The Adventures of Captain Underpants

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Cover of The Adventures of Captain Underpants

The Adventures of Captain Underpants is a children's book by Dav Pilkey, the first novel in a series of books with "Captain Underpants" in the titles.

1 Characters
2 Plot
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] Characters

Main Characther(s)
- George Beard
- Harold Hutchins
- Mr. Benny Krupp/Captain Underpants

Major Characther(s)
- The Football Team
- Dr. Diaper
- Dr. Diaper's Robots

Minor Characther(s)
- The Inedible Hunk
- Students
- Cheerleaders
- The Band
- Mr. Meaner
- Ms. Ribble
- Bank Robbers
- Policemen
- Little Boy and his Mom

[edit] Plot

The story begins with the school troublemakers, George Beard and Harold Hutchins, playing a series of practical jokes that cause their school to lose a football game. Their headmaster, Mr. Krupp, gets so angry at them he imposes a set of draconian rules such as "No laughing or smiling", and requires them to spend every spare minute of their day, beginning at 6 A.M., catering to his every whim. If they don't comply, Mr. Krupp will show a surveillance video of George and Harold setting up the pranks that ruined the game to the football team.

To avoid Mr. Krupp's tasks, George and Harold buy a 3-D Hypno-Ring (receiving it after 4-6 weeks of back-breaking labor) and hypnotize Mr. Krupp to make him give them the incriminating video. Harold replaces it with one of his little sister Heidi's "Boomer the Purple Dragon Sing-A-Long" videos (a spoof of Barney the Purple Dinosaur). Then they start goofing around. They hypnotize him to act like the Amazing Captain Underpants, who is the hero of their homemade comic books. To their distress, Mr. Krupp, as Capt. Underpants, takes the role too seriously and runs away to fight crime.

Capt. Underpants 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 want to arrest Capt. Underpants too, but George and Harold whisk him to safety on their skateboards.

Then the three witness two robots stealing a large crystal! Capt. Underpants tries to stop them, and his cape gets caught on their van! Capt. Underpants, with George and Harold clinging to him, is thus dragged to an old, abandoned warehouse.

There they meet the evil Dr. Diaper, who plans to use the crystal as part of 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 hide, but Capt. Underpants is captured and tied up.

George uses a slingshot to toss a piece of fake dog poop between Dr. Diaper's feet! Dr. Diaper is terribly embarrassed, thinking that he has had an "accident". While he goes off to change his diaper, George and Harold beat up the robots and untie Capt. Underpants. They pull the self-destruct lever on the Laser-Matic 2000.

Dr. Diaper, enraged at the destruction of the Laser-Matic 2000, his robots, and his plan to take over the world, aims his Diaper-Matic 2000 ray gun at George, Harold, and Capt. Underpants!

Quickly, Capt. Underpants shoots a pair of underwear at Dr. Diaper! The underwear covers Dr. Diaper's face. No longer able to defend himself, Dr. Diaper is taken to the police station.

George, Harold, and Capt. Underpants return to Mr. Krupp's office. 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. As it turns out, they enjoy the Sing-A-Long video so much that they change their name from the Knuckleheads to the Purple Dragon Sing-A-Long Friends. But from then on, whenever anyone snaps their fingers, Mr. Krupp turns into Capt. Underpants!

[edit] Trivia

Early printings of the book have "An Epic Novel by Dav Pilkey" instead of "The First Epic Novel by Dav Pilkey".
Ms. Ribble has no name, and she is slightly nicer than in the 6 books following this one.