Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants

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Captain Underpants Books
Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants
Author	Dav Pilkey
Illustrator	Dav Pilkey
Genre	Fiction
Publisher	Blue Sky (US), Scholastic (US)
Release date	2003
Number in series	Four
Sales	?
Dedicated to	?
Story timeline	2001
Preceded by	Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds)
Followed by	Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman

Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants is the fourth book in the Captain Underpants series written by Dav Pilkey.

[edit] Plot

Professor Pippy P. Poopypants, a scientist from a country where everyone has a silly name, New Swissland, invents a shrinking machine, the Shrinky-Pig 2000 and an enlarging machine, the Goosy-Grow 4000. He goes to America so he can show these inventions to everyone and help the world by using his machines to shrink the world's garbage and increase the world's food supply. Unfortunately, everyone laughs at Professor Poopypants' name, instead of taking him seriously.

Meanwhile, the kids in Jerome Horwitz Elementary School are going on a field trip to a pizza store. While George and Harold was waiting to get on the bus, they decide to change the school sign, until Mr. Krupp caught them since he was hiding in the bushes next to the sign. As the boys' punishment, they are banned from the field trip and have to spend the whole afternoon cleaning up the school. While they were gone, the two boys were making their ultimate prank on the teachers. First, they taped the water nozzle of the sink, to make it on when the water runs, second they filled powder of paste on the wings of the ceiling fan. Finally, they placed millions of Styrofoam pellets in the fridge. When the students finally came back and went off home, the teachers spent their time taunting at George and Harold. One teacher said that they would bring them back a pizza, but he ate it on the bus. The boys only received an empty pizza box. When the teachers went into the lounge to relax, they fell on George and Harold's trap. The teachers ended up being abominable snowmen (they are covered with Styrofoam pellets) and they ran, screamed, and chased George and Harold down the hall.

Professor Poopypants is forced to take a job as a science teacher at George and Harold's school. (Their old science teacher, Morty Fyde, quit because he thought he had cracked — first, a toilet ate him, then George and Harold imitated dogs and cats, and finally, he saw the other teachers chase George and Harold down the hall as "abominable snowmen" — he wasn't one because he was on bus duty. He also insists that he saw some fat bald man in his underwear jump out a window — obviously Captain Underpants.) Professor Poopypants is convinced that the innocence and sweetness of children will let them pay attention to him, but they all laugh at his name instead.

Professor Poopypants manages to get the children interested in science by building a machine that allows gerbils to jog alongside their masters. This inspires George and Harold to make a comic book about the Professor inventing an army of gerbil joggers to destroy the world, which destroys Professor Poopypants' credibility with the students and drives him crazy. The gerbils listen to music by Cher.

Using his enlarging machine, he makes the gerbil machine as large as a tall building and then gets inside. He shrinks the school and holds them hostage. He then unveils his plan to force everyone in the world to change their names so everyone will have a silly name instead of a normal one. Anyone who disagrees will be shrunk.

George and Harold (now Fluffy and Cheeseball) get Captain Underpants to steal Professor Poopypants' enlarging machine, but unfortunately he and the machine are shrunk in the process.

The two of them try to enlarge the school back to normal size, but get flicked off the school and end up in an abandoned alley. They enlarge Captain Underpants (and Harold's right hand) to the size of Professor Poopypants' gerbil machine. Captain Underpants then fights and defeats Professor Poopypants. The boys use the shrinking and enlarging machines to get the school and Captain Underpants back to normal size.

Professor Poopypants is hauled off to jail. On the advice of George and Harold, he changes his name so no one will make fun of it anymore. Sadly, he chooses his grandfather's name, Tippy Tinkletrousers, which the people at jail make fun of.

The moral of the story ("I think this is the first time one of our stories had a moral," notes George) is that it's not nice to make fun of people.

[edit] Trivia

• There is an apology and a giveaway at the end of the book, aimed at people who were "traumatised" by the new names inflicted on them by Professor Poopypants.
• At the end of George and Harold's comic book about the Professor, there is a disclaimer that says that no hamsters were forced to listen to Cher.
• In the Spanish version of this book, the gerbils listen to music by Julio Iglesias.
• The two news reporters, Ingrid Ashley and Larry Zarrow, appeared in the fifth novel as well. They used the names that Professor Poopypants made for them.
• On the inside of the cover it shows Professor Poopypants crossing out Dav Pilkey's name and writing the silly equivalent (Gidget Hamsterbrains).
• Dr. Diaper (the villain from the first book) can be seen in the penitentiary.
• Mr. Krupp's first name is Benny
• The small print newspaper Professor Poopypants reads contains an article about robots and toilets on uranus (a reference to the second book), and an article about how reading small print is bad for people's eyes.

Captain Underpants
Main series	The Adventures of... | Talking Toilets | Cafeteria Ladies From Outer Space | Professor Poopypants | Wicked Wedgie Woman | Bionic Booger Boy | Purple Potty People | Tippy Tinkletrousers
Other	Super Diaper Baby | 2 | FrankenFart | Book o' Fun | 2 | Cartoon-O-Rama 1