Dib’s about to make contact with the explosion.
The slow explosion, or delayed explosion, is as the name implies an explosion that is as Zim’s computer explained “exploding very, very slowly”. It was accidentally created by Zim during his Probing Day inspection during the episode “Walk for Your Lives”.
Zim was trying to impress the Tallest with a variable time stasis field he created and had trapped Dib inside. Predictably, the stasis field exploded, with the end result being Dib’s time going extremely slowly, as well as the unexpected creation of the slow explosion co-bonded with the time stasis field.
GIR distracts Zim, losing control of the slow explosion.
The Computer added that the explosion couldn’t be extinguished and could only expand to its inevitable size. Zim asked how big the explosion could get, and to his horror discovered that it could become as big as the city. When asked for a solution from his computer, which was not that helpful, Zim ignored it and decided to simply throw it in the City’s Cess Pool.
However, as the explosion got bigger and bigger, Zim and GIR were forced to transport it by foot using a fat woman disguise to conceal it from the unsuspecting humans. Unfortunately, Zim lost control when he got scared of the chihuahua, and the explosion made its way downtown.
The slowly expanding explosion caused mild panic and confusion in the city, the residents slowly walking away to avoid it, while Zim ironically was not happy to see how big the explosion was getting. Somehow, it is at this point that he got the horrible idea to speed up the explosion, despite how many times he was told not to do it by his Computer, Dib, and even GIR.
The Tallest see Zim in middle of explosion.
Zim, however, needed a fragment of the time field as a trigger, and when being told Dib was alive he kidnapped him and once back in his base accelerated Dib's time field to cancel out the field around the explosion and finally slingshot Dib directly into the explosion.
Predictably it blew up, destroying everything in its path, including Zim’s base but apparently no one was killed, only badly injured, as Dib was in the center of the explosion and survived while Zim was still able to try and get in contact with the Tallest.
Facts of Doom[]
- According to Eric Trueheart in the DVD interviews, he had a difficult time explaining the plot of the episode to the Nickelodeon executives and how the explosion going slowly would work out and be resolved.
- The explosion was originally orange and fiery, but was changed to green due to the events of 9/11.
- The explosion being colored green might be symbolic, as Zim created it by accident and he is known for being quite destructive.
- The Slow Explosion is one of Zim's moves in the video game Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2.