) picked up a 24 hour cold in issue #102 that left her struggling to be understood with a stuffy nose before Tim stops by with some chicken soup he made for her that help clear her sinuses.
- Runaways: The one-shot "It's Not Lupus" features Molly and Chase becoming inexplicably ill. This later turns out to be the result of Nico accidentally casting a spell on them.
- Spider-Man: Peter was always getting sick for an issue or two, but then his spider-strength would allow him to recover in record time. Unfortunately, he always happened to get this right when the Monster of the Week showed up.
- The most famous is probably Spider-Man having a cold The Night Gwen Stacy Died.
- A special mention goes out to the Grim Hunt storyline, in which the villains actually plan their attack to take place when he's sick using the precognitive abilities of Madame Web.
- One comedic short in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual (2014) had Spider-Man terrifying a group of villains by not speaking, which is considered a massive Out-of-Character Moment for him, as it meant he was pissed. Actually, he had laryngitis this time.
Comic Strips
- Baby Blues has had a strip in the 90s where Wanda has a cold, and later a strip in which all of the kids get sick while being babysat.
- Bloom County has an extended series of strips in which various characters visit Steve Dallas in the hospital after he gets punched out by an irate Sean Penn.
- Calvin and Hobbes:
- In one strip, Calvin is sick and his mom knows he's not Playing Sick because he says, "I know" when she tells him it's Saturday.
- One strip involves Calvin's mom getting a cold.
- In another strip, Calvin catches chickenpox.
- Peanuts: One storyline has Charlie Brown checking into the hospital when he isn't feeling well (what was wrong with him was never officially stated), leaving all of his friends genuinely worried about him, even Lucy.
- Rugrats: The last week of January 2002 consisted of an arc where Angelica Pickles got sick.
Music
- Gayla Peevey:
- In the song "Got a Cold in the Node for Christmas", the singer has a cold on Christmas.
- The songs "I Got a Cold for Christmas" and "I'm Giving You My Cold for Christmas" also focused on colds on Christmas.
- One kids' song is called "A Cold in My Nose", which is about just that.
- The children's song "Ebeneezer Sneezer" by Fred Penner is about a boy who catches a cold after he plays outside in cold weather without warm clothes.
Radio
- The Navy Lark:
- In "Mr Murray Goes Sick", Lieutenant Murray ends up stuck in sick bay after Lieutenant Commander Stanton thinks he looks green about the gills. While the Number One is away, Sub-Lieutenant Phillips takes charge, which goes to his head immediately, while CPO Pertwee desperately tries to catch whatever Lieutenant Murray has so he can avoid a terrible posting.
- In "Captain Povey Reports Sick", Captain Povey catches a cold, so Admiral Ffont-Bittocks has him sent home and makes Lieutenant Murray take over Old Thunderguts' usual work.
Theatre
- The second act of She Loves Me begins with a pair of scenes showing Mr. Maraczek in the hospital recovering from a self-inflicted wound (Arpad takes advantage of this and obtains a promotion to sales clerk), and one of his employees, Amalia, in her bed, supposedly sick until Georg approaches her.
Web Animation
- DC Super Hero Girls : In "Cold Blooded", Frost comes down with a cold, and she keeps accidentally freezing things every time she sneezes. Later on Batgirl, Ivy, and Bumblebee spend all night trying to make her feel better. In the morning, she thanks them for helping her feel better, at which, they become sick.
- Excellent Entities: In the short "Sick Day", the entire cast is sick.
- Fazbear and Friends (ZAMination): "Chica is SICK!?" is no exception, Chica is sick in the morning, despite that she still has to work, but Freddy promises her not to infect anyone with her illness, things go haywire when Chica has a hard time with her cold, she sneezes in the pizzas filling them with snot, her blurred vision forces her to put in the wrong cassette and to make it worse, she paralyses on the spot, in the end Foxy tells her that she has to rest so that she can recover, however the others end up sick because they ate the infected pizza that Chica made during work.
- The Grossery Gang webseries arc "Get Well Spewn" has Pizza Face sick with a cold.
- Homestar Runner had a short cartoon called "Sick Day", where everyone (including The Paper) was sick. It was a case of Real Life Writes the Plot, as Matt—who voices nearly all of the characters—had a cold that week and wouldn't have been able to make the characters sound normal.
- Inanimate Insanity: After getting sneezed on by Tissues at the end of "Everything's A-OJ", MePhone4 shows up sick the next episode, "Theft and Battery", having caught The Condishawn from Tissues. When his battery shorts out because of this, the contestants are tasked with going to Meeple Headquarters to get him a replacement battery.
