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The Adventures of Captain Underpants
First edition cover
AuthorDav Pilkey
IllustratorDav Pilkey
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesCaptain Underpants
Genre
PublisherScholastic
Publication date
  • September 1, 1997 (black-and-white)
  • September 1, 2005 (collectors edition)
  • August 27, 2013 (color edition)
  • March 7, 2023 (25½ anniversary edition)
Media typePrint (Paperback, Hardcover)
Pages125
ISBN978-0-590-84628-8 0-590-84628-0
Followed byCaptain 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 summary

George Beard and Harold Hutchins are fourth-grade pranksters who attend Jerome Horwitz Elementary School in Piqua, Ohio. They are known for making comic books featuring Captain Underpants, a superhero of their own creation. When George and Harold sabotage the school's football game with a slew of practical jokes, their principal, Mr. Krupp, captures video footage of the boys arranging their pranks and threatens to give it to the football team unless they comply with a list of rules he gives them. The boys are forced to behave well at school and do extra homework and chores for Krupp.

To escape their punishment, George orders a "3-D Hypno-Ring" from the Li'l Wiseguy Novelty Company. 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 orders 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 two bank robbers and whisk 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 evil Dr. Diaper, who plans to destroy the Moon with his crystal-powered Laser-Matic 2000. George slingshots fake dog feces between Dr. Diaper's feet, and Dr. Diaper, believing the feces to be his, goes to change himself. George and Harold 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 lost the ring's manual. George desperately dumps a vase of water on Captain Underpants's head, reverting him to Krupp, and Krupp leaves to give Harold's videotape to the football team. George finds the manual and discards it, failing to notice a warning that drenching a hypnotized person will cause them to return to their trance with the sound of fingers snapping. George and Harold return to their old ways, but realize they must keep Mr. Krupp from hearing fingers snapping, which turns him back into Captain Underpants.

Title change

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

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

References

  1. ^ "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.
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