The Adventures of Captain Underpants: By Dav Pilkey

The Adventures of Captain Underpants: 

Description:

The Adventures of Captain Underpants is an American children's novel by Dav Pilkey, the first novel in the Captain Underpants series. The story begins with 4th graders George Beard and Harold Hutchins, the troublemakers at Jerome Horowitz Elementary School, making a comic featuring a superhero they made-up, The Amazing Captain Underpants. The book moves on to George and Harold playing a series of practical jokes on the school's football game automatically without being exposed (sprinkling pepper in the cheerleaders' pom-poms causing them to sneeze, pouring bubble bath in the marching band's instruments causing the liquid to turn into foam, filling up the game's ball with helium causing it to go up in the sky, replacing the players' ointment with itching cream causing the players to scratch and roll around, etc.) causing the game to be canceled. Unknown to them, their mean-spirited and child-hating principal Mr. Krupp, who loathes them because of the pranks they have played over the years, has caught them on video setting up the pranks. Mr. Krupp reveals this information to them the next day. Mr. Krupp blackmails them into becoming his personal servants, as well as providing extra homework and forbidding them from any more pranks, warning that he will give the tape to the football team if they do not comply.
After one day of labor, consisting of waking up at 6am to wash Mr. Krupp's car, cleaning his office during lunch, doing yard work after school, and receiving extra homework, the two try to figure out how to get out of the situation. To avoid Mr. Krupp's tasks, George orders a 3-D Hypno-Ring (which they receive after 4–6 weeks of back-breaking labor) from the Li'l Wiseguy Company in Walla-Walla, Washington. After receiving it, they hypnotize Mr. Krupp and take the video, which Harold replaces with one of his little sister's "Boomer the Purple Dragon Singalong Videos". They then begin goofing off, using the ring to make Mr. Krupp act like a chicken and then a monkey. George hypnotizes Mr. Krupp to act as if he were Captain Underpants. George and Harold burst out laughing when they see that Mr. Krupp, in his underwear and a red cape with black polka-dots (a curtain), actually looks a lot like their depiction of Captain Underpants in their comic books. To their distress, Mr. Krupp now truly believes he is Captain Underpants, and jumps out the window to fight crime.

Captain Underpants eventually confronts two bank robbers, and orders them to "Surrender! Or I will have to resort to 'Wedgie Power'!" The bank robbers fall down in hysterics and are apprehended by the police. The police begin to arrest Captain Underpants too, but George and Harold whisk him to safety on their skateboards. Then the trio witness two robots stealing a large crystal. Captain Underpants tries to stop them, but his cape gets caught on their van. Captain Underpants, along with George and Harold clinging to him by the heels, are dragged to an old, abandoned warehouse.

There they meet the evil Dr. Diaper, who plans to use the crystal as the transformer for his Laser-Matic 2000 to blow up the Moon, destroying every major city on Earth, so that he can take over the planet. George and Harold escape and hide, but Captain Underpants is captured and tied up.
George uses a slingshot to toss fake doggy doo-doo between Dr. Diaper's feet. Dr. Diaper is terribly embarrassed, thinking that he has had an "accident". When he departs to change his diaper, George and Harold destroy the robots and untie Captain Underpants. Harold pulls the self-destruct lever on the Laser-Matic 2000, mistaking it for an "off" switch.

Dr. Diaper, enraged at the destruction of the Laser-Matic 2000, his robots, and the foiling of his plan to take over the world, aims his Diaper-Matic 2000 ray gun (which resembles a pacifier) at George, Harold, and Captain Underpants. Captain Underpants shoots a pair of underwear (it is later revealed it was his own underwear) at Dr. Diaper. The underwear covers Dr. Diaper's face, which renders him incapable of defending himself. After the warehouse explodes, Dr. Diaper is tied (with the same rope used to tie Captain Underpants up earlier) to a lamppost outside the police station with a note reading "Arrest Me!" taped to him.

George, Harold, and Captain Underpants return to Mr. Krupp's office and dress him back up as Mr. Krupp. The boys try to figure out how to return Mr. Krupp to his normal self, but they've lost the instruction manual for the 3-D Hypno-Ring. In desperation, George tries dumping water on Mr. Krupp's head. It works, and Mr. Krupp returns to his angry self, resolving to give the video to the football team after all. After this, George finds the 3D Hypno Ring's manual, and throws it away, no longer believing they need it (unknown to them, the manual warns that pouring water over a person will cause them to switch between reality and trance whenever they hear someone snap their fingers or get water on their head). As it turns out, the football team enjoys the Sing-A-Long video so much that they change their name from the Knuckleheads to the Purple Dragon Sing-A-Long Friends, which didn't go so well with the fans. George and Harold return to their mischievous ways, but from this point on, whenever anyone snaps their fingers, Mr. Krupp transforms into Captain Underpants.

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Important Details:

Published: September 1, 1997

Author: Dav Pilkey

Followed by: Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets

Characters: Harold Hutchins, Captain Underpants, Mr. Benny Krupp, George Beard

Genres: Children's literature, Humour

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