Line #38 YMMV/CaptainUnderpants


1	!!For the main series
2	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Readers have long suspected that Mr. Krupp enjoys the Captain Underpants comics more than he lets on, pointing at how his hypnotized self knows how to act like the character and about various plot points in the comics. [[spoiler:This is canon in the movie.]]
3	* AluminumChristmasTrees: Ms. Ribble makes the students eat chunky tofu ice cream at her retirement party in Book 5. It [[http://www.bakespace.com/recipes/detail/Tofu%20Ice%20Cream/14417/ actually exists]], minus the chunky part.
4	* AmericansHateTingle: Although the series has garnered controversy in its home country of America, it is even more hated in Japan, due to the boys' constant pranking and irreverence to authority [[ValuesDissonance clashing with Japanese morals of quiet obedience]]. It does not help that almost every single authority figure is portrayed as an antagonist. The translation of the book series ended after book 5.
5	** This leads to the movie only getting a direct-to-video release, and the cartoon being obscure in general.
6	* {{Anvilicious}}: Dav will never let you forget that ''kids need imagination and fun in their lives'' and it plays as much of a role in their future as having an education.
7	* AssPull:
8	** George figuring out in the first book that Captain Underpants will turn back into Mr. Krupp whenever he gets water poured on his head. It has absolutely no foreshadowing or buildup whatsoever, and George only tries it because he "saw it in a cartoon once."
9	** Book 5 when it's revealed that, for no known reason, if you try to hypnotize a woman, it'll make her do the opposite of what you were trying to hypnotize her to do. Once again, it has literally no buildup whatsoever, to the point where the explanation is given to the reader ''mid-chapter'' of George and Harold hypnotizing Ms. Ribble.
10	** Melvin starting to act like a Frankenstein-esque monster after his Bionic Booger Boy transformation. He had been acting completely normal beforehand, and then he starts doing HulkSpeak out of nowhere.
11	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The music video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzfwAAHt4wY "Go Poopypants"]], which sums up the fourth book with one great, all around catchy song.
12	* BizarroEpisode: ''The Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers.'' Not only does the book's WholeEpisodeFlashback have little relevance to the plot going forward, but the flashback itself has a pretty different tone from the rest of the series. It contains no fantastical elements of any kind, nor does it have anything to do with Captain Underpants because the flashback takes place years before George and Harold even invented the character. It's also significantly longer than any other book in the series.
13	* CommonKnowledge: Famously, at the end of every book, George is always the one to scream "OH NO!" and Harold always screams "HereWeGoAgain"... except that's not true. For the first five books, ''George'' was the one to scream "HereWeGoAgain" and Harold shouted "Oh no!" The order flipped around starting book six, which, ironically, was the same book where Harold lampshaded the EveryEpisodeEnding and claimed that he always screamed "HereWeGoAgain" even though he had never yet done that before.
14	* ContinuityLockout: The first five books are fairly self-contained episodes, and (partially thanks to the {{Infodump}} comic book supplied at the start of each book) can pretty much be read in any order. The series serialization started with book six, but (again, thanks to the comic books) you can probably make it to book eight and still understand what's going on. But after that point, the series plot line becomes so convoluted with multiple timelines and critical plot points based off previous books, that if you try to start the series there, you'd probably be lost even ''with'' the comic books.
15	* CrossesTheLineTwice:
16	** Teachers abusing their kids isn't funny in theory, but when said abuse involves stealing their lunches and making them write lines like "I'm so ugly, when I was born, the doctor slapped my mom", it becomes hard not to laugh.
17	** Melvin's Bionic Booger Boy transformation is pretty much full-on BodyHorror, and at first it kind of comes off as just really weird, gross, and disturbing, but the book hams it up ''so much'' to the point where it ''so'' weird, gross, and disturbing that it loops right back into being hilarious.
18	** From the second Extra Crunchy Book O’ Fun 2, Hairy Potty changes a sign reading "Please drive very slowly over tracks, children at play" to "[[WouldHurtAChild Please drive slowly over children]], which is just so [[BlackComedy dark]] that’s it’s hilarious.
19	* DesignatedHero: George and Harold have a tendency to slip into this with some of their pranks. In the first book, they cause enough disruption at a school football game to force their team to forfeit, and subsequently ruin everyone else's day, and Captain Underpants is later created as a result of their attempt to avoid being punished for this. In the second book, they sabotage the school's Invention Convention out of spite because they were banned. Why were they banned? Because the previous year, they played a prank on the teachers and every other student by secretly gluing them to their chairs. These only apply to the first five books, however. As the books continue, we see more outside threats not by them or by returning villains.
