Title: Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants
Publisher: Scholastic
Date: 2000
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
A brilliant scientist arrives in the USA from a country where everyone has a silly name. And unfortunately for Professor Pippy P. Poopypants (the middle initial stands for Peepee!), he is having a hard time getting anyone to take him seriously. Finally, down on his luck and desperate, he takes a job teaching science at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School in Piqua, Ohio, confident that children will be accepting and loving, in spite of his silly name.
That goes about as well as you would expect it to go. And the professor goes off the deep end, shrinks the school, supersizes his previously gerbil-sized mecha suit, and demands that everyone change their name to a silly one based on his three simple charts. Then, of course, it's up to Captain Underpants to save the day.
By the way, this is a guest review, written by Loopy Pizzahead, with input from his Kiddo, Gidget Pizzahead.
Really, the whole book is amusing, but the silly names charts had the Kiddo rolling with laughter. There is a nice mix of slapstick and satire here, with multiple layers of humor. The plot is pretty straightforward, and the story comes to a satisfying conclusion.
Excellent work from Dav Pilkey AKA Gidget Hamsterbrains.
Rating: 8/10
