|
| “ | Tell me the secret identity of Captain Underpants! | „ |
| ~ Wedgie Woman after obtaining her powers. |
| “ | Everybody on Earth must obey ME! If anybody refuses, they’ll get the WEDGE! If anybody tries to stop me, it’s WEDGIE TIME! Bow down to me . . . or WELCOME TO WEDGIEVILLE! | „ |
| ~ Wedgie Woman to the citizens of Piqua. |
| “ | Time to have fun with history. Memorize these dates. 1827, 1853, 1914, 1926. | „ |
| ~ One of only a few quotes Ms. Ribble has in the movie. |
| “ | Zo nice of you to join uz. Before you become my mindlezz zombees, want to hear my zcheme? Boy, that'z a lot of Z's. | „ |
| ~ Queen Zombie to George, Harold and Captain Underpants. |
Ms. Tara Ribble, also known as the Wedgie Woman and Queen Zombee in her supervillain forms, is a major antagonist in the Captain Underpants franchise.
Ms. Ribble is George and Harold's English teacher and homeroom teacher at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, who, like the rest of the staff, is sadistic and abusive and hates children.
Her alter ago as Wedgie Woman was a villain originally created by George and Harold who was based on their teacher, Ms. Ribble. After a second mishap with the 3D Hypno-Ring the real Ms. Ribble becomes convinced that she really is Wedgie Woman - at first she has no superpowers, but after her hairstyle gets splattered with the superpower juice from the third book her hair transforms into arms and she gains super-intelligence.
And her alter ago as Queen Zombie is created when Melvinborg put too much bee DNA in her and she plan to turn the world into Zombees in an episode of The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants, “The Harmful Horrors of the Harrowing Hiveschool”.
She was voiced by Dee Dee Rescher in Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie and Laraine Newman in The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants, who also played LaWanda Dumore in Problem Child 2, Dr. Constance in American Dad!, Baby Doll in The New Batman Adventures and Melora in Despicable Me 4.
Appearance[]
Personality[]
She is different from the other Jerome Horwitz Elementary School Staff in the way she seems even more sadistic and cruel, having a very short temper due to her age.
While she was hypnotized in her Wedgie Woman state, she is more enigmatic and more crueler than usual, giving wedgies to policemen and others for no reason except for sadistic fun.
After she was hypnotized back to Ms. Ribble, she turned into a happy, cheerful, teacher who changed from the evilest teacher to the nicest, having a personality similar to that of a friendly grandmother.
In the show, she appeared as an evil, beelike teacher who ended up brainwashing the entire school into her position, where during this phase she is seen as evil as her Wedgie Woman phase in the books. This phase is only found in the episode "The Harmful Horrors of the Harrowing Hiveschool".
Biography[]
In the books[]
Ms. Ribble is the mean teacher of George and Harold, often being mean to her students for no reason.
Ms. Ribble noticing George and Harold are behaving.
In The Adventures of Captain Underpants, Ms. Ribble (though her name is unknown at this point) makes two cameos: at the start of the book, where she notices George and Harold behaving and muttering that this has to be a dream, and at the end, where she snaps her fingers at George and Harold for pulling pranks and inadvertently transforming Mr. Krupp into Captain Underpants.
The teachers bullying George and Harold when they where suspended.
In Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets, she bullies George and Harold once they are suspended. Later, she witnesses Mr. Meaner get eaten by a talking toilet, then snaps her fingers at the others to try and make them go away, once again inadvertently turning Mr. Krupp into Captain Underpants. She ran away with the other teachers but eventually she gets eaten herself. Once the Toilets are defeated, she is seen wondering if this is all a dream, and is finally seen in detention when George and Harold are Principals of the Day.
In Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds), she is also transformed into a zombie nerd by Zorx, Klax & Jennifer. They are then rescued by George, Harold and Captain Underpants.
In Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants, George and Harold are banned from a school trip to the Piqua Pizza Palace and are forced to clean the staff room instead. When the rest of the school returns from the trip, she and various teachers bully George and Harold, but they end up getting bored and go to the staff room , not counting on George and Harold having designated the location. with pranks. She is later seen reading Pied Piper to her class, which gives George and Harold the idea to create a Captain Underpants and the Pied Pooper of Piqua comic.
Ms. Ribble announcing her retirement.
Ms. Ribble serves as the main antagonist in Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman. At the start of the book, she announces her retirement and has the class write her thank you cards. However, George and Harold instead write a Captain Underpants comic she finds offensive, it was the same name of the book. In it, Ms. Ribble assigned book reports during Christmas vacation, but then got buried by the stack of reports. The doctors decided to rebuild her and make her better. Miss Ribble had obtained bionic powers, so she made herself a costume and gave people wedgies with a robot arm in her hairdo, she called herself Wedgie Woman. She also sprayed the underwear of Captain Underpants with spray starch, forcing the children to save him with fabric softener. Captain Underpants then defeated Wedgie Woman by flying around causing her to give herself a wedgie, after which she was taken to jail.
Miss Ribble sent them to Mr. Krupp for making that comic. There, George and Harold forge a "marry me" card, ostensibly from Mr. Krupp, and send it to her. Taking the message seriously, Ms. Ribble and the other teachers set up a wedding, but she loses her patience. After she sadistically lowers George and Harold's grades to an "F" and a "G" to get back at the two, they hypnotize her in order to make her change them back. However, unknown to them, the 3D Hypno-Ring was discovered to have the opposite effect on females (which is one reason why the police closed down the company that sold them), and because they also mentioned that she should not become Wedgie Woman, they accidentally turn her into just that.
