The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 48

"Mogey! Mogey! Come quickly!" Smush shrieked. 

Mogey stumbled into the kitchen to find his pal robed in a robe, fresh out of the Saturday night bath barrel, and looking more anguished than a zookeeper who realizes the monkeys and sea lions have teamed up, and are just one bird ally away from launching a full air, sea, and land attack. 

"What is it?" Mogey exclaimed.

"My hands! They're all... raison-like. Do ye think it's fatal?"

"For the love of mustard, Smush! How long has it been since you've had a bath?" 

"A month or two," Smush replied. "Why do ye ask?" 

"For the love of mustard, Smush! Stop saying 'ye!'" 

"I'll stop saying 'ye' if you stop saying 'for the love of mustard.' Deal?" 

"Deal," Mogey agreed. "And I asked about your last bath because it's clearly been so long that you've forgotten all about getting wrinkly fingers. I daresay that's longer than a month or two. In fact... Sir Isaac!" 

"Yes, m'lord?" squeaked a mouse wearing glasses who'd just popped out of a hole in the kitchen fireplace: Sir Isaac Shrewton, the mouse with the photographic memory.

"Sir Isaac, how long does it take a person of... erm... moderate-to-fair intelligence to forget a basic truth such as the fact that prolonged water immersion leads to pruney fingers?" Mogey asked.

"Actually sir, most academic research suggests memory has nothing to do with intelligence, although there was one quite intriguing study that--"

"Yadda yadda yadda," Smush interrupted. "Out with it, Shrewton!" 

"My best estimate is somewhere between eight months and four years," Sir Isaac Shrewton answered.

"So I missed a couple... hundred baths," Smush said. "So what? My question to you, Shrewton, is how close are we to developing a cure to these unsightly crinkles?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 47

One morning, Smush sat on his front porch chewing sunflower seeds and working on a needlepoint depicting Buster Prawnbreath, the main character in his favorite serialized detective story. Just as Smush put the finishing touches on Buster's moustache, Mogey rumbled up sitting atop a wagon. 

"What ho, Smush!" Mogey announced.

"My question precisely," said Smush. "What've you got there?"

"Why, the food for our feast! The Blunderbuss twins are right behind me with two more wagons." 

"Our what?"

"Our feast!" Mogey exclaimed. 

"What in the name of Buster Prawnbreath is a 'feast?'"

"Are you putting me on?" Mogey asked. "You know - a feast! A big meal with lots of food, and drink, and food, and hearty victuals. We planned this all out last week!" 

"Ah," Smush replied, "that explains it. I'm not much of a food guy. I probably thought you were talking about a 'beast' or summat."

"First off, we very much do have a beast," Mogey stated as Big John Blunderbuss pulled up in a wagon carrying a beef roast so enormous that its axles looked as if they might give out. "And second off, what do you mean you're 'not much of a food guy?' I once saw you wash down three dozen oysters with four dozen more oysters!"

"That was the old me, Moge-man," Smush replied, although Mogey couldn't help but notice that his pal was edging nearer to the roast beast wagon and dabbing the corners of his mouth with the Buster Prawnbreath needlepoint.

"So, uh, do you guys want me to take this back to the abattoir or...?" Big John Blunderbuss inquired.

"Let's not be too hasty," Smush said, hastily. "I did just finish the moustache segment of my Buster Prawnbreath needlepoint - and as you're no doubt aware, the moustache is the most technical segment of any needlepoint. It's as good an occasion to celebrate as any. Perhaps one of these - what did you call them, Mogey? - 'feasts' is in order after all."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 46

Sergeant Sargento had made a career out of whipping young recruits into shape. And over decades of experience, he'd developed a knack for instantly figuring out which recruits were most under-whipped. Never had that been more apparent than with the two individuals who stood before him presently.

"Private Mogey," Sergeant Sargento declared, his face mere inches from Mogey's, "do I detect a smudge of chocolate on your face?" 

"S'more, yes, S'more!" Mogey shouted. 

"Private Smush," said Sergeant Sargento, taking a step to the left, "did your pal just call me 'S'more?'"

"S'more, yes, S'more!" Smush answered.

