Mike’s Birthday
| Mike's Birthday | |
|---|---|
| (Intermission) | |
 | |
| Chapter | “18.1” of 129 (list of chapters) |
| Published | August 10, 2006 |
| Page count | 1 |
| Major characters | Mike, Daisy |
| Minor characters | Paulo, David, Lucy, Yashy, Blur, Chirpy |
| Locations | Mike’s house |
| Collected in | Volume One, Omnibus 1 |
| Chapter navigation | |
| ← Farewell, Middle School | Blurry Memories → |
| Read chapter | |
Daisy has put together the complete birthday-morning package for Mike: confetti, a choreographed song, and the whole gang in lobster costumes. There’s just one small problem with staging a surprise performance at somebody’s bedside.
Synopsis
Daisy calls the room to attention and announces there’s a birthday in the house. On her count of three, confetti flies, and Paulo, David, Lucy, Yashy, Blur and Chirpy join her in a full song-and-dance number — every last one of them in a lobster costume.[1]
The number is a proper restaurant-style birthday song, sung “from the lobster gang” and dedicated to their very favorite guest. Paulo pulls a sour face and mutters that he, for one, is not excited, but the rest of the gang carries the tune all the way through the big posing finale.[1]
The guest of honor, meanwhile, was asleep until roughly the confetti. Mike sits up in bed and glares at the costumed crowd. David teases him about how funny he looks with a neck, but the birthday boy’s entire response to the festivities is a flat “Let me sleep.”[1]
Trivia & observations
- Veronica describes the series policy in her commentary. “The characters will actually be aging throughout this series.. we’ll keep track of birthdays!” This one-pager is the first of the birthday intermission chapters that mark time passing between the full stories.[1]
- Per the same commentary, Mike’s birthday is August 10, which puts this page in the summer between middle school and high school.[1]
- The song and the costumes come from Red Lobster, where Veronica used to work. Her commentary laments that her old branch has since swapped the routine out for the generic birthday song.[1]
- Veronica’s commentary also brings up Mike’s sister Haley, whose birthday falls the day before (August 9) but who is “too unimportant a character to get a celebratory comic.” At this point Haley had never appeared on panel, and she wouldn’t for a long while yet.[1][2]
- Per Oliver’s commentary, intermissions like this one were originally colored in “lurid Prismacolor-brand pencil” and were later recolored “rosy pink” to better match the rest of the comic.[1]
Related chapters
- Farewell, Middle School: The chapter immediately before this one. It closes out the gang’s middle school days and leaves them loafing into summer vacation. This intermission takes place during that summer.[3]
- Blurry Memories: The next full chapter picks up later in the same summer, with Mike sweating over his Honors reading before high school starts. It also finally explains where Blur came from, one chapter after he danced in a lobster suit here.[4][5]
- Yashy’s Birthday: Next in the promised line of birthday intermissions, celebrating Yashy’s birthday on September 1.[6]
- Unwanted Gift: The “happy happy birthday” ambush returns for Lucy’s birthday, performed this time by Sue, Daisy, Paulo and David — and received with delight rather than a demand for more sleep. The lobster costumes do not make the return trip.[1][7]