Ms. Ribble as Wedgie Woman.
Wedgie Woman ambushes George and Harold at their treehouse, accidentally acquiring her comic book counterpart's hair-based powers from superpower juice the two got from the ship of Zorx, Klax & Jennifer. She kidnaps the boys and creates robotic doppelgängers of them to attack the city. Following an intense battle, which included an origin comic to eliminate the starch joke from the previous comic, Wedgie Woman is defeated with hair starch, and the boys hypnotize her, so she becomes a nicer teacher. They think this was good as she may live longer like that.
In the Captain Underpants and the Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy - Part 1: The Night of the Nasty Nostril Nuggets, Mrs. Ribble is now a loving teacher. George and Harold demonstrate how to make "Squishies", where you put ketchup packets under the toilet seat and when someone sits on them, they sizzle on their feet. Mrs. Ribble then pulls one out on Mr. Krupp.
Later, Melvin Sneedly accidentally turns into The Bionic Booger Boy and inadvertently disrupts Mrs. Ribble's class. When Melvin sneezes, Mrs. Ribble convinces him to cover his mouth because he made such a big mess of the room. However, when she sneezes again and covers her mouth, it makes a much bigger mess of the room and Mrs. Ribble is covered from head to toe in rioters.
She takes it in stride and tells Melvin not to turn his nose up next time. Mrs. Ribble then asks the class if they want cookies. Although not seen in the rest of the book, it is mentioned that she contracted a cold, possibly due to Melvin sneezing on her.
In Captain Underpants and the Tyrannical Retaliation of the Turbo Toilet 2000, she is first heard when Ms. Anthrope talks to her through a megaphone to send George and Harold to her office. She is seen again when George and Harold convince all the teachers at school that they can dream and do whatever they want. As a result, she strips down to her underwear along with almost all the other teachers and starts doing crazy things. Later, the police arrive and arrest all the teachers and take them to jail, however, despite that, she and the other teachers escape in the next book, Captain Underpants and the Sensational Saga of Sir Stinks-A-Lot. For some odd reason, she's shown to revert back to her original personality.
In Captain Underpants and the Sensational Saga of Sir Stinks-A-Lot, she and the rest of the faculty members take full advantage of Mr. Meaner's spray that brainwashes students into mindless servants to enslaved them into cleaning their cars and mowing their lawns. George and Harold however turn this against them by dressing up as adults and ordering the kids to prank the faculty and commit property damage.
In the film[]
Ms. Ribble in the movie.
Compared to the books, Ms. Ribble has a very minor role in the film. She first appeared as a victim of two of George and Harold's pranks: getting launch by a spring in her chair then getting stuck in it. She is then seen lazily telling students to memorize history dates. Afterwards, she is seen in detention that Captain Underpants gave her with the rest of the teachers. Finally, she was teaching George when the Turbo Toilet 2000 attacked. When George tried to warn her, just like Harold and Mr. Rected, but both told not to interrupt her monotone reading. Although, they mistook them saying toilet as a need to go to the bathroom and both reluctantly let them. This luckily led to them defeating Turbo Toilet 2000, Professor Poopypants, and Melvin.
In the TV Series[]
Ms. Ribble's evil laughter
She make multiple appearances in the Netflix show, where she takes great joy in giving kids an "H", (a grade she made up which stand for "horrendous"). As shown in "The Horrible Hostilities of the Homework Hydra".
In “The Harmful Horrors of the Harrowing Hiveschool”, Melvinborg and Melvin Sneedly invent a Bee-NA machine to turn the teachers into bee-chers, but they shoot too much bee DNA on Ms. Ribble which turn her into a queen bee known as ”Queen Zombee”. She then turned all of the teachers and kids into Zombees and make part of her army and orders them to turn the school into a hive, where she later plans do this to the rest of the world.
Ms. Ribble as Queen Zombee.
George, Harold and Mr. Krupp found out about her evil plans, George and Harold turn Mr. Krupp into Captain Underpants to fight them, only for Captain Underpants getting stung by the bees. In one last change to stop her plans. the boys found Melvinborg’s machine to use it to undo the effects, once after George finally founds the button that reverse the effects, he press it and turn everyone back to their normal self’s and stoping Queen Zombee’s evil plans.
She once gave George and Harold extra discredit in “The Dastardly Deed of the Devious Diddlysaurus” when she instructed the students to write a book report on dinosaurs, but the boys chose to create a cartoon about them instead, which cause them to get extra discredit.
Trivia[]
- Miss Ribble's name is a pun on "miserable" and "terrible" for her full name, Tara Ribble.
- Miss Ribble was based on a teacher that the author, Dav Pilkey, had. In one of his stories, he made it clear that Tara Ribble wasn't her name.
- Ribble is apparently very fond of diet soda as in Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants, when she and the other teachers realized that George and Harold put a prank in the longue, she quickly checked the fridge for the soda.
- Ribble's favorite ice cream flavor is chunky tofu, as revealed in the fifth book during the announcement for her retirement. She forced everyone to eat it at her party, even though it all melted after they sang her a song.
- When she almost marries Mr. Krupp, she refuses because he has a "silly nose". Ironically, they have the same nose.
- Wedgie Women is the fourth villain inadvertently created by George and Harold, the first three were the Turbo Toilet 2000, his talking toilets, and the Dandelion of Doom. Coincidentally, Wedgie Woman and the dandelion were both affected by Extra Strength Super Power Juice.
- It is unknown how she reverted back to her original, mean personality. One explanation is that Pilkey simply forgot about it, which is understandable due to how long it's been since he had used her. Another explanation though is George and Harold's antic through time travel.
