Captain Underpants

Context

Captain Underpants novels are silly children’s book featuring the titular mock super-hero and vast amounts of potty humour. They began in 1997 and carried on. They seem pretty successful, so presumably it still goes on with many a spin-off. No movie yet as of this writing, though.

Background

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Powers and Abilities

Before ingesting the Extra-Strength Super Power Juice, Captain Underpants was just a fat, bald guy in underwear and a cape. He was perhaps a little braver and dimmer than his Alter Ego, Mr. Krupp and more willing and able to slingshot underpants by their waistbands.

After taking the Super Power Juice, Captain Underpants became very strong and tough and gained the ability to fly. He has a unique but effective Wedgie-based fighting style. His cape makes a serviceable parachute.

Mr. Krupp is a fat, bald guy. He is bright enough to keep George and Harold on their toes and, occasionally, even foil their plans.

History

George Beard and Harold Hutchins are two silly, mischievous, but basically likable boys who live next door to one another and attend the fourth grade at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School in Piqua, Ohio.

The day of the big football game between the Horwitz Elementary Knuckleheads and the Stubinville Elementary Stinkbugs, George and Harold’s propensity for pranks got the better of them.

They put black pepper in the cheerleaders’ pom-poms (“Gimme an… a-ah-ah-A-CHOO !”), poured bubble bath into the marching band’s instruments, filled the football with helium, and generally created chaos.

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They also got caught. Mean old Mr. Krupp, the Principal of Horwitz Elementary, had set a trap with video surveillance cameras in order to catch his two nemeses, George and Harold, in the act of pulling one of their practical jokes.

He blackmailed them with the tape, threatening to turn it over to the furious Knuckleheads if they didn’t behave. AND become his personal slaves for the rest of their school careers!

The boys chaffed under the yolk of oppression and extra homework until George hit on an idea. He found an old magazine ad for the 3-D Hypno-Ring (“Hey Kids! It’s the 3-D Hypno-Ring. Learn the Art of Hypnosis! Amaze Your Friends! Control Your Enemies! Rule the World!”), sent in $4.00 ($2.99 plus $1.01 Shipping and Handling).

4 to 6 weeks later the ring arrived from the Li’l Wiseguy Novelty Company.

One ring to rule them all

George and Harold used the Hypno-Ring to put Mr. Krupp into a trance and made him give them the videotape. While he was under the trance, the boys couldn’t resist making him think he was a chicken, a monkey, and finally, their homemade comic book hero Captain Underpants.

No sooner was this suggested (and George snapped his fingers) than an heroic grin slowly spread across Mr. Krupp’s face. He stripped down to his jockey shorts, tore the red curtain from his office window, tying it around his neck for a cape, and leapt out the window in search of crime.

The two boys ran after their principal, desperate to keep him from harm. As luck would have it (good or bad luck; you be the judge), the trio found themselves in the lair of the evil Dr. Diaper.

Diaper planned to use his Laser-Matic 2000 to destroy the moon, causing huge chunks of it to fall on the Earth and thereby destroy all resistance to his complete domination. Of course, our three heroes couldn’t allow that and through their sheer bravery (and the ineptness of Dr. Diaper’s robot henchmen), the evil plot was foiled.

After dropping Diaper off at the local police station, the Captain, George, and Harold returned to the school. But the two increasingly frantic boys could not ’turn’ the Waistband Warrior back into Mr. Krupp.

Desperate for a solution to their problem, George poured the contents of a nearby flower vase over the Captain’s head and he immediately reverted to Mr. Krupp with no knowledge of his recent adventure.

Little did the boys realize that this was the worst thing they could have done, for now, whenever Mr. Krupp hears the sound of fingers snapping, he becomes Captain Underpants, champion of Truth, Justice, and all that is Pre-Shrunk and Cottony! And only water poured over his head will change him back. [The Adventures of Captain Underpants.]

The talking toilets

In their next adventure, George and Harold squared off against the threat of the talking toilets, carnivorous commodes from one of their homemade comic books which were inadvertently brought to life by smart kid Melvin Sneedly’s Photo-Atomic Trans-Somgobulating Yectofantriplutoniczanziptomiser (or PATSY 2000 for much, much shorter).

Luckily, one of the boys’ teachers, Ms. Ribble (yep, they all have names like that!) snapped her fingers at the toilets at a particularly opportune moment and Captain Underpants joined the fray. Before long the toilets and their powerful leader Turbo Toilet 2000 were defeated just as the toilet water turned Captain Underpants back into Mr. Krupp. [Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets.]

The lunch ladies and the zombie nerds

In their next adventure, George and Harold’s pranks (and an unflattering portrayal in one of their homemade comic books) caused the Horwitz Elementary Cafeteria Ladies to resign.

After unknowingly hiring three space aliens bent on world conquest to replace the Lunch Ladies, Mr. Krupp punished the boys. He took away their lunchroom privileges and made them eat their lunches in his office.

It was just as well because the aliens added Evil Zombie Nerd Milkshakes to the lunchroom menu and before long the entire school, save George, Harold, and Mr. Krupp, had been turned into Zombie Nerds!

Of course, the boys stumbled onto the aliens’ plans and ran to get their principal. Just as they were convincing Mr. Krupp that aliens really had taken over the school, Zorx, the alien leader, attacked the trio. She snapped her tentacle at them…

…(“Hey, wait a second,” said Harold. “Tentacles don’t have fingers! You can’t snap a tentacle!”) and that old familiar heroic grin once more spread across Mr. Krupp’s face.

