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00:00Hey guys, No More Marmaduke Fan here, looking at Dogman, For Whom the Ball Rolls.
00:05This was a White Elephant present I got for Christmas last year, and I finally got around
00:11to reading it, and I think I'm going to give this to my nephew later.
00:14So Dave Pilkey is the creator of Captain Underpants, Dogman is sort of a meta thing where it's
00:21a comic written by the kids from Captain Underpants.
00:25Maybe I should say something a little bit about, I wasn't allowed to read Captain Underpants
00:29as a little kid because I had potty humor, but I heard a lot about Captain Underpants.
00:33So as I was coming up, I'd sometimes get a furtive look at the forbidden books in other
00:38kids' library collections.
00:41So what I respect about Dave Pilkey is this is one of the best selling comics of all time.
00:49It's everywhere in Walmart, and this is a guy who knows comics, loves comics, and he's
00:54basically, he's living the dream of having turned, he makes the same kinds of comics
01:00he made when he was a 10-year-old kid with ADHD in school, and he turned that into a
01:05full-time job.
01:06What's not to respect about that?
01:08But what's kind of brilliant about both Captain Underpants and Dogman is it is unambiguously
01:15lots of potty humor and silly humor, especially for hyperactive, energetic little boys.
01:23It's also very self-aware that that's what it is, and even kind of like lampshades the
01:26fact that, man, are we really doing potty humor again?
01:30And it's smart.
01:31It's those two contrasting elements coming together that I think really makes it shine.
01:37Now, I only got, I was only generally familiar with Captain Underpants.
01:41This is the first Dogman book I've read.
01:43It is not the first Dogman book, but I was still able to jump right in, get right into
01:47Dogman.
01:48And one brief little prologue was all I needed to know who was who in the Dogman universe.
01:54So something real quick about Captain Underpants.
01:57I think that I want to talk about why it's a genius idea.
02:01So their principal, I forget his name, but their principal is a fuddy-duddy who just
02:08wants everyone to be mature and he hates potty humor.
02:11And the boys are Harold and Dan, I think, no, George and Harold.
02:17So George and Harold, they snap their fingers and their stuffy principal drops his pants
02:21and becomes Captain Underpants.
02:23And kind of like Calvin and Hobbes, there's a question of, is this really happening or
02:27is just the imaginative world of the boys?
02:30They'd love to have the power to make the stuffy principal drop his pants.
02:35Now, that is very countercultural, right?
02:38That is very much sticking it to public schools as an institution.
02:43I even like the element that when he's Captain Underpants, he loses his toupee.
02:48So he's a bit more like the principal is sort of like who he pretends to be, who he is when
02:53he's being fake and caring about society and all the rules and structure.
02:57And when he's Captain Underpants, he's who he really is.
02:59And part of the genius of that is obviously it's at the expense, it's a joke at the expense
03:03of the principal and making him say naughty words by accident.
03:07But the genius is they're mocking the principal, not by making him the villain.
03:11The boys are mocking the principal by making him the hero of their imaginative universe.
03:16How could you even, how could you even be mad to have little boys portraying you as
03:21Captain Underpants running around in your underpants?
03:23So the premise is the two boys from Captain Underpants write the Dogman comics.
03:29And then Dave even draws the pages of their like eight and a half by 11 pieces of papers.
03:36I think he's very good at capturing how a hyperactive 10-year-old boy's mind works because
03:43he literally had ADHD.
03:46This is him.
03:47He is presenting to you exactly the same kind of comics he used to make.
03:50So I love the detail that Dogman's origin story is there was a policeman and a dog.
03:56They got hit by a hospital.
03:58Dog's body was dying.
03:59Policeman's head was dying.
04:00So they just sewed the dog's head on the policeman's body and Dogman was born.
04:05I love the detail that the characters don't have arms unless they need to have arms.
04:10So they'll just be like little running torsos and then when they need to hold something
04:12or interact with something their arms will appear.
04:16And the other premise is Petey the Cat was the bad guy of a previous episode.
04:21He created a clone of himself but then this clone sort of became his surrogate son and
04:25he wanted to turn over a new leaf.
04:27So Big Pete is in jail.
04:29Pete is friends with Captain Underpants and A-T-H-D, the robot.
04:35And Pete is kind of like, Pete is supposed to be like a precocious child so he gives
04:38like the, you know, moral of the story and he has the words of wisdom and insight and
04:43that kind of inspire his dad to goodness.
04:46So one thing that's pretty neat about the overall thing is the theme of good and evil.
04:50So if you take the premise that it's two little boys writing this comic, the little boys are
04:55interested in the concept of good guys and bad guys almost like a meta thing.
05:00Like children are fascinated by the concept of bad guys.
05:04What is a bad guy?
05:05What makes a bad guy bad?
05:06I've had conversations with my nephews and nieces where they're trying to comprehend
05:10Lion King and one of the weird things for them is, well, Scar's sometimes a good guy.
05:14No, Scar's only pretending to be a good guy.
05:17So once you grasp good guy and bad guy then you start thinking, okay, sometimes good guys
05:24become bad guys, sometimes bad guys become good guys, sometimes the good guy's only pretending
05:28to be the bad guy.
