The Adventures of Captain Underpants
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 First edition cover | |
| Author | Dav Pilkey |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Dav Pilkey |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Captain Underpants |
| Genre | |
| Publisher | Scholastic |
Publication date |
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| Media type | Print (Paperback, Hardcover) |
| Pages | 125 |
| ISBN | 978-0-590-84628-8 0-590-84628-0 |
| Followed by | Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets |
The Adventures of Captain Underpants is an American children's novel by Dav Pilkey, and the inaugural novel of the Captain Underpants series. It was published in September 1997, becoming a hit with children around the world. In the novel, George Beard and Harold Hutchins turn their principal, Mr. Krupp, into the "greatest superhero of all time", The Amazing Captain Underpants. It has spawned many sequels and subseries such as Super Diaper Baby, Dog Man, and The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future.
Plot[edit]
George Beard and Harold Hutchins, two mischievous fourth-graders who attend Jerome Horwitz Elementary School in Piqua, Ohio, are known for making comic books featuring Captain Underpants, a superhero of their own creation. After the boys ruin the school's football game with a barrage of practical jokes, their principal, Mr. Krupp, blackmails them with video evidence of their pranks, threatening to share it with the football team unless they adhere to a list of rules he gives them. George and Harold find themselves reluctantly conforming to good behavior, extra homework, and chores for Mr. Krupp.
To escape their punishment, George orders a "3-D Hypno-Ring" from the Li'l Wiseguy Novelty Company. Armed with this device, the boys use the ring to hypnotize Krupp, and Harold replaces Krupp's videotape with one of his little sister's "Boomer the Purple Dragon" sing-along videos. When George jokingly instructs Krupp to behave like Captain Underpants, Krupp dresses as the Captain and leaves to fight crime, and the boys follow him. They soon find "Captain Underpants" confronting a pair of bank robbers and carry him away.
The three witness two robots stealing a large crystal from a shop and follow them to an abandoned warehouse. There, Captain Underpants is tied up by the nefarious Dr. Diaper, who harbors a plan to annihilate the Moon with his crystal-powered Laser-Matic 2000. George uses a slingshot to hurl fake dog feces between Dr. Diaper's legs. Believing the feces to be his own, Dr. Diaper leaves to change himself, gifting George and Harold the opportunity to destroy the robots and free Captain Underpants. Harold pulls the machine's self-destruct lever just as Dr. Diaper returns. After Captain Underpants subdues Dr. Diaper, he and the boys escape, leaving Dr. Diaper for the police to apprehend.
Back at school, Captain Underpants redresses as Krupp so the boys can dehypnotize him, but they have misplaced the ring's manual. George impulsively dumps a vase of water on Captain Underpants's head, triggering the hypnosis reversal. As Krupp departs with Harold's videotape, George finds the manual and throws it away, failing to notice a warning that immersing a hypnotized person in water will cause them to return them to their trance at the sound of fingers snapping. George and Harold return to their usual mischief, but realize they must keep Mr. Krupp from hearing fingers snapping, lest he turn back into Captain Underpants.
Title change[edit]
Early printings of the book have "An Epic Novel by Dav Pilkey" instead of "The First Epic Novel by Dav Pilkey", and the "Little Apple" logo on the cover.
Development[edit]
On why he focused on underwear in the book, Pilkey stated "I think underwear is funny because you’re not supposed to laugh at it."[1]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ "The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby By Dav Pilkey (Blue Sky Press, 128 pages, $4.99) George and Harold decide to invent a new superhero. A SERIOUS". The Gainesville Sun. July 21, 2002. Retrieved May 15, 2021. - Also at South Coast Today. Posted on August 17, 2002, in The Standard-Times, page C7.