The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants Netflix Show Review

Maybe your kids know Captain Underpants from the incredibly popular book series created by Dav Pilkey in the late 1990s. Maybe you’re just young enough to have been one of the kids that fell in love with the troublemaking elementary school besties George Beard and Harold Hutchins, and celebrated their creative shenanigans with glee when you read the stories, or your parents read them to you at bedtime. You might have had kids yourself, and took them to see the 2017 feature film. Maybe you’ve never heard of Captain Underpants, but the name makes you stifle a giggle. Well, just when you think the school year can’t come fast enough and you’ve run out of entertainments, DreamWorks is bringing the characters and their crazy, prank-filled friendship to the small screen. The whole season of 13 episodes of The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants will be streaming exclusively on Netflix starting on July 13th.

Captain Underpants was first a hugely popular series of books that sold 80 million copies, and DreamWorks started courting Pilkey early on to get the rights to create a feature film and animated series. The team at DreamWorks went so far as to invite Pilkey on a studio tour with everyone wearing underpants over their own pants. Then, in 2011, they won the rights to the property in an auction, and went on to create 2017’s Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, which was met with critical and box office success. It just made perfect sense, and was the plan from the beginning, that DreamWorks would create an episodic show for fans of the beloved stories.

The tv show picks up where the movie left off, but that just means seeing business as usual with prankster 4th graders George and Harold. The whole saga began when in their attempts to hypnotize the nutso principal of their school, Jerome Horwitz Elementary, Mr Krupp led him to imagine himself as the superhero from George and Harold’s comic book, “Captain Underpants”. They have all manner of misadventures, which include lots of farting and silliness, and villains like toilet paper mummies and avocado monsters that younger kids would find funny and entertaining. What is also entertaining, and might light the creative spark in the kids who watch the show, is the fact that this 2-D animated series incorporates a wide variety of storytelling tools, from sock puppets to claymation, flip-o-ramas, and comic book illustration. That is just one way it maintains the aesthetic of the original books on which the show is based.

Another is that both George and Harold aren’t the follow-the-rules sort. While some have argued from the very beginning that these these stories are violent, and the characters are badly behaved, there’s something very pure and accessible in these episodes that are clearly not trying to be multi-layered. They are just speaking to kids at their level, which should a place where curiosity, creativity, and a search for connection reign. The friendship at the base of the show is sweet and real, and who isn’t looking for that? The creators of the Netflix/DreamWorks show, as with those involved in the feature film, and Pilkey himself, know that this is a love it or hate it affair. Some cartoons are so much better made that way, and this is one of them.

Not all shows for kids have to have layers for the parents to embrace. On the other hand, fans of Sean Astin have his voiceover as narrator to look forward to. In any case, sometimes something silly and fun is the perfect antidote for long summer days too hot to venture outside. The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants may give kids a few bad ideas, but parents are used to that. What they will find worth it and far more rewarding is the good ideas about creativity and cooperation the show celebrates.

B

About Cinema Siren:

Leslie Combemale, who writes about women in film and artists behind the scenes and below the line at http://cinemasiren.com/, is a movie lover and aficionado who aspires to get more people back into the beautiful alternate worlds offered in dark movie houses across the country. She has also been the owner of ArtInsights Gallery of Film and Contemporary Art (https://artinsights.com/) for over twenty five years, promoting artists who are the unsung heroes essential to the finished look of films and their campaigns. She interviews actors, directors, and production artists from all over the world, and writes about film for sites like AWFJ.org, thecredits.org, http://www.animationscoop.com and likeabossgirls.com, and is often invited to present at conventions such as the San Diego Comic-Con, where she has been a panelist and host for The Art of the Hollywood Movie Poster, Classic Film History, Disney & Harry Potter Fandom discussions, and now produces a panel at SDCC called "Women Rocking Hollywood”, in its third year.