20	* EnsembleDarkhorse:
21	** The cheerleaders from the first book due to their TheWoobie status and how they reappeared in the ninth book and one of them got a name.
22	** [[EvilTwin Evil George, Evil Harold, and Captain Blunderpants (and by extension, Nice Krupp)]]. They only appeared in the eighth book, yet there is TONS of fanart of them.
23	** Kipper Krupp and his friends have garnered a bit of popularity amongst fans despite only appearing in Book 9.
24	** Dog Man. After briefly being mentioned in the first book and having a comic book written about him in the ninth book, he got so much fan art that Pilkey decided to bring him back for the last two books, and eventually gave him an entire spinoff.
25	* EsotericHappyEnding: In book 12, [[spoiler:the final fate of the original incarnations of George and Harold is them going on a wild goose chase through space and time in an attempt to rescue Crackers and Sulu. For twenty years, Yesterday George and Harold had no idea where they went, so this means that George and Harold ''never made it back home.'' Their last interaction with their parents was them saying they liked the brainwashed versions of their sons better, they never got to become the future versions of themselves that they were so excited about, and they seemingly failed in their mission to save Crackers and Sulu.]]
26	* FriendlyFandoms:
27	** ''Literature/DogMan'' was written by the same person who writes ''Literature/CaptainUnderpants''. Naturally, it only makes sense for fans of the latter to be fans of the former. It also helps that the series is canonically written by George and Harold In-Universe.
28	** There's also an overlap with ''Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKid'' fans, due to the fact that they were at the height of their popularity during similar times, along with both series having somewhat similar art styles and characters. It also helps that the authors of both series are good friends in real life.
29	** A mutual friendliness with fans of ''Literature/BigNate'' has also appeared, due to both series having similar art styles and character dynamics.
30	* GeniusBonus:
31	** The series takes place in Piqua, Ohio. In real life, Piqua is the location of the (now retired) Great Outdoor Underwear Festival.
32	** In book four, the buses for the field trip say Miami County. The real Piqua actually is located in Miami County.
33	** In book 10, Tippy's gigantic bomb becomes the explosion that wiped out the dinosaurs, and it's mentioned that it was kicked to the Yucatan Peninsula. This is the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater real-life location]] of where the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs landed.
34	** Crackers and Sulu travel 13.7 billion years into the past and end up causing the Big Bang. The Big Bang did in fact occur roughly 13.7 billion years ago, as that's the estimated age of our universe.
35	* GrowingTheBeard: It's generally agreed that the first four or five books got better with each installment. People are more divisive on the quality of the later books, but most agree that Pilkey's commentary and messages became more clear.
36	* HeartwarmingInHindsight: In the library where the boys traveled to a different dimension, one of the books parodies the controversial children's book, ''Heather Has Two Mommies''. Then in the 12th book, [[spoiler:Harold marries a man with two children.]]
37	* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments:
38	** [[WordOfGod Dav Pilkey]] revealed that while Mr. and Mrs. Sneedly are [[{{Workaholic}} constantly busy with their work]] (to the point of coming across as somewhat [[ParentalNeglect neglectful of their son]]), they actually ''do'' try their best to be GoodParents when it comes to Melvin.
39	** Book 8 sees George and Harold make a comic book for their respective grandparents about how awesome they (and old people in general) are. The grandparents are clearly touched by this, and even emulate the comic to save the boys in the end.
40	** In book 12, [[spoiler: the final fate of the original George and Harold is them trying to rescue Sulu and Crackers. Harold questions how they're going to do that, and there's something potent about George's response of "We'll figure something out... We always do!"]]
41	* HilariousInHindsight:
42	** In the original '''EPIC NOVEL''', Mr. Krupp talks of a NoodleIncident involving George and Harold rigging the school intercom to play Music/WeirdAlYankovic music. Years later, he composed and performed the movie's theme song.
43	** A RunningGag is that a ginger child tries to inform their mother of all the crazy things two mischievous boys are causing right in front of them, but the mother is always distracted by something and never notices. Ten years later, and [[WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb that sounds very similar to a certain show...]]
44	** In Book 3, the boys have to deal with an army of Zombie Nerds. You can't help but wonder if Tom Warburton read this one, seeing as how an episode of ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'' has almost the exact same premise.
45	** In Book 11, Melvin basically ingests some of Captain's DNA in order to get superpowers similar to his. [[Manga/MyHeroAcademia Now why does that sound familiar?]]
46	** In Book 2, both the boys and Captain Underpants have to face off against an army of talking toilets. [[WebAnimation/SkibidiToiletSeries Twenty-four years later...]]