"Why do you two imbeciles keep saying 'S'more?'" Sergeant Sargento demanded.

"Sir, we're a bit nervous, S'more," Mogey said. 

"Nervous, eh? No need to be nervous."

"Sir, thank you, sir," Smush replied, breathing an obvious sigh of relief.

"No problem," Sergeant Sargento said as he patted each of the pals on the shoulder. "I have just one further question."

"Sir, ask us anything, sir," Mogey rejoined.

"How - and before you answer this, keep in mind that any recruit caught bringing candy into my barracks faces consequences ranging from boxing my brother, Oswaldo 'The Big Cheese' Sargento, to boxing my other brother, Enrique 'El Queso Grande' Sargento - how did you end up with chocolate on your face?"

"S'more?" Mogey asked uncertainly. 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 45

Soon after graduating from the Gunkman Academy of Tranquility and Food Science (or as most students called it, Lazin' and Grazin') Mogey and Smush moved to the big city and found quarters with two roommates. Their co-lodgers were a pair of bankers named Anthony Sherlock and Paul Yell (or as Mogey and Smush called them, Snoopin' and Whoopin'). 

One Friday evening, the four residents of Number 17 Plumple Street decided to dine in on Chinese takeaway, and Paul Yell was nominated to place the order. 

"What about some potstickers?" Mogey suggested. "I gots to have my potstickers." 

"Are you sure?" Paul Yell replied, looking at his tally. "We've already got 34 dishes on our list."

"No, no, he's right," said Anthony Sherlock. "We need to make sure there'll be enough for leftovers."

"What are you talking about?" Mogey demanded.

"Sorry?"

"That word you used... 'left... overs,' was it? I'm not familiar with that term."

"It's probably Bulgarian," Smush suggested smoothly. "Sherlock is a Bulgarian name, is it not? Please, share with us the exotic customs and unique terminology of your mother country - it's the whole reason we moved to the big city!"

"I'm from New Jersey," Anthony Sherlock responded.

"Hello, Panda Garden?" Paul Yell said into the telephone. "I'd like to place an order for takeaway. Have you got a robust pen handy? It's going to be at least 35 dishes." 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 44

"Good morrow, Mogey," Smush stated when his pal welcomed him into the parlor one fine morning. "How does your cousin fare? I recall you mentioning he was your houseguest this fortnight."

"Cousin Bogey?" Mogey said. "He's exhausted, to be honest. He was up all night talking to Ralph on the big white phone, if you catch my drift."

"I believe I do," Smush replied.

"He was praying to the porcelain god - know what I mean?"

"Say no more," Smush confirmed.

Just then the door bell rang. Mogey and Smush answered it together, finding a little man in a white tuxedo standing on the front stoop in the blinding sunshine. His moustache was curled so high that it touched the brim of his white top hat, and he kept both thumbs tucked into his suspenders.

"Are you..." Mogey mumbled.

"... Ralph Flushing, the toilet king of the west?" he and Smush continued together.

"Yes sirs, I am," Ralph Flushing confirmed, "though I must say I'm quite partial to the nickname Lord Rumbly gave me when I plumbed his entire country house in less than 24 hours."

"'The Porcelain God," Mogey and Smush intoned. Ralph Flushing nodded. 

"I believe that caller is for me," hollered a voice from up the stairs. This utterance was followed immediately by the descent of Mogey's cousin Bogey, taking the steps three-at-a-time.

The family resemblance was tenuous at best. Bogey stood at least twice Mogey's height and perhaps one third of his width, and yet on that morning he wore a pair of pajamas borrowed from his cousin. A long stalk of wheat hung from Bogey's mouth, though his garments could not have looked less cowboy-like.

"Ah, the very young man I'm here to see," Ralph Flushing gushed. Turning to Mogey, he continued, "your cousin is quite impressive! We talked for hours over the telephone last evening, and the praise he heaped upon me and my operation was most flattering. He even stopped by my estate in the wee hours and tossed cookies through several of my open windows. Yes, Bogey, I'm here to offer you a job at my company, and I hope you'll consider it." 

