Funny / Captain Underpants

When a book series has a premise this outlandish, you can expect more than a few chuckle-worthy moments.

The Sign-Switching Gag

• Any time George and Harold rearrange the letters of a sign so that it says something ridiculous.
  • Book 1:
    • A florist's shop that says "Pick Your Own Roses" becomes "Pick Our Noses".
    • The school sign saying "See Our Big Football Game Today" becomes "Boy Our Feet Smell Bad".
  • Book 2: A furniture store sign that says "Come In And See Our Pretty Armchairs" becomes "Come and See Our Hairy Armpits".
  • Book 3: The school menu advertising "New Tasty Cheese And Lentil Pot-Pies" becomes "Nasty Toilet Pee Pee Sandwiches".
  • Book 4:
    • The school sign that says "Don't Underestimate Our Good Teachers" becomes "Our Teachers Don't Use Deodorant".
    • Another one has the same board saying "Pizza Palace Field Trips are Today" which becomes "Please Don't Fart in a Diaper".
  • Book 5:
    • A school bulletin board that says "People—Please Wear Your Socks On The Gym Floor" becomes "Please Go Pee-Pee On Your Socks For Warmth". The letters they didn't use even spell out "Y LOL" (Why, LOL)!
    • Another board that says "Have A Blissfully Grand Retirement, Ms. Ribble" becomes "Ms. Ribble Really Needs A Breath Mint".
  • Book 6: A bulletin board saying "Please Wash Your Hands After Using The Toilet" becomes "Please Wash Your Hands In The Toilet". And Melvin falls for it!
  • Book 7:
    • A sign at a school entrance saying "National Fine Arts Academy" becomes "National Fart Academy".
    • Another sign saying "Check out our school's big internet website at www.jhes.com" becomes "We shake our big butts when we swim in the toilet".
  • Book 8: A sign saying "Push Button to Open Door" becomes "Push on Butt to Open Door", and a group of teachers fell for it straight.
  • Book 9: The display sign in front of Billy Bill's gas station was changed by little George from "Free Brake Inspection" to "Free Bra Inspection".
    • The context to this causes this to double as an Moment of Awesome. Billy Bill saw little Harold hiding behind the sign while trying to hide from Kipper and his thugs, and grabbed him and handed him over to those aforementioned bullies because Billy Bill thought little Harold was messing with the sign. George witnessed this and deliberately removed two letters from the sign to cause chaos, and the 'updated' sign prompted many old women to start attacking Billy Bill, believing him to be a misogynist.
  • Book 11: A sign at the hallway saying "Candy Bar Fund Raiser" becomes "Canned Barf Day".
  • Book 12: A sign saying "Student and Teacher Art Fair Starts Wednesday." becomes "Teacher Farts Stain Underwear".
• George and Harold's comics take a different approach to the aforementioned joke: many of them feature a Running Gag where a sign says one thing, but then it gets sliced, burned or smashed in half and says something else. Some examples:
  • "At Bob's Diner, you'll find that we pick the best ingredients. Your nose knows the difference!" becomes "At Bob's Diner, we pick your nose."
  • "Heyman's Gifts: Who makes the cutest gifts and the most delicious cheese? We do!" becomes "Hey, who cut the cheese?"
  • "My homemade buttermilk bread smells delicious! It's awfully good" becomes "My butt smells awful."
  • "Please drive very slowly over tracks: children at play" becomes "Please drive slowly over children."
  • "St. Wendy's Hospital: Trust in our great doctors, food and care" gets turned into "We spit in our food."
  • "It's fun to shop, eat, and drink out of the mall. All of the stores have clean toilets and big sales!" gets turned into "It's fun to drink out of the toilet."
  • "Don't eat at home! Tom's Diner is the best! Our food is awfully good! (Dog gone good food!)" becomes "Don't eat at Tom's Diner, our food is awful (dog food)."
  • "I drink delicious warm apple cider from Pittsburgh's Fruit Juice Company!" becomes "I drink armpit juice."
  • "I went to Bob's Pools to buy my pool! Now I dive in my pool, swim under the waves and wear a big smile!" becomes "I went poo-poo in my underwear."

