Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Re-Turn of Tippy Tinkletrousers

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Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers

Author	Dav Pilkey
Illustrator	Dav Pilkey
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Captain Underpants series
Genre	Children's novel, comic science fiction
Publication date	August 28, 2012 (black and white) December 10, 2019 (full color)
Media type	Print (hardback)
Pages	304
ISBN	9780545175340
Preceded by	Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People
Followed by	Captain Underpants and the Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers

Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers is a 2012 American children's novel and the ninth book in the Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey.^[1][2] It was published on August 28, 2012, six years after the publication of the previous book. Tippy Tinkletrousers is actually Professor Poopypants, as revealed in the previous book. This book explains how Tippy Tinkletrousers arrived at the end of the eighth book, as well as a prequel story of George and Harold in kindergarten explaining how their friendship began and setting the page for their life before Captain Underpants.

Plot[]

Tippy has come from the future, and in the last book George and Harold are arrested for the crimes that their alternate versions did, and the two (and Krupp) are imprisoned. At the Piqua State Penitentiary, Tippy is asked to build a statue (secretly a robot suit) of Warden Gordon, the chief jailer of the prison. On the day Tippy presents his robot suit, he freezes everyone in his way, then takes Krupp to find the boys for Tippy. George and Harold snap their fingers bringing Captain Underpants to life, and soon, while trying to freeze him, Tippy accidentally freezes his robotic legs. Even though Captain Underpants successfully pulls off the top half of the robo-suit, Tippy escapes by going back in time to a bit over five years ago.

Moved in from Michigan, five-and-three-quarters-year-old George's mother makes him wear a tie as a good first impression. On his way to school, he notices six-year-old Harold being attacked by Kipper and his group, with the mean owner of a gas station, Billy Bill, egging them on. Angered at this, George plays a smart prank on the owner by changing his gas station's sign from "Free Brake Inspection" to "Free Bra Inspection", prompting a group of infuriated and offended women to attack the latter, which drives Billy Bill to go out of business. George then saves Harold and the two become best friends. Mr. Krupp arrives and sends the two to detention for "bullying Kipper". To pass time, the two make their first comic: The Adventures of Dog Man.

George and Harold study Kipper for a week and then later switch his padlock for one of their own locks, and replace his stolen lunch money with girly things like friendship bracelets, dresses, and dolls, while sending strange texts to Kipper's goons, all while placing a note from "Wedgie Magee" with it. However, Kipper eventually catches on to the setup and, the next day, him and his gang steal the pizzas that George and Harold bought for the kindergartners as a way to torture them even further. Infuriated, the two friends come up with another major prank on the bullies in retaliation. First, they fill the four bullies' lockers with shaving cream to pass it off as ectoplasmic ghost juice. While initially this works, Principal Krupp points out that the "ectoplasm" was obviously sprayed through the vents on doors. Enraged and tired of the anonymous pranks, Kipper and his friends begin to torture the kindergarteners for answers, even stealing more pizzas, which George and Harold were actually counting on them to steal, as they ordered them to have double ghost chili peppers (Piqua Pizza Palace's hottest chili peppers) which cause the bullies' tongues to burn up completely, resulting in them getting sent to the nurse's office. George and Harold eventually create a comic that tells the tale of Wedgie Magee and the signs of his curse, all of which match their pranks. After Kipper and his gang "see" that ghost (George on stilts, wearing a giant pair of pants), they run outside in terror, during a severe thunderstorm and power outage. In the original timeline, they apologize for their deeds, compensate the kindergartners, and never bully anyone again. Unfortunately, Tippy arrives in the past at exactly the same time Kipper's gang runs outside. The four bullies go insane from fear as Tippy's robot closely resembles the ghost of Wedgie Magee.

This causes the police to accuse Principal Krupp of causing Kipper and his friends' insanity despite no charges being filed against him, which eventually results in him permanently losing his job. Tippy then time travels four years back in the future, believing that kids five years ago were weird. However, as Mr. Krupp was hypnotized to become Captain Underpants when George and Harold were in the 4th grade, a paradox happens, and a universe is created where Captain Underpants never existed. Tippy arrives in the present only to find out all that remains of Earth is a flaming and devastated wasteland (caused by Dr. Diaper's Laser-Matic 2000) overrun by talking toilets and giant evil zombie nerds (because the boy whose mother thinks he talks crazy tells Tippy everything). Tippy realises that he has to go back again and save Earth. However, Tippy immediately presumably gets squashed by George and Harold, who are now giant zombies nerds. What remains left of Tippy is a red squishy stain, appearing to be blood.

Comics[]

The Adventures of Dog Man[]

One day, the cop and his specifically trained police dog Greg spot a bomb, but they are critically injured by its explosion and the doctor announces that Greg's body and the cop's head are dying. Fortunately, the surgical crew sews Greg's head on the Cop's body and everyone calls the hybrid "Dog Man." Dog Man catches criminals with his sensitive nose, hears crimes with his ears, and punches criminals with his fists. Petey, Rip Van Tinkle's former feline minion, sees Dog Man's weakness and invents an evil vacuum robot, which steals all the money from the bank and Dog Man comes to stop it, but the vacuum chases him until he is cornered. Dog Man is certain he will die but the vacuum robot unplugs and shuts down, then he follows its cord to Petey's hideout and Dog Man arrests him. Dog Man celebrates by drinking some alcohol-free wine with his fellow cops.

