I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE DIGGITY DUDES-“Grover Cleveland” (2012).

In honor of Presidents’ Day, I offer you this song by The Diggity Dudes.

This song talks about some of the less famous presidents (Grover Cleveland, James K. Polk (doesn’t get any credit at all), William Henry Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes (actually I feel like he’s pretty well known, no?)).

But what I like best is how they say there are so many Presidents, they can’t get through them in a three minute song.  Or can they?  Yes indeed.

So there’s a fun and fast list of all of the Presidents (mostly last names).  The song is recent enough that Barack Obama is included as well.  Although their list is not terribly catchy, it does get all of the Presidents in.  And the “take your time, check the list and remember them all” section is certainly catchy.

Do you remember them all?

[READ: February 16, 2013] Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants

The books keep getting bigger and the cast of characters keeps getting larger (like Mr Rected and Miss Labelled).  This book also introduces us to Professor Pippy P (which stands for Pee-Pee) Poopypants who hails from New Swissland.  Professor Poopypants’ name is not unusual in New Swissland–everyone’s name is preposterous there (like Jiggles T. Chunkyskunks, for example).  But when Professor Poopypants tries to show off his amazing new shrink ray and enlarging ray, he is laughed at constantly for his name.

This makes him mad.  And he will seek revenge.

Like the other Captain books, this one opens with a comic by George and Harold which recaps the other books (their comic is also longer than the others).  And unsurprisingly, the story opens with the boys getting in trouble.  This time they switch the school sign to read Don’t Fart in a Diaper. But they are nabbed red-handed by Professor Krupp.  Their punishment is to clean the teacher’s lounge while the rest of the school goes on an awesome field trip.

So they do what they do best–a very very funny take on tarring and feathering (totally justified, those teachers are MEAN!).  But after the prank, their science teacher Mr. Fyde (ha!) quits.

Mr Krupp doesn’t know how he will replace the science teacher.  But when Professor Poopypants reads about the open Poisson  he imagines it as a way to get respect from the scientific community.  And, he knows it’s a good place to start because he can get respect in the school–little kids are so sweet and understanding.

After several pages of the kids laughing at the Professor, things come to a head when George and Harold make a comic about him and he finds it.  The Professor gets revenge on everyone by using his shrinking and enlarging rays–shrinking the school to pocket size and enlarging his robot to super size.  The only way to save the day is to call on Captain Underpants.  And Flip-O-Rama comes to the rescue!

There’s a very funny warning before the Flip-o-Rama section (“If you are easily offended or if you tend to blame all of society’s evils on TV shows and cartoon characters, please run to your nearest supermarket and get a life.”)  Pretty unsubtle, and very funny given the reaction the books get.

Incidentally, the big punishment that Professor Poopypants gives to every one is that they all must change their name using his charts.  The first letter of your first name picks your new first name from Chart 1.  The first letter of your last name picks your new last name from Chart 2 and the last letter of your last name pick the second half of your new last name from chart 3.  I, your faithful narrator have been instantly transformed into Doofus Bubblelips.

I hope to get my revenge on the series in book five!