Hooray for Captain Balding! And Captain Underpants!

Having recently started school, my son Jake reports that he spends many a happy recess playing super-heroes with his friend, Max:

Which super-heroes do you play?

"I am always Captain Balding and Max is always Captain Underpants.", says Jake.

Intriguing.  What is Captain Balding's super-power?

"We have different powers every time, but one power we always have is super-phones."

It all sounds marvelously imaginative, and they are fixated on these characters.  But where do they come from?  My best guess is that the Captain Balding character originated as a kind of a cross between me -- bald and apt to make my children address me as "Captain Daddy" -- and Groucho Marx's Captain Spaulding in Animal Crackers:

Song: Hooray for Captain Spaulding (not Balding)

Now, as for Captain Balding's great partner in crime-fighting, Captain Underpants, a little research reveals that he is a legit. super-hero after all:

Captain Underpants rap

With these two heroes to protect us, we simple townsfolk can again sleep safe at night ... 

... I think.