Professor Pippy P. Poopypants may be the greatest scientific genius the world has ever known. Unfortunately, he has such a silly name that nobody takes him seriously. He's been laughed out of every major university in the world. If fact, the only place that'll hire him is Jerome Horwitz Elementary School. Hopefully, nobody at the school will laugh at his name (or make a comic book about him)... because if just one more person makes fun of Professor Pippy P. Poopypants, it might just drive him OFF THE DEEP END! This looks like a job for Captain Underpants!

This book began as a title. Dav thought of it one day while he and his girlfriend were sitting in a movie theatre waiting for the previews to start. "I thought the title was really funny, but I didn't want to do a story was about a guy with poop in his pants (believe it or not, even I have my limits). But what if he just had a silly name? What if he was a really smart guy who was just cursed with a funny name? I began to think of Albert Einstein, who was a true genius. But what if his name had been Stinky Girdlechunks? Would anybody have taken him seriously? I sure wouldn't have." — Dav Pilkey Dav liked the idea of a genius with a silly name, who is pushed over the edge by giggling and teasing. But he didn't want to encourage that kind of behavior in his readers. "I was teased my whole childhood because of my last name. There are lots of folks out there who will always remember me as 'Dave Pinky', 'Dave Pickles', 'Dave Pilkweed', or the ever-popular 'David Puke-ey'. I think teasing is just something normal that kids do. But I didn't want this book to promote name-calling." — Dav Pilkey That's where the Name-Change-O-Chart 2000 came in. "The thing about name-calling is that it's totally based on your given name. Obviously, somebody named Johnny Butts is going to be teased a lot more than somebody named Larry Drake. But what if there was a chart which would level the playing field? What if you could take anybody's name, regardless of whether it was funny or not, and insert it into an equation which made everybody's name equally ridiculous? That way, nobody would be singled out. Larry Drake could no longer make fun of Johnny Butts (because Booger Bubbletush is just as stupid as Poopsie Toiletfanny)." — Dav Pilkey So before Dav even wrote the book, he sat down and compiled the most silly, disgusting, embarrassing, and idiotic names he could think of. He created the Name-Change-O-Chart over the course of about a week, then tested it for another week, making changes and adjustments here and there. Once he was satisfied, he began to write the story.

1. The original Name Change-O-Chart 2000 was first designed so that everybody in the whole world would have a ridiculous name when they entered their given names into the equation. That is, everybody except popular singer/songwriter Englebert Humperdinck. Dav designed the original charts so that Englebert Humperdinck's name would stay the same when it was entered into the equation. It was a stupid and obscure joke, but ultimately Dav changed it because the whole point of the chart was that nobody would be singled out for teasing. Not even Englebert. 2. One of Dav's picture book characters makes a cameo appearance in this book. Can you spot him? (Hint: his last name is "Myers") 3. Professor Poopypants is loosely modeled after Albert Einstein, who was the inspiration for this character. Most people don't know this, but Albert Einstein's middle name was "Pippy". 4. The logo for Piqua State Penitentiary on page 147 (at the top of the letter) contains an error. You see, "Penitentiary" is abbreviated "Pen" and not "Penn". This is all somebody else's fault, and has nothing to do with the rumor that Dav Pilkey doesn't know how to spell "Penitentiary".

• Rescue Raider 4000 • Bounce-O-Rama 2000 • Splashernator 2000 • Matchinator 4000 • Pilkeymon's Paintbox Click here for pictures you can print out and color! • Difficult Schmifficult