Probing Day

Probing Day is an Irken occasion on which the Tallest contact all of the Irken Invaders on duty, and check up on how far each has gotten in their missions to conquer their assigned planets. This generally involves the Invaders having to give a presentation of sorts like an essay or video presentation, depicting their current plan to subjugate or kill their planets' inhabitants.

It is not a holiday as we Humans think of it, however, as there are no parties, feasts, decorations or carols of any sort, that being said, it should be noted that the holiday was shown only on the Massive and partly by the Invaders, so its currently unknown how the population of Irk celebrates Probing Day.

However, the current Tallest have added some ideas of their own to the procedures: As of the most recent Probing Day, each Invader has to deliver a puppet show; failure or refusal to do so will result in the Invader not only automatically failing the inspection but also getting pummeled by a pair of mallet-wielding robotic arms, remotely controlled by the Tallest as that was the case with Invader Slacks and Invader Larb. This event is called a "pummeling."

Probing Day was witnessed in the episode "Walk for Your Lives". It is the only known holiday celebrated by the Irken race.

Facts of Doom[]

In human culture, aliens are stereotypically believed to use probes to get information out of the people they abduct. In this case, however, the Tallest extract information out of their own people by demanding a puppet show in exchange for the information they seek.
It's unknown what event in Irken History caused the Irkens to start *celebrating" this "holiday", though seeing as the Tallest are interviewing the invaders, one can make an educated guess that the holiday started as a result of the conquest of an enemy planet, possibly the first planet conquered by the Irkens in days long past.
- One theory created by fans is that Tallest Red and Tallest Purple created Probing Day themselves as a further means of control over not only the Invaders but the entirety of the Irken race.
  - Given how Zim expressed his determination to pass Probing Day inspection ever since he was a smeet makes this theory unlikely or with little substantial evidence. However, the Tallest were pummeling any other Irken who dared defy their orders for a puppet show.
Despite the fact that Zim isn't actually an Irken Invader, he was still on the Tallest list for Probing Day inspection. Given how much Red and Purple, hate Zim, this is unlikely to be an error on their part and the most likely explanation for this is that the Control Brains filed Earth as a possible planet for conquest that is being infiltrated by an exiled Irken as stated by Jhonen Vasquez.
Ironically despite Zim most likely failing the inspection, he was not pummeled by his leaders, even though Tallest Purple wanted that to be the case.