47	* IdiosyncraticShipNaming:
48	** "Stage Floof" for [[spoiler:Future Harold and his husband Billy]].
49	** "Written Symphony" for [[spoiler:Future George and his wife Lisa]].
50	* InformedWrongness: Melvin's role in book 2. George and Harold ruin every student's Invention Convention project as a "prank." Melvin witnessed them do this, but George and Harold essentially bribed him by saying that if he kept his mouth shut, they wouldn't mess with his project. Although they do keep their promise, the Invention Convention is ruined and the entire school is left miserable and covered in various disgusting gunk, and Melvin rats out George and Harold to Mr. Krupp after seeing just how much of a disaster it turned out to be. However, it's intended that ''Melvin'' is the jerk in this scenario. George and Harold never face any sort of legitimate repercussions for what they did, and at the end George and Harold exclude Melvin from their party and force him to do a WritingLines of "I will not be a tattletale" instead.
51	* JerkassWoobie:
52	** Professor Poopypants. He just wanted people to stop laughing at his name, though George and Harold [[StatingTheSimpleSolution point out]] that he could have simply changed it rather than forcing everyone else to change their name into something ridiculous.
53	** All three versions of the professor have there moments in book 10. Big Tippy refuses to let either of the two Tiny Tippies help him catch Captain Underpants. The two Tiny Tippies travel to the future to use there [[InvertedTrope inverse]] ShrinkRay to grow to there normal height so they can help Big Tippy. When Tiny Tippy grows to his normal height, [[spoiler:he then uses the machine to grow to twice his normal height, renames himself "Supa Mega Tippy", and refuses to let Slightly Younger Tiny Tippy use the machine. Upon returning to the past, Supa Mega Tippy also betrays Big Tippy, directly causing his death.]]
54	* LGBTFanbase: A curious case, as the LGBT people who are fans of the series are primarily made up of people who actually read the books as children, ''before'' realizing they were LGBT, but have since flocked back to the series in recent years, both out of nostalgia and after the reveal that [[spoiler:Harold turns out to be gay]]. It helps that the long hiatus gave a lot of the early readers time to grow up and "grow out" of the books, before said reveal revived their interest.
55	* MemeticMutation: [[Memes/CaptainUnderpants Has its own page.]]
56	* {{Moe}}: Kindergartener George and Harold.
57	* MoralEventHorizon: Tiny Tippy steps close to the line when he [[spoiler:becomes Supa Mega Tippy and leaves Slightly Younger Tiny Tippy in the future]], and eventually crosses it when he [[spoiler:steals Captain Underpants from Big Tippy and leaves the latter to get blown up by his own bomb]].
58	* NauseaFuel: Inevitable in ToiletHumour-themed series, but the Bionic Booger Boy gets special mention. His descriptive introduction is cut off when George yells at the narrator for making everyone sick.
59	* NightmareFuel:
60	** The giant man-eating dandelion in Book 3.
61	** [[spoiler:The BadFuture created by Tippy Tinkletrousers. On top of this disaster-layer cake, we also saw gigantic zombie nerd-versions of George and Harold. Also from this section of the book, Tippy is crushed, blood and all. Doubles as a TearJerker. Thankfully, the last bit (Tippy's death) is averted in the sequel, and it's revealed that the thing that got crushed was a giant ketchup packet.]]
62	** The narrator might be right to the fact the fight between Melvin and the Turbo Toilet 2000 may give anybody nightmares. For WEEKS.
63	** The children affected by the Rid-O-Kid 2000. The effects of this make the kids look and act very creepy. The children are stoned faced, their text is in a completely different font as if a ''computer'' is speaking, and are robotic and mindlessly obedient to adults (Mr. Meaner even has a LastSecondWordSwap in his commercial where he calls them ''slaves''). What's worse? ''Every single adult in Piqua is perfectly okay with and even supports this.'' '''''[[KickTheDog Including George and Harold's parents]]''''' after George and Harold's yesterday doubles are affected by it.
64	* OlderThanTheyThink: Dav Pilkey's first drawing of Captain Underpants dates all the way back to the very events that inspired him in second grade. He drew the character in class after his teacher outright said that underwear isn't funny. When he was sitting in the hallway as punishment, he proceeded to draw ''an entire comic book'' of the character! Sadly, both of these were torn up in his face by his unamused teacher.
65	* PeripheryDemographic: The books have a lot of teenaged and even adult fans -- both people who read the books for the first time as kids and simply never stopped enjoying them, or people who read them ''to'' kids, and found that they could enjoy the more clever, subtle humor and social commentary while the kids enjoyed the superheroes and toilet jokes.