While Krupp stripped down to his Captain Underpants fighting togs, George and Harold overpowered the aliens using frying pans and rolling pins. But the trio did not reckon on a school full of Zombie Nerds who converged on the intrepid heroes and forced them escape to the school roof where sat the aliens’ spaceship.

Once there Captain U and the boys were menaced by a giant carnivorous dandelion accidentally created by George when he poured a carton of the aliens’ Super Evil Rapid-Growth Juice out the cafeteria window.

The heroes fled to the spaceship but were trapped within by the recovered aliens. Realizing that the aliens had to be stopped no matter the cost, George tricked the aliens into putting Ultra Nasty Self-Destruct Juice into the spaceship’s fuel tank. While the spacecraft’s engines began to smoke, the boys solemnly awaited their fate.

Captain Underpants had other ideas. He grabbed the boys and jumped out of the spaceship (which then exploded) and right into the gaping maw of the giant dandelion. With the Waistband Warrior in danger of being swallowed by the ferocious flower, George made a fateful decision.

He poured a carton of Extra-Strength Super Power Juice, stolen from the aliens, down the Captain’s screaming mouth. The Juice took effect immediately and Captain Underpants defeated the dandelion easily.

After using Anti-Evil Zombie Nerd Juice to dezombify the faculty and students of Horwitz Elementary and returning Underpants to Mr. Kruppness, things settled down a bit. For a little while, at least. [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.)]

What’s in a name?

In their final adventure to date, Captain Underpants and the boys battled Professor Pippy P. Poopypants who sought to use his scientific genius to take over the world and force everyone to have a silly name just like him.

Using the Professor’s Name Change-O-Chart 2000, George became Fluffy Toiletnose, Harold became Cheeseball Wafflefanny, and Mr. Krupp became Lumpy Pottybiscuits. The boys knew Poopypants had to be stopped so Fluffy snapped his fingers and changed Mr. Krupp into Captain Underpants.

Though shrunk and enlarged by the Professor’s Shrinky-Pig 2000 and Goosy-Grow 4000, Underpants still managed to defeat the criminal. The boys squirted the Captain with a garden hose to return him to his Mr. Krupp identity.

But if the world ever needs him, or if someone just happens to snap their fingers, Captain Underpants will once more take to the skies over Piqua, Ohio. [Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants.]

Description

Captain Underpants is a fat, bald guy in white jockey shorts (“Y fronts” to our British friends) and a red curtain tied around his neck. He doesn’t sport boots, gloves, or anything else for that matter.

He wears a big grin under his pig-like nose. He flies with both fists flung before him.

Mr. Krupp wears short-sleeved dress shirts, print ties, dark pants, and a sour expression. Naturally, he is just as fat and bald as the Captain although he hides his gleaming pate under a black toupee. He has a particularly piggish countenance.

Personality

Captain Underpants is noble and brave. He is also convinced he can do all those things he’s read about in George and Harold’s comic books. Luckily, with the addition of superpowers, he may not get himself killed.

He is fond of underpants-based declarations of heroism such as, “I will defeat him with Wedgie Power !” He is also fond of running through town stealing underpants off of clotheslines for ammunition.

His battle cry is “Tra-La-Laaaaa !” sung at the top of his lungs. He’s really quite silly.

As should be expected of an authority figure in a children’s book series, Mr. Krupp is mean. He constantly monitors George and Harold for any hint of subordination. Like so many ’educators’, he is more than willing to enforce order at the expense of justice.

He keeps all the stuff (whoopee cushions, slingshots, issues of Captain Underpants, etc.) he has confiscated from the boys locked up in the bottom drawer of his office file cabinet.

Quotes

As Mr. Benny Krupp
“You boys are in SO MUCH TROUBLE ! I’m putting you two on PERMANENT DETENTION for the REST OF THE SCHOOL YEAR !”

DC Universe History

Okay. There are a couple of ways to bring the worlds of Superman and Captain Underpants together. If Piqua, Ohio exists in the DC Universe, then the Li’l Wiseguy Novelty Company may be a front of the Prankster, Joker, Trickster, or similar joke-based villain.

Perhaps the 3-D Hypno-Ring is a dangerous prototype shipped out accidentally by a dimwitted henchman.

In this case, a PC group might have to protect George and Harold from the villain’s wrath while simultaneously trying to track down the ’crusading‘ Captain Underpants. The juxtaposition of the deadly threat that someone like the Joker represents with the idea of a grown man running around in his jockey shorts might be a fun adventure to attempt.

Alternately, if the world of Captain Underpants exists in a separate reality that the PC group finds themselves transported to, then the GM should feel free to pile on the silliness. It should be stressed, however, that while the threats faced by the Captain and the boys appear ridiculous they are, in fact, quite dangerous. A mobile toilet with fangs still has the Claws Power.

The Faculty of Jerome Horwitz Elementary School

As noted, the faculty and staff of Horwitz Elementary have rather telling names. The fourth grade teacher is Ms. Ribble, the science teacher is Mr. Fyde, and the gym teacher is Mr. Meaner. The school psychologist is Miss Labler, the guidance counselor is Mr. Rected, and Mr. Krupp’s secretary is Miss Enthrone.

Only two of the three Lunch Ladies are named, Miss Creant and Mrs. DePoint. With the exception of Mr. Fyde, a permanently bewildered little man who lives up to his name, the faculty and staff of Horwitz are mean.

By Vincent Paul Bartilucci.

Source of Character: The Captain Underpants series of chapter books created by Dav Pilkey and published by Blue Sky Press / Scholastic.

Helper(s): Ethan Roe.