Book 1: The Adventures of Captain Underpants

• The copyright page for the first book◊ has a hidden gem: a small box that says "Sturgeon General's Warning: Some material in this book might be considered offensive by people who don't wear underwear." Capped off by a drawing of a fish with a cap and medal next to it!
• This little exchange right after George and Harold prank the football game.
  Harold: I just hope we don't get busted for this.
  George: Don't worry. We covered our tracks really well. There's no way we'll get busted!
  Chapter 6: Busted
• Mr. Krupp recalling the pranks George and Harold have pulled throughout the years, one of them being the time they rigged the PA system to play "Weird Al" Yankovic songs for an entire school day.
• Captain Underpants uses a pair of underwear to incapacitate Dr. Diaper, and we get this exchange:
  George: Where'd you get the extra pair of underwear?
  Captain Underpants: (wearing a barrel) What extra pair?
  George and Harold: (look, quite understandably, grossed out)
• When the boys first hypnotize Mr. Krupp, they take the incriminating videotape (of them pranking the school football game) that Krupp was using to blackmail them. That's when Harold takes the opportunity to replace it with one of his little sister's old "Boomer the Purple Dragon Sing-A-Long" tapes. Then later, when Mr. Krupp is turned back to normal, he takes what he thinks is the security camera tape to the school's football team, the Knuckleheads. They wind up enjoying the video so much, they change their name to the Purple Dragon Sing-A-Long Friends!
  The name change didn't go over too well with the fans, but hey, who's going to argue with a bunch of linebackers?

Book 2: Attack of the Talking Toilets

• P.E.T.T: People for the Ethical Treatment of Toilets. In fact, all of the disclaimers before the Flip-O-Rama in each book.
• George and Harold propose making a robot urinal called the Urinator to fight the Turbo Toilet 2000, only to decide that "they would never be able to get away with that in a children's book". Made even funnier by the fact that this conversation was taken verbatim from one between Dav and his girlfriend over his original idea for the book.

Book 3: Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds)

• Mr. Krupp hiring new lunch ladies is probably a lot funnier for grown-ups.
  Mr. Krupp: Do you have any experience?
  Alien: No.
  Mr. Krupp: Do you have any credentials?
  Alien: No.
  Mr. Krupp: Do you have any references?
  Alien: No.
  Mr. Krupp: You're hired!
• This time around, Mr. Krupp switching to Captain Underpants is caused by one of the dinner ladies snapping a tentacle at them. George and Harold stop to ask just how someone snaps a tentacle.
• One chapter ends with George and Harold saying they have to catch Mr. Krupp before it's too late and he starts turning into Captain Underpants—the next chapter begins with said Captain running down the hall crying jubilantly about underwear. The looks on George and Harold's faces are PRICELESS. Appropriately enough, the chapter in question is titled "It's Too Late".
• One of the warnings before a Flip-O-Rama suggests that if you find the chapter too disturbing, you should run to your nearest shoe store and order a cheeseburger (it doesn't make sense, but it will be funny). Later:
  Harold: Where were you in Chapter 15 when we needed you?!
  Captain Underpants: I was at the shoe store ordering a cheeseburger.
• Captain Underpants tries to swing out of the aliens' spaceship on toilet paper, bringing George and Harold with him. Unfortunately, the toilet paper can't support their combined weight, and they fall to the ground and are killed instantly. The first words on the very next page? "Just kidding."
  • Captain Underpants isn't deterred by the toilet paper not handling their weight. Why? "It's two-ply!"
  • Just the conceit that a futuristic alien spaceship has a regular-ass window in it (in the jail cell no less!).
  • The boys and Captain Underpants, held aloft by the latter's cape, rejoice that they're alive — only to realise that they're drifting into the biting range of a giant mutated dandelion. George and Harold promptly start moaning that they could have had an awesome death via exploding space ship, instead of being eaten by a dandelion. "People are gonna be sniggering at our funerals."