And that is the story of how Bogey became the Chief Marketing Officer at Flushing Toilets, the position in which he would come to entirely reshape the public discourse on the commode. 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 43

"I sense... perturbations in your aura," murmured Madam Damad, her hands clutching Smush's temples. 

"Probably the cheetos I ate with lunch," Smush suggested.

"Smush!" Mogey chastised. "Madam Damad is the finest fortune teller in the district. She says sooths with the best of 'em. I don't think your lunch has anything to do--"

"Crunchy or puffed?" Madam Damad interrupted.

"Crunchy," Smush replied.

"Funny. The texture of your aura is more consistent with a puffed corn snack." 

"Well," said Smush thoughtfully, "they were flamin' hot if that matters."

"Ahhhhh," Madam Damad answered. "That explains it. Yes, the spiciness of the cheese dust makes all the difference in the world."

"So... what's the future hold for me?" Smush asked. 

Madam Damad unveiled her crystal ball and gazed into its murky depths. "I foresee..." she murmured, "a dinner table. Your dinner table. The one at which you will sup this very evening. And upon it I see... even more cheetos."

"WOW!" Smush exclaimed. "You were right, Mogey. She is good!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 42

"You know what I'm really craving?" Mogey said to the waitress at Macaulay Cluckin's Hen Alone Diner. "An omelette. A big five-egger with muenster cheese. What do you say?" 

"We don't serve omelettes here," the waitress replied. "And quite frankly it's offensive that you would even ask." 

(It is probably worth noting at this point that the waitress, like all the staff at Macaulay Cluckin's, was a four-foot-tall talking chicken.) 

"Sheesh," Mogey responded, "everyone's so sensitive these days. Guess I'll just stick with the mile-high stack of flapjacks."

"I'll have the same," Smush chimed in.

"You know the mile-high is meant to be shared, right?" the waitress buckawed. "It's twenty-five flapjacks doused in a half pound of butter and a quart of maple syrup."

"So by 'shared' you mean... " Smush pondered, "like, there's room on the plate to order something else?" 

"I'll just bring two orders," the waitress clucked, snatching the menus and hopping haughtily away. 

"Pooh pooh and phooey!" Mogey muttered. "How am I to start a day off right without any eggs to eat?"

"It's 1:30 PM," Smush answered.

"Psst!" whispered a scoundrel sitting in the next booth, "youse guys want some eggs? I can hook you up." 

He swung open his trench coat to reveal a dozen tiny pockets, each of which was occupied by an individual hard-boiled egg. 

"Don't do it, Mogey!" Smush urged. "We'll get in trouble."

"Pipe down, narc," Mogey said. Turning back to the reprobate in the next booth he asked, "how much?"

"Tell youse what. Cut me in on a couple of those flapjacks and we'll call it even." 

"MISS! MISS!" Mogey shouted, flagging down the waitress and pointing to the egg smuggler. "This gentleman is attempting to sell us contraband! And what's worse, at completely outrageous prices. Such behavior in Macaulay Cluckin's I've never seen before. He should be escorted from the premises at once!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 41

A curious feature of the estate Smush had inherited from his Great Uncle Mush von Tush was a miniature volcanic vent known to some as "that real hot hole." In olden times the tiny caldera had been alternately worshipped, studied, and used as the town's primary way to execute bean thieves. Mogey and Smush, of course, used the hellacious gash in the earth's crust for baking bread.

"Oh no. Oh heavens no," Mogey groaned as he gazed into the Hot Hole's brimstoney depths. 

"What is it?" Smush asked.

"One of the loaf pans got pushed too far in. It's sitting in double L."

"Double L? You mean 'Literal Lava??'" Now it was Smush's turn to groan. "What did we have baking in that one?"

"That's the worst news of all," Mogey replied. "It's cinnamon-raisin-bacon." 

Smush's howl was even louder than some of the olden time bean thieves' had been. "We've got to do something!" he exclaimed. "Here: try these oven mitts."

"What temp are those bad boys rated for?" Mogey asked skeptically. 

"I'm not sure," Smush answered, examining the lining of the bright pink mitts. "Ah! It says here 'Approved for Use in Easy-Bake Oven Only.' You know how hot those things get? You should be fine."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 40

"Whatever is wrong, Mogey?" Smush exclaimed, seeing his pal emerge from the kitchen, weeping uncontrollably.