- JaidenAnimations: "Injuries and Being Sick" is all about illness, in addition to getting injured. Jaiden was actually sick when she made it but got better for the end card.
- Karekore of Mixed Blood: Hisame got a fever and Kagechiyo has to take care of her.
- Paranormal High School: Riko catches a cold during one video, which cause her to catch a fever that causes her to be literally on fire.
- Hikaru also falls ill during a later video, with various other characters coming to his house to try to help him out, all Played For Laughs.
- Hikaru also falls ill during a later video
- The Pink Corruption: Happens in a short instead of an episode; Cube is sick in bed with the common cold in "Cyan And Cyanide Short," as detected by Cyanide, who also lists what he needs, hydration, a soothing meal, and plenty of rest.
- There is also a pink corrupted version of the short, where Cubic, Cube's corrupted counterpart, is sick.
- Simon's Cat: In "Bed Head", Simon is seen lying in bed sick with what appears to be a cold, and the cat snuggles up to him.
- SMG4: The episode "Mario Steals Your Liver" weirdly enough plays out exactly like a sick episode.
- Star Trek Logical Thinking:
- In the video about the Argumentum ad Ignorantum, a woman is seen with a cold.
- In the video about false dichotomies, a tellarite ensign has a disease called colic.
- StoryBots:
- In "The Cold Song", one of the robots somehow catches a cold.
- A robot is briefly seen with a cold in "Grumpy as a Grizzly Bear".
- In one song, a human is seen getting sick but recovering thanks to "an army of white blood cells".
- Sparkles Magical Market: In “ Avoiding DISASTER in Sparkles Magical Market” Tabbi gets sick and Muffi ends up catching her illness at the end of the episode.
Web Comics
- One story from My Milk Toof was all about ickle caring for Lardee while he was sick, bringing him soup and reading a bedtime story to him.
- The Shufflers: Hiddenite falls ill in “Under the Weather”, leaving him feeling weak and lethargic with a cough.
- The Petri Dish:
- Zigzagged for the strip where iBall gets pinkeye. It disables him like a disease, but it's never revealed if it's the infectious kind or not.
- In one strip, Dr. Thaddeus Euphemism gets the flu and spends several other strips sick at home.
- Til Debt Do Us Part: Two chapters see Subin develop a fever and Yejun voluntarily take care of her.
- In Yokoka's Quest, Yokoka has a fever through chapter 4, so she has a lesser role while Yfa takes the lead in trying to Find the Cure together with his sister Raya.
Web Videos
- Annoying Orange, The plot of the episode "Annoying Pear" is where Orange gets sick and Pear takes over.
- In Kid Time Storytime, the video for Dragons Get Colds, Too has Doug the dinosaur/dragon hybrid with a cold.
- SuperMarioLogan:
- In "Bowser Junior's Sickness", Bowser Junior catches a highly contagious cold, but still wants to play with his friends, Joseph and Cody, when they come over.
- In "Chef Pee Pee Gets Sick!", Chef Pee Pee is sick and unable to perform his cooking duties, so Bowser Junior takes over for him, with the help of Chris the Cucumber.
- Jackie Chu is revealed to be sick in "Substitute Teacher!", and Judy is revealed to be the substitute teacher.
- Chef Pee Pee gets sick again in "Chef Pee Pee's Bucket List!". After Dr. Brooklyn T. Guy does some tests on him, Brooklyn jumps to the conclusion that Chef Pee Pee has feline leukemia and only has 24 hours to live. It is later revealed that Brooklyn accidentally mixed up Chef Pee Pee's test results with a cat's, and that Chef Pee Pee just had the flu.
- Several web videos on E.S.L. have songs or skits where a character is sick to teach phrases about illness.
- This video is a song called I Have a Headache, about two men with colds.
- In I'm Feeling Ill, a Funny Animal puppy must miss school for two or three days due to a cold.
- In Get Well Soon, some Anthropomorphic Food sing to a sick Pez dispenser.
- In I'm Sick, a woman sings about flu symptoms.
- This
- This kids' song is about keeping yourself entertained when you're sick and the kids act sick for the song...although they appear a bit bored.
- Andrew Rea recorded the Binging with Babish episode recreating Kenan & Kel's Cold Cure while he was sick with suspectednote COVID-19.
- Tamara's Never Seen: Tamara was quite sick during her review of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, so she was very bitter towards the titular character for playing sick just to get out of school.
- StacheBros: In "Super Donkey Kong Bros", Koopa gets sick and spreads his illness to Mario and Luigi during one of their princess rescuing adventures, leaving them sick in hospital beds. With them out of commission, Toadsworth gets the idea to have Donkey Kong and Diddy rescue Peach in their places.