The Curse of Wedgie Magee[]

The comic is about a boy called Wedgie Magee who is bullied up to the point where he can't bear it any longer. He visits a fortune teller who tells him she will concoct an anti-wedgie elixir. However, the fortune teller is short-sighted and grabs a voodoo elixir by mistake. The next day, Wedgie rubs the elixir onto his trousers, turning them into a ghost. He then dies of embarrassment. That evening, the trousers return for revenge and swallow up the bullies.

Signs of the curse:

1. The victim will begin to act weird
2. The victim wants to play with dolls, dresses and bracelets
3. The victim gets ectoplasm (ghost juice) and spiders on their belongings
4. Food like pizza is very spicy to the victim
5. The victim will feel a burning sensation in the armpits.

How to undo the curse:
The victim must undo their bad deeds and never pick on kindergarteners ever again.

Characters (present)[]

• George Beard – A nine and three-quarters year old boy.
• Harold Hutchins – A ten-year-old boy.
• Mr. Krupp - The principal of Jerome Horwitz Elementary. In this book, he was arrested when the cops mistook him as Captain Blunderpants from Book 8, when the latter robbed a bank with George and Harold's evil counterparts.
• Captain Underpants – Mr. Krupp's alter-ego.
• Tippy Tinkletrousers – Formerly called Professor Poopypants, Tippy is a prisoner in Piqua State Penitentiary. He is building a giant Robo-Suit with a Freeze-Ray to escape out of prison, tricking the others that it's a statue by hiding his work under a tarp. When Tippy breaks out of prison, he carries Mr. Krupp, saying he knew him from the time he shrunk the school in Book 4. When Mr. Krupp turns into Captain Underpants, Tippy attempts to freeze him with his Freeze-Ray, but in the end his feet get froze and Captain Underpants rips off the top of the Robo-Suit. Tippy sets his Tinkle-Timer to 5 years ago, but ends up scaring four 6th grade bullies, thinking his Robo-Trousers is the Haunted Pants of Wedgie Magee. The bullies then go crazy and Mr. Krupp gets fired for everything. Tippy then sets his Tinkle-Timer to 5 years later, but is surprised to discover that because Captain Underpants is not around, the whole world is destroyed by of moon rocks, Talking Toilets, and Giant Zombie Nerds.
• The Chief of Police – The leader of the cops.
• Officer McWiggly – Right-hand man of the chief.
• Warden Gordon Bordon Schmorden – The chief jailer of Piqua State Penitentiary.

Characters (past)[]

• George Beard – A five-and-three-quarters year old boy. He moved in from Michigan and makes friends with his next-door neighbor Harold Hutchins.
• Harold Hutchins – A six-year-old boy.
• Mr. Krupp – Kipper's uncle, who is the principal of Jerome Horwitz Elementary.
• Kipper Krupp – The captain of the sixth-grade wrestling team, school bully of the kindergartners, and nephew of Mr. Krupp.
• Bugg, Finkstein, and Loogie – They are Kipper's buddies from wrestling.
• Ladies – An angry mob of offended young, middle-aged, and elderly women who beat up Billy Bill as the result of a prank out of karma, courtesy of George. Two of them resemble Ms. Ribble and Miss Anthrope.
• Billy Bill – The less-than-friendly gas station owner who resembles Mr. Meaner.
• The cheerleaders – Wendy Swan is one of the cheerleaders. She and two others became frightened and ran away screaming after they saw a gooey substance that they thought was ectoplasm (but was actually shaving cream).
• Wedgie Magee – A kindergartner in the comic book.
• The four gossipy girls who are listened by George.
• The delivery guy of the Piqua Pizza Palace.
• Ms. Ribble – The teacher of Jerome Horwitz Elementary School.
• Mr. Fyde – The former science teacher of Jerome Horwitz Elementary School and current resident (mentioned in the newspaper) of the Piqua Valley Home of the Reality Challenged.
• Donny Shoemyer – A kindergartner of Jerome Horwitz Elementary School and the first to suffer from Kipper's wrath upon him catching on to the ectoplasm (shaving cream) prank.
• Freddie Moore – One of George and Harold's friends from kindergarten.
• Mr. and Mrs. Beard – George's parents.
• Mrs. Hutchins – Harold's mom.
• Mr. Hutchins – Harold's divorced father, who is currently moved to Nevada.

Reception[]

Reception for the book was mostly positive,^[3][4] with Kidsreads.com praising the entry.^[5] Booklist gave a positive review, writing that it would have a definite appeal to kids.^[6] Kirkus Reviews gave an ambivalent review, stating that the book's jokes were typical but that there were signs that the "creative wells are running dry at last".^[7]

Trivia[]

• Crackers and Sulu are notably absent when George, Harold, and Mr. Krupp got arrested.

See also[]

• Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People
• Captain Underpants and the Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers

References[]

External links[]

• Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Re-Turn of Tippy Tinkletrousers at Scholastic.com