Book 4: Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants

• The "hideous pile of trash" which Professor Poopypants uses to test his Shrinky-Pig 2000 on has the book Love You Forever in the bottom right corner.
• In George and Harold's comic-within-the-book, Professor Poopypants turns a group of gerbils evil by making them listen to Cher. Complete with disclaimer on the back cover:
  "Notice: All animal cruelty was simulated. No actual gerbils were forced to listen to Cher."
• Almost all of the names from the Name Change-O-Chart 2000 are ridiculous, disgusting or unfortunate:
  Mr. Krupp: Oh, no! My new name is "Lumpy Pottybiscuits!"
• George (Fluffy) and Harold (Cheeseball), while stuck in tar, pick a real bad time to use Buffy Speak.
  WE'RE GONNA GET STEAM ROLLER THINGIED TO DEATH!
• To get a twice-shrunken Captain Underpants to grow big enough to fight Professor Poopypants' Humongous Mecha, they have to first find him, which they do by having him land on Harold/Cheeseball's finger. Cheeseball tells George/Fluffy to aim very carefully to hit Captain Underpants only, and Fluffy reassures him that he's a great shot with the Goosey-Grow 4000. So of course he ends up growing Cheeseball's entire hand to massive size relative to their shrunken form.
  Fluffy: (as Cheeseball facepalms with his normal hand) ... Whoops.
  Narration: The good news is that Captain Underpants has grown and is now visible. The bad news is... well, let's just say that Cheeseball is gonna have an awful hard time picking his nose with his right hand from now on.
• As Professor Poopypants is defeated, George has this to say:
  George: Let's give Captain Underpants a big hand!
  (Harold, whose hand is still massive, gives him a Disapproving Look)

Book 5: Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman

• "B-b-b-bubba-bobba-hob-hobba-hobba-wah-wah." The only thing Mr. Krupp is able to say when he learns he's getting married. And the school week before the wedding certainly wasn't helping.
  • Then, when it's about to happen, Ms. Ribble suddenly opts out because of how silly his nose looks. The accompanying illustration is a close-up on their faces to show that their noses look identical.
  • Mr. Krupp's Villainous BSoD lasts for an entire week. And note he's wearing a different tie for each day, implying he has just enough presence of mind left to get dressed in the morning.
• The rabbi who comes to marry Mr. Krupp and Ms. Ribble in Wedgie Woman telling George and Harold that he doesn't want any tricks today. Harold's response? "Silly rabbi! Tricks are for kids!"
  • The very possible theory that Dav Pilkey made Mr. Krupp Jewish just so he could make that pun.
• In the office, Ms. Anthrope has George and Harold distribute copies of the Friday Memo. But she leaves her computer on, allowing the boys to type up their own version. A hilarious week ensues:
  • No one showed up for school on Monday, much to the confusion of the faculty.
  • On Tuesday, all of the students were in their pajamas and picking their noses for the entire day.
  • The girls who wanted to join the cheerleading squad showed up on Wednesday with garlic breath, moustaches drawn on their faces in marker, and rotten egg salad sandwiches taped to their heads.
  • Thursday was hands down the most chaotic day of that week. A food fight broke out in the cafeteria at lunch, and the school football team trashed the teacher's lounge by using it for football practice.
  • Yearbook photos were taken on Friday with odd results. The students took their pictures in bumblebee costumes and made funny faces to try and win a pizza party for their class.
• How George and Harold defeat Wedgie Woman. By disguising several cans of hair remover as spray starch. The funniest part is that not only does Wedgie Woman lose her hair, but so does everyone else! Well, except for Captain Underpants, who was already bald to begin with.
  Harold: Aaugh! My mom's gonna lay hard-boiled eggs when she sees me!
  George: Relax. Our hair will grow back!
  Harold: That's easy for you to say. Your hair was only half an inch long!

