Arts & Culture

What: Cat Kid Comic Club: The Musical
Where: CAA Theatre, 651 Yonge St.
When: Now, until Sun., May 4
Highlight: Butt-tastic Supa Fail superhero flameout
Rating: NNN (out of 5)
Why you should go: Goofy fun-fest for pre-teens and their parents

DISCLAIMER, THE nine- and five-year-olds that I took to Cat Kid Comic Club: The Musical loved it, as did most of the young theatregoers at opening night — “5 Ns,” I was told enthusiastically. And this latest effort from kids’ comic creator Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants/Dog Man Universe is fun; it just feels underrealized.

Like its predecessor Dog Man: The Musical, which played Toronto last year, it’s a warm-hearted production, dedicated to kids’ empowerment. There’s little need to know the back story, though fans of the books certainly will and, in fact, details from previous “episodes” slow down the play’s opening as we learn that mutant fish Flippy (David VanDyke) was once a bad guy. Doesn’t really matter as we learn Flippy must now wrangle his spawn of two dozen misbehaving tadpoles, a process in which he is aided by Cat Kid (Leslie Baez), who helps him set up a comic club to occupy their hyper-charged minds.

It’s all a premise to create a series of vignettes based on each tad’s comic book ideas, no matter how disconnected or scatological they might be. And there’s plenty of fun to be had with skits about toothbrush detectives and inept superheroes. It’s just that the songs, by Kevin Del Aguila and Brad Alexander, aren’t that great. The opening night audience is never roused to clap along until the closing number, and this crowd was ready to go.

We don’t get our first butt jokes, comedy gold to this group of theatregoers, until at least halfway through the show during, Supa Fail, a musical celebration of not being the best. There’s plenty of kid power messaging, including a mid-show adults-versus-kids moment as Flippy tries to get the tad-lers to dial down the raunch in their comics.

No dice, say the ’poles, and Flippy quickly realizes the futility of his effort.

Feuding siblings Naomi (Diamond Destiny) and Melvin (Bryan G. Smith) power a lot of the play’s action, their gentle jousting providing plenty of punchlines. Naomi delivers a welcome and unexpected spunky, feminist analysis of the action late in the play, typical of generally enlightened thinking at the core Cat Kid.

It’s just set against the high standard of the local pantomimes; it seems the play misses the opportunity for deeper engagement with the kids. They’re ready to shout, hoot and holler along but are rarely called into action by the players. That, like the play itself, feels like a missed opportunity.

Cat Kid is good enough, but the premise proves stronger than the show.