05:29So immediately it's the, it's the first word for good and evil.
05:34Petey, the other neat thing is Petey is a pessimist.
05:40One of the quotes that inspired this book is, two men looked out through prison bars,
05:45one sees the mud, the other stars.
05:47Petey's pessimistic, he's sort of annoyed at the state of the world and it feels unfair
05:52so he appeals to the governor to get his sentence commuted.
05:56He feels like the world treats dogs better than it treats us cats.
06:00And later this is a setup for a gag where as soon as Petey gets his pardon he forgets
06:04about the revolution and changing the system and just takes his pardon and gets the heck
06:09out of Dodge.
06:10Meanwhile, Dogman is struggling with ADHD.
06:13Anytime Dogman sees a squirrel or a red ball he wants to chase, I've got to show this,
06:19so flip around.
06:20So the other cool thing that Dave does is he makes comics that are, they have meta-gags
06:26but they don't feel like, you know, smart-alecky meta-gags.
06:30This is the kind of thing a 10-year-old does because it's fun.
06:34It's almost like the book is something to be read and something to be played with.
06:38So the idea is you flip the page and the page animates.
06:41And Captain Underpants would have all kinds of things like this where they'd have like
06:44a little crafty project along with it or Mad Libs or a bunch of how to draw.
06:50Sections at the end.
06:51So I think that Dave gets that the book is to be read by the kid and the kid, the book
06:56should also should have like an almost toy-like aspect to that.
07:00Look there, there's a Charlie Brown reference, there's a Charlie Brown, he knows his comic
07:04book history.
07:05So Dogman has to do behavioral modification therapy to overcome his inability to concentrate
07:14on anything.
07:16And the heart of the story is really between Petey Sr. and Petey Jr.
07:22Petey Jr. is friends with Dogman and ADHD.
07:26Petey Sr. gets out of prison and wants to, you know, live with his kid again.
07:30And so there's like the tension of, you know, it's kind of like being a divorced kid.
07:33You got to go back and forth between the two families.
07:36And because Petey's sort of a pessimist about the world, it's the gap is between what's
07:42the difference between being a realist, being a pessimist, being an optimist, and being
07:46naive.
07:47Little Petey sees the good in people, wants to help everybody.
07:51So the conflict comes to a head when little Petey decides to invite Petey Sr.'s abusive
07:58dad over to visit.
08:00And what's kind of neat about it is they both learn a lesson.
08:04So little Petey learns that you can't just magically fix everybody and not everything
08:07is gumdrops and rainbows.
08:09But big Petey learns not to only look at the downside of life.
08:15If all you look at is the mud, if all you look at is the pollution and the sadness,
08:19then that's all you're going to see in the world.
08:20So little Petey gains wisdom and big Petey gains hope.
08:25And it really works.
08:26So I thought that was pretty special.
08:28The comedy, what's interesting is there isn't a lot of bathroom humor.
08:32There are a couple, but there are even like some gags where it's like, oh man, I'm a big
08:37grown up bad guy.
08:37I don't want you to steal plastic doo-doos for me.
08:41No, I'm serious.
08:43It's at this great spot between, I think what's magic about it is he's not afraid to do the
08:51toilet gag, but it's sort of like the boys themselves writing the comic are aware that
09:00potty humor is naughty in the context of the story.
09:03So sometimes they even kind of like lampshade and say, okay, now we got to be really mature
09:06for a while.
09:07We're not going to do any potty humor for a while.
09:08We're going to get back to the real stuff.
09:12The actual fight was pretty exciting.
09:14I got to find this.
09:14There's a really cool meta gag where this is based on the visual of the comic.
09:19So ordinary reading order would be this one, two, three, four, five, six, but it guides
09:24you to do this.
09:25And this is a setup for a great slapstick gag later where he comes back through this
09:29and he bonks on every single one of these on the way out.
09:32So I guess the point is that Dave is really good at slapstick and wordplay comedy and
09:39that always plays.
09:41This is a little boy's very first introduction to Daniel Hawthorne and great slapstick and
09:48wordplay.
09:49And I think that Dave's very aware that any comic kid reads could be their first comic
09:54and he wants it to be a special experience for them and for them to have something that
09:57they can take away from it.
10:00There's a big Pete.
10:03Instead of looking down at the mud, now he's looking up at the stars.
10:05So he's had a transformative, cathartic experience.
10:10There's a note here that says, what is it, Harold helped write this one.
10:15I don't know if that means that Dave's actual son helped in this or if that's just another
10:21part of the meta aspect of this comic was created by, quote, two 10-year-old kids, unquote,
10:28from Captain Underpants.
10:29So very special, very fun comic.
10:35Partially because it's so, I think that's part of what makes it so great is how stick
10:40figure-y the art is.
10:42But it serves the comedy and the narrative so perfectly.
10:46It's exactly the right combination.
10:48So great book.
10:50If you have a six-year-old, they probably already have read all of these and you don't
10:53even need to recommend it to them.
10:56But very bright.
10:57So I think you could get a good kick out of this reading it with your kid as well.
11:01That's it.
11:01I'm Rob Marmody fan.
11:02Love you guys.
11:03Catch you later.
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