Book 6: Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy, Part 1: The Night of the Nasty Nostril Nuggets

• The introduction of the Bionic Booger Boy is Nausea Fuel incarnate, with increasingly graphic descriptions of just how Squicky the whole ordeal really is — to the point that George yells at the narrator to knock it off.
  George: ALRIGHT, ALREADY! Enough with the descriptions—you're making us all sick!
  Ms. Ribble: Thank you, George.
• When Melvin (as the Bionic Booger Boy) sneezes, he ends up splattering the chalkboard with mucus. Ms. Ribble advises him to cover his mouth... which ends up making things ten times worse as it turns him into a snot-based Action Bomb.
• At one point Mr. Krupp shows up in Ms. Ribble's class and demands to know why everyone is wearing raincoats and umbrellas. Then Melvin sneezes, and the next page has Krupp returning to the classroom with a raincoat, an umbrella, and a fresh set of clothes.
• At the end of the school's field trip to the tissue factory, their tour guide, Mr. Snoddy tries to give them a pack of tissues from the gift shop. This terrifies Melvin, who proclaims "ME NO LIKE TISSUES". Mr. Snoddy laughs and says that everyone loves tissues and throws a pack of them at him. This does nothing but terrify Melvin more and make him grow to gargantuan size, yet Mr. Snoddy just keeps giving him tissues, to the point where when Melvin cries in anguish and crashes through the walls of gift shop, Mr. Snoddy's solution to this is to throw another pack of tissues at Melvin so he can wipe his tears.
  Narration: As you might have noticed by now, Mr. Snoddy wasn't exactly the brightest bulb on the Hanukkah tree.
• The speech Melvin's father gives when he flips the batteries around on the Combine-O-Tron.
  Mr. Sneedly: (pretentiously) Alright... But I'm only doing this to prove a point to you kids: It's not gonna work. No way. Not in a million years. And anybody who thinks it might is a complete idiot. It goes against all the popular laws of logic and science.
  • And then, when the process actually works:
  Mr. Sneedly: Well, what do you know? My idea worked!
  (George and Harold roll their eyes)

Book 7: Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy, Part 2: The Revenge of the Ridiculous Robo-Boogers

• After Melvin and Mr. Krupp suffer a "Freaky Friday" Flip, George and Harold pull up a mirror to prove it to them. This exchange occurs:
  Mr. Krupp (in Melvin's body): I'm... I'm a kid again!
  Melvin (in Mr. Krupp's body): And I'm old and fat and bald and ugly, and I have bad breath and creepy nose hairs and...
  Mr. Krupp: HEY!
• Melvin tells George and Harold to make a comic about him with him as the superhero who defeats Captain Underpants. He also tells them to give him a cool name and not to make him look stupid. The next day, when he reads their comic, he soon realizes that while it's about him, he is the antagonist and Captain Underpants is the one who defeats him. George and Harold's excuse?
  George: We thought you said to give you a stupid name and not to make you look cool.
  Harold: Yeah, it was an honest misunderstanding.
• "Mommy, my train went swimming in the piano."

Book 8: Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People

• Chapter 2 opens with:
  It's been said that adults spend the first two years of their children's lives trying to make them walk and talk... and the next sixteen years trying to get them to sit down and shut up.
• Mirror Melvin tells George and Harold they should go to the school nurse if they're not feeling well. George is surprised they have a school nurse, to which Harold says, "I thought we just had a box of Band-Aids and a rusty saw."
• How the villains get defeated. Captain Blunderpants gets beaten up by George and Harold's grandparents, while Harold uses reverse psychology to make Evil George and Harold shrink themselves.

Book 9: Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers

• An illustration of a news article detailing Mr. Krupp, George, and Harold's arrest and sentencing (in the original timeline where Tippy Tinkletrousers didn't show up in his time machine) mentions this, in a completely Non Sequitur fashion and in absolutely tiny print:
  Dr. Kent C. Toogood, president of the Doctors United Movement to Banish Tiny Words in the Story (D.U.M.B.T.W.I.T.S.) warned that illustrations containing small words can cause eye strain, which could lead to headaches, nausea, and ridiculous acronyms.

Book 10: Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers

• After 9 books of being the Cassandra Truth, the little boy's mom is finally the one to see something weird (specifically, two Tiny Tippys walking around in their Ambrosia Salad). His response?
  Little Boy: Oh, really? And I'm the one seeing a therapist!

