Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People

Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People is the eighth book in the Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey.^[1]

Plot summary

Continuing from the last book, George, Harold, Sulu, and Crackers end up in an alternate universe where the whole world is the opposite of their normal world. For example, Melvin Sneedly is struggling to comprehend a simple children's book, Mr.Krupp is nice and has a sense of humor, the villains from the last 7 books are good instead of evil (ex: the Turbo Toilet 2000 is a crossing guard, Zorx, Klax, Jennifer, and professor Poopypants are fire fighters, Frankenbooger and Trixie are construction works, Carl is a mailman, and Dr. Diaper is a police officer.) and the school is overall a welcoming place for students to learn and have fun. There they also meet an evil, alternate version of Captain Underpants, Captain Blunderpants and evil versions of George and Harold (George and Harold's evil counterparts or twins) Sulu and Crackers are kidnapped by George and Harold's evil counterparts and are hypnotized to be evil. Sulu becomes evil and attacks the good George and Harold but Crackers on the other hand, saves them, (This is explained in the next book, as Crackers is revealed to be female).

The heroes finally get back to the normal dimension of the world, but end up bringing the Mr. Krupp of the alternate universe (known as nice Mr. Krupp), Sulu (now known as "Evil Sulu"), and the evil George and Harold with them. The evil George and Harold transform nice Mr. Krupp into Captain Blunderpants by getting water on his head. Intending to rescue Sulu, George and Harold try to leave with their super power juice (from the third book) but due to it being Grandparents Day, they have to eat dinner with their grandparents at George's house, delaying them. While there, the evil George and Harold find George and Harold's tree house, rummage through their personal belongings and find the "Goosy-Grow 4000"(from book 4) and transform Sulu into a giant monster. George and Harold fly over on Crackers' back, and decide that they have to drink the super power juice, but discover that it is empty. They fly to the real Mr.Krupp's house and immediately turn him into Captain Underpants who defeats the "Giant-Evil Sulu". Captain Blunderpants is transformed back into the nice Mr. Krupp by the snap of the finger, and Captain Underpants ties them up, but when Harold states that nothing can go wrong, this causes a rain storm to turn the nice Mr. Krupp back into Captain Blunderpants and Captain Underpants is turned back into the real Mr. Krupp and goes home.

When all seems lost, George's great-grandmother and Harold's grandfather, arrive. As it turns out, they had drank the rest of the super power juice (which the boys had brought with them to the table), allowing them to become Boxer Boy and Great Granny Girdle, two of George and Harold's comic characters. They defeat Captain Blunderpants, but the evil George and Harold arrive and try to shrink the heroes with the "Shrinky-Pig 2000" from (also from book 4), only to be tricked into shrinking themselves. Sulu is shrunk and turned good again and Captain Blunderpants and the Evil George and Harold (now shrunken) are taken back to their world.

Harold once again states that nothing can go wrong, but this causes police men to arrest them mistakenly think that they're the evil George and Harold, who robbed a bank while Captain Underpants was fighting Sulu. Harold again states that things cannot get any worse because they are going to jail for the rest of their lives. This time, however, Tippy Tinkletrousers (Professor Poopypants who changed his name at the end of the book 4) comes and chases George and Harold. The book ends, once again, with George yelling "Oh no!" and Harold yelling "Here we go again!"

Comics

Comic 1: The Preposterous Plight of Captain Blunderpants (by evil Harold and George )

Firstly, the comic states that Mr Krupp of the alternate universe was being too nice to George and Harold of the alternate universe. They hypnotize Mr Krupp into Captain Blunderpants (an evil version of Captain Underpants) and one day he was chased onto the freeway by an angry cop (Phil Vischer as the voice of Archibald Asparagus from VeggieTales) for stealing pizza and accidentally ate a mixture of foods (2 food-delivering trucks collided and the foods mixed) which gave Captain Blunderpants super powers. He flew to the evil twins (what George and Harold call evil George & Harold) and gave them their pizza. And from that point, Nice Mr Krupp turn into Blunderpants by getting his head wet and gets de-hypnotized by the snap of a finger. (the opposite from in the real universe, in which Mr Krupp turns into Captain Underpants whenever he hears someone snap their fingers and turns back into Mr Krupp when he gets his head wet)

Comic 2: Adventures of Boxer Boy and Great Granny Girdle (by the real George and Harold)

One day, a UFO landed on earth and opened a store that traded improved Robo-Grandparents for Real Grandparents. Everybody but George and Harold traded their Grandparents then one day George and Harold's grandparents found the other Grandparents kidnapped in the slaves room in the store and found super power candies and they ate. After eating all the candies they became known as Boxer Boy and Great Granny Girdle and Chased the bad guys (who opened the store and kidnapped the Grandparents)into the UFO.the Robo-Grandparents flew into the sky and attacked Great Granny Girdle While Boxer Boy made the UFO into the shape of the candy and the Robots ate it then one of then bit onto the fuel line which made an explosion that killed the Robots and the bad guys. Then George and Harold's Grandparents flew to the store and sent the Grandparents free!

Reception

Reviews for the book were mostly positive,^[2] with Kidsreads.com praising the entry.^[3]

References

• The book that the librarian offers the boys shortly after they arrive, Mommy Has Two Heathers, is a parody of the 1989 book, Heather Has Two Mommies which was previously one of the most banned books in America.

• At the 75th page of the book, the illustration depicts a sign saying: "'Schools is educationy' ; A message from our president". This might be an indirect way of criticising or parodying American president George W. Bush and his frequent grammar mistakes known by some as Bushisms.

• In the inside comic book about Captain Blunderpants, when Captain Blunderpants steals pizza, it is called "Grand Theft Pizza" which is a spoof of the crime Grand Theft Auto.

• The title of chapter 19, "Whenhamstersattack.com", is a real website, first created to promote Bionic Booger Boy (Book 6). It might be possible that it was named after the website because Sulu is a hamster, and he is attacking and the attack is mentioned in the site.

• Captain Blunderpants is a parody of "Ultraman".

See also

References

External links

• Sketches and the book cover
• Dav pilkey's official website
• When Hamsters Attack!