Animation
Dora
Say hola once again to the iconic explorer in this faithful reboot of the children’s series.
Pranksters Harold Hutchins and George Beard are just trying to survive fourth grade at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School. But that’s harder than it looks in a school filled with as many characters as this one has—including one or two who’d like nothing better than to take Harold and George down a notch.
Jealous Melvin always looks for ways to destroy Harold and George. The school’s also home to goofy Erica, incompetent Steve ‘Gooch’ Yamaguchi, silly Bo—not to mention sassy Jessica with her two minions, Sophie One and Other Sophie. But perhaps the boys’ most troublesome nemesis is Mr. Krupp—Horowitz’s grouchy, temperamental principal who constantly gives George and Harold the hardest time.
Not to worry, Harold and George have their ways of coping: they write comics. When life seems too tough or too boring or too blah, they just conjure up a few drawings that bring their wild imaginations to life and bam! Life is suddenly tolerable.
Plus, their comics have superpowers. No, seriously. One day, Harold and George hypnotize Mr. Krupp with George’s hypno-ring to become Captain Underpants, the beloved superhero from their hand-drawn comics. Now, when Mr. Krupp gets too, uh, kruppy, Harold and George call on Captain Underpants in all his tighty-whitey glory to take his place. So whether it’s in school or at Lake Summer Camp in Season 3, George and Harold always have heroic help.
Captain Underpants first started in 1997 as an illustrated children’s novel by author Dav Pilkey. Currently, there are 12 books (along with multiple illustrated spinoffs) translated into over 30 languages. All told, Pilkey has sold 80 million books worldwide.
But that’s not where it ends.
This beloved series came to the big screen in 2017 with Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. Now, DreamWorks Animated Television has taken Captain Underpants, spun him into a series and plopped him down on Netflix. The character already has three seasons under his stretchy waistband.
Silly and packed with toilet humor, Captain Underpants stays true to its original themes while adding some imaginative curves, and new characters, along the way. And though it may be fun to see a well-loved novel come to life, parents should know that it comes with the same issues as the books themselves. Science experiments go awry, attitudes flair, mean comments occasionally get tossed about and toilet-themed jokes fill each 24-minute episode.
Disenchanted by the same “boring” Christmas traditions year after year, Harold and George decide to remake the holiday into “Blissmas.” But things go disastrously wrong when they attempt to make this new, reimagined holiday about helping themselves instead of helping others.
In this nearly hour-long Christmas special, we see Captain Underpants in his traditional tighty-whitey glory. We also see a shirtless Santa with exaggerated muscles. There are several jokes about toilets, using the bathroom, and gross food combinations (including several characters eating decaying meat out of a toilet).
Captain Underpants fights against robots, elves and reindeer. A cat is squished under a recliner. (We hear the animal hiss in disgust.) We hear jokes involving death and ghosts. Characters lie, cheat, steal and are mean-spirited towards one another.
The boys eventually learn that true happiness is in putting others before yourself. We hear lyrics from the Christmas carol “The First Noel.” There are a few jokes about the “war” on Christmas regarding how early stores start selling holiday items.
While at Lake Summer Camp, George and Harold try to get principal and camp manager, Mr. Krupp, fired. Similarly, George and Harold ask local billionaire, Cash Networth, to invest in their dwindling, yearly talent show. Jealous Melvin spies on Harold and George while trying to devise a plan to ruin their talent show.
Viewers see and hear plenty of toilet-humor, along with jokes about diapers, feces, urine, wedgies, rashes, flatulence, body odor, vomit and blood. A principal eats dirt. A student has the ability to shoot vegetables from his armpits. A bird poops on a young boy’s head. A manager spits in a cup to clean it.
A fake movie trailer shows a slightly scary creature come to life. Shirtless Melvin turns a group of kids into monsters and the monsters and (some non-monsterized) kids kick and punch one another. Cash Networth is known for being late to his own wedding, surgeries and court hearings. A young girl is notoriously mean to her friends.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
Kristin Smith joined the Plugged In team in 2017. Formerly a Spanish and English teacher, Kristin loves reading literature and eating authentic Mexican tacos. She and her husband, Eddy, love raising their children Judah and Selah. Kristin also has a deep affection for coffee, music, her dog (Cali) and cat (Aslan).
Say hola once again to the iconic explorer in this faithful reboot of the children’s series.
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