Book 11: Tyrannical Retaliation of the Turbo Toilet 2000

• When Mr. Krupp sees the faculty running around in their underwear, creating havoc in the halls, all he can say is "B-b-b-bubba-bobba-hob-hobba-hobba-wah-wah."
• George and Harold trying to reason with the nurse at the goof house reception.
  George: We need to see Mr. Krupp. He's a patient here.
  Nurse: Sorry, but patients can't have visitors without a doctor's permission.
  Harold: But he can save the world! He's Captain Underpants!
  Nurse: Sure he is. Listen, we currently have nine patients here who claim to be Captain Underpants. We also have four Wonder Women, seven Albert Einsteins and one Elvis Presley.
  Harold: Can we at least talk to him?
  Nurse: No! Nobody talks to the King!
  George: NOT ELVIS! MR. KRUPP!
  Nurse: Oh. I'm sorry. But no!
• George telling Harold not to think too hard about these books. Made doubly funny by the fact that this is clearly just Pilkey's response to some criticism.
  George: You're thinking too much... Listen, if you look too closely at these stories, they're gonna fall apart completely. Whaddya think this is, Shakespeare?!!?
  Harold: I guess you're right.
  George: Of course I'm right... Just go with it, man.

Book 12: Sensational Saga of Sir Stinks-A-Lot

• From the intro comic:
  One day George and Harold had a really BIG problem. So they stole (which is crossed out) borrowed a time machine.
• George and Harold go to the future and find the adult little boy and his mother, which leads to a Call-Back to Book 10.
  Future Mother: Look, son! A giant glow-in-the-dark robotic squid is carrying a little boy in one of its tentacles!
  Son: Sure it is, Mom. Listen, you need to take your medication every day or it's not going to-
  George: Excuse me?
  [The man looks at George.]
  Son: [screams] IT'S A GIANT GLOW-IN-THE-DARK ROBOTIC SQUID CARRYING A LITTLE BOY IN ONE OF ITS TENTACLES!!

Spinoffs

• This exchange in Super Diaper Baby after Deputy Dangerous is turned into Deputy Doo-Doo:
  Deputy Doo-Doo: Man, this hill is steep! I'm so tired!
  Danger Dog: Are you pooped?
  Deputy Doo-Doo: Why, yes, I'm... hey! Shut up!
  Danger Dog: Aw, don't be a party pooper!
  Deputy Doo-Doo: I said SHUT UP!
  Danger Dog: When we get home, will you read me Winnie the Pooh?
  Deputy Doo-Doo: (while Danger Dog is laughing) I'LL KEEEEEL YOU!
  • Earlier, when Deputy Dangerous finds out he's turned into poop, he looks in the mirror. He yells, "What the...I'm a piece of poo!" but his reflection yells, "What the...he's a piece of poo!"

Meta

• Some of the "Fun Facts" at the end of the Full Color versions of the books are hilarious. For example:
  "You might notice a theme in George and Harold's comic books: The gym teacher always gets attacked by the villains, but nobody seems to care. This theme occurs again and again because many* of Dav Pilkey's former gym teachers were REALLY, REALLY MEAN to him. So let this be a lesson to gym teachers all over the world: Be nice to your students, or some day they might grow up and get revenge by making fun of you in their epic novels!" (*Note: Dav's lawyer told him to use the word "many".)
• Mr. Krupp has had enough◊ of the Angels' shenanigans.
• On his website, Dav Pilkey once posted a story about the real-life inspiration for Melvin: an Insufferable Genius kid he knew in sixth grade, "Michael Sneedman" (not his real name). Michael would rub his perfect grades in the faces of the other students, and went as far as to—after every test—go through all his answers, make sure they were correct, and write a big "100%" and "A+" at the top of his paper along with a self-congratulatory compliment like "Another fantastic job!" or "Keep up the great work, Michael!" One day, Dav's and Michael's teacher set up a reward system where students would get colored bread clips hung under their names on a board for getting A's or doing good deeds. Soon, the whole class became obsessed with earning bread clips, especially Michael, who wasn't happy unless he'd gotten at least 10 bread clips every day. Dav got so sick of it that he "accidentally" knocked the bread clip board over while nobody was looking. Losing the record of his achievements stressed Michael out so much that he missed a mistake while grading one of his own quizzes. He wrote his usual "100%" and "A+" on it before handing it in, but when he got it back, they'd been crossed out and changed to a "96%" and "A".
  Michael had made a mistake. Michael was in shock. Michael — was devastated.
  
  It was the proudest moment of my life.

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