"Oh nothing," said Mogey with a sniff, "I've just chopped a vast quantity of onions. But now what's the matter with you?"

"I'm sorry!" Smush blubbered. "A vast quantity of any vegetable fills me with sorrow and dread."

"Don't worry, Smush ol' buddy, it's a vast quantity of onions to make an even vaster quantity of cheesesteaks."

At this pronouncement, Smush broke into even more hysterical tears.

"What is it now?" Mogey asked. 

"Tears of joy!" Smush howled.

"What is all this racket? Are you both... crying?" demanded Mug Tuffins, the third resident of the pals' humble abode. Mug worked part time as a bouncer at McKishi's, the Irish pub catering exclusively to sumo wrestlers. "Stop it this instant! There is no excuse for whinging and whining - none whatsoever!"

"Oh yeah?" Mogey whimpered (he had joined Smush in crying tears of joy at the prospect of vaster quantities of cheesesteaks).

"Yeah!" Mug Tuffins confirmed.

"What if... what if silver screen legend Champ Rawhide leaves you a voicemail telling you he's proud of you?" Mogey suggested.

Mug Tuffins did not respond, but even contemplating such a voicemail caused a single tear to spill down his cheek. 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 39

"I'm hurtin', Smush," Mogey groaned. "I don't think I've ever been this dehydrated." 

"Why'd you say that in a cockney accent?" Smush inquired.

"What?"

"'Dehydrated.' Why'd you say it like 'dee-hoy-dray-ed?'"

"I just thought that was how it was pronounced."

"Well I can't say as I'm surprised," Smush replied. "You have been working your way through that trough of extra hot chicken wings (in both temperature and flavor) under the midday sun while wearing a sweater."

"It's my special brow-moppin' sweater!" 

"As I stated," Smush continued, "I can't say as I'm surprised. Want a gatorade?"

"What have I told you," shouted a suddenly-energized Mogey, grabbing Smush by the lapels, "about using that term? You know about my family!"

"Ah, right - sorry," said Smush, brushing extra hot chicken wing residue from his lapels. "What was it? Your stepfather was a gator, or something?"

"Toothsome Muggins was an alligator," Mogey corrected, "and a saint. 'Gator' is a pejorative term. When my birth father left us high and dry to pursue a career on the silver screen only to find out his real talent was selling silver screens for Andersen Windows & Doors, guess who stepped up?"

"Toothsome Muggins?"

"Toothsome Muggins," Mogey confirmed. "He might not have had much education beyond swamp grammar school, but no one could ask for a more loving, generous, and scaly stepfather."

"What a guy," said Smush admiringly. "Now then, back to hydration for a moment. Can I offer you a... generic electrolytic thirst quencher?"

"Fierce Grape, please!" Mogey replied. 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 38

"Oh ho! Here's an interesting question," Mogey said, twiddling a pencil.

"There are no 'interesting questions' in the personal ads, Moge-man," Smush sighed. "Just the rich stench of desperation."

"Come now, Smushster - you've got so much to offer. And I can assure you that the classified section of the Cheeseburgh Tribune is the perfect place to let the real you shine!"

"Very well. What fascinating prompt have the editorial staff of the ol' Cheese Trib supplied?"

Mogey glanced back at the personal ad application. "Are you more of a night owl or an early bird?" he read out.

"Flawed logic," Smush rejoined. "It can't be answered."

"Why not?"

"Well I'm not either one, am I? Firstly, I have no wings. Secondly, I have no feathers apart from that inexplicable patch of plumage on my right shoulder blade. And thirdly, I like to sleep all night and deep into the morning. Plus frequent naps. Maybe you should call me an 'afternoon koala?' Or an 'early evening opossum?'"

"I'll write that much like the mighty lion, you appreciate your sleep but possess the passion of a jungle cat."

"Fine," Smush agreed. "While we're on lion similarities, add that I have an unkempt mane and eat two-to-three gazelles per week. That'll start really painting a picture for the ladies."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 37

Whenever Mogey and Smush required funds for a hair-brained scheme - or even a bald-brained scheme, for that matter - they paid a visit to Chairmole Joel, the visionary angel investor and burrower. 