66	* SpiritualSuccessor: It's easy to read ''Captain Underpants'' as being a G-rated novelization of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''. On the surface, the two appear to mainly revolve around juvenile ToiletHumour, but underneath it, the immature jokes masquerade the two's sense of layered, insightful social commentary that appeals to [[ParentalBonus older demographics]].
67	* {{Squick}}:
68	** A grown man runs around in his underwear with two ten-year-old boys. Okay, ItMakesSenseInContext, but still...
69	** In-universe (and out for the readers) in Book 6. The Narrator's description of Melvin gets grosser and grosser until George [[BreakingTheFourthWall yells at the Narrator]] [[BigShutUp to stop]].
70	** Taken up to eleven in (appropriately enough) Book 11, where the boys convince all of the teachers and faculty that they're in a dream. This prompts the grownups to release their inhibitions by performing all sorts of shenanigans ''in their underwear.'' And yes, Dav Pilkey illustrates this repeatedly...
71	** When Crackers's eggs hatch and the creatures inside are half-hamster. Harold imagines different scenarios that could lead to the possibility of [[HotSkittyOnWailordAction a bionic hamster mating with a prehistoric reptile]], but George can only say "[[ScreamingAtSquick EEWWWWWWWWWW!]]"
72	* StrawmanHasAPoint: While the school faculty and Melvin are deliberately written to be [[HateSink unlikable]] and get kicks of making the students miserable, their animosity towards George and Harold does serve good points (as mentioned above and below). The boys often cause unprovoked trouble to not only to the faculty, but to their fellow students as well. And as the second book shows, that includes the ones who've never done anything to provoke them.
73	* UnintentionallySympathetic: Melvin is deliberately unlikable, but there are a few fans who side with him because George & Harold do go too far with their antics.
74	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: George and Harold. We're supposed to feel sorry for them whenever they get screw up but the thing is, they bring a lot of the problems on themselves. For example, in the first book, we're supposed to feel sorry for them because they accidentally created Captain Underpants. However, it can be kind of hard to feel sorry for them because Captain Underpants is a result of George and Harold hypnotizing Mr. Krupp so that they can escape punishment. If anything, it's their fault that Captain Underpants was created in the first place.
75	** They take this trope to an [[ExaggeratedTrope embarrassing degree]] in the second book where we're supposed to feel sorry for them after Krupp bans them from the Invention Convention but it's really hard to feel sorry for them when considering the fact that the reason why they got banned in the first place is because they glued all the teachers and the students to their chairs.
76	* WatchedItForTheRepresentation: Book 12 revealing that Harold is gay [[spoiler:and that the adult version of him is married to a man]] got more people talking about the series than they had in a while -- both in a positive and a negative way.
77	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: With how the book series ended, a lot of fans felt this way about Krupp and Captain Underpants never finding out that they were one and the same. It could have led to some interesting storylines with the two and might have given Krupp some character development.
78	* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: The books are no stranger to criticizing how public schools treat conditions such as (and especially) ADHD. Book 12 in particular makes a BlandNameProduct version of Ritalin (the villain's mind control gas that suppresses creativity and individuality). The same book makes reference to the GOP hating people who are young and different from them. In this case, it stands for Grumpy Old People, but American readers will recognize the acronym as that of the Grand Old Party, AKA the Republican Party.
79	* TheWoobie:
80	** Kindergartner Harold. His dad's gone before the book starts, he's bullied on a daily basis, and it's all but stated he draws constantly because of everything that's happened to him. It's no wonder he's friends with George after the kid saves him.[[note]]Even sadder, this is all taken verbatim from Dav Pilkey's actual childhood (save the DisappearedDad).[[/note]]
81	** Melvin could possibly count as a JerkassWoobie (at least before he TookALevelInJerkass from Book 7 onwards), as it is kind of implied in Book 6 that his parents are such {{workaholic}}s, that they come across as somewhat [[ParentalNeglect neglectful of their only son]]. They didn't even seem to ''notice'' that he had become the Bionic Booger Boy until they saw his rampage on TV. And he had been the Bionic Booger Boy for what just might possibly have been a few ''months'' at that point!
82	* {{Woolseyism}}: In ''Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman'', George and Harold change a sign that says “People - Please Wear Your Socks On The Gym Floor” to “Please Go Pee-Pee On Your Socks For Warmth.” In the Japanese translation, the sign originally says “Rouka wa '''shizuka ni''' arukimashou!” (“Please walk quietly in the halls!”), but George and Harold change it to “Rouka wa '''kani''' aruki '''shi'''mashou!” (“Please do the crab-walk in the halls!”)

Context YMMV / CaptainUnderpants