"Mr. Chairmole," Mogey began, pacing the subterranean boardroom, "we've got a can't-miss proposition for you."

"We know Lizards-on-Demand didn't quite take off the way all of us expected," Smush continued, "but this business model is much sounder." 

Joel blinked his beady black eyes at them, gesturing with a shovel-like paw to continue.

"How often," Mogey said, "when you've been eating pizza, have you said to yourself... 'I wish this had twice as much cheese?'"

"And how often," Smush added, "have you then thought 'aw, shucks, that'll never work - twice the cheese will burn the roof of my mouth?'"

Chairmole Joel's star-shaped nose quivered with excitement. 

"Well, Mr. Chairmole," Mogey concluded, "we've solved both those problems."

"May I present," Smush said, dramatically opening a mysteriously bulbous pizza box, "the pizzadilla!"

Chairmole Joel whipped his checkbook out and was furiously scribbling before Smush finished saying "dilla!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 36

The orchard was a lovely place to be on an autumn morning. That is, if you had the right attitude. Mogey and Smush did not have the right attitude.

"How can I be expected to work when it's hotter up here than the mouth of a feverish man who's just eaten the world's spiciest eggplant parmesan?" Mogey complained from the top of the ladder.

"It's a cool fall day," Smush replied. "There's a downright chill in the air!"

"Not up here, there's not," Mogey said as he mopped his brow. 

"Eat an apple or two to cool yourself down," Smush suggested. 

Always happy to try out a solution involving food, Mogey selected a red delicious from the closest tree and took a large chomp. 

"Uh oh," Smush interrupted. "Here comes the boss! We're not supposed to be munching the product - quick, eat the evidence!"

"Core and all?" Mogey said thickly. 

"Yes!" Smush urged him. "All of it - down the hatch!" 

"Wot's all this, then?" demanded Foreman Belch, rounding into view. Belch was a hop toad who stood four foot high, four foot wide, and four foot deep. 

"Just pickin', boss," Smush replied.

"And you?" Foreman Belch inquired of Mogey, whose mouth was so crammed full of apple parts that he could scarcely breathe. 

Mogey offered what he hoped was an enthusiastic thumbs-up. 

"Come down this ladder and open your mouth," Foreman Belch ordered. Mogey descended, but kept his pie-hole firmly shut. "Don't force me to make you laugh, young man." Still Mogey refused.

So Foreman Belch doffed his cap, inflated his dewlap, and performed the act that had earned his legendary ancestors their surname, all those centuries ago. For the first 30 seconds of the Foreman's heroic burp, Mogey held it together, but when the eructation went up an octave, it was no use. Mogey collapsed into hysterics, showering Foreman Belch in apple parts.

"You are hereby relieved of apple picking duty," Foreman Belch intoned. "I'll need your apple grabber and your badge. And may I say, you are a disgrace to the apple picker's uniform."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 35

"And who might you be?" Smushed asked, cooly leaning against the doorframe. The young man on the front stoop removed his hat and stepped eagerly forward.

"The name's Jonjamin Cooper-Schmutz," he said, extending a hand, "and I'm here to talk to you about... about... say, is that a piece of uncooked spaghetti in your mouth?"

"Linguini," Smush replied, clenching the hard pasta in his teeth like a matchstick. "Now what's your game, Cooper-Schmutz? Vacuum cleaners? Tupperware?" 

"Brownies, actually," Jonjamin Cooper-Schmutz replied.

"You're a door-to-door brownie salesman?"

"Indeed I am."

Moments later, Smush burst into the drawing room, his new acquaintance in tow. "Drop everything, Mogey!" he exclaimed. "This here is Jonjamin Cooper-Schmutz, and he's got a sales pitch that's about to blow your noggin clean off."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 34

"Have you any plans this afternoon?" Mogey asked from behind the morning paper.

"Not really," Smush replied. "I was thinking of hanging around Farmer Buxby's honesty stall until he closes it up. Sometimes he chucks me a couple of free eggs. What about you?"

"Oh... me? No. No plans. Nothing at all in the old calendaroni," Mogey said.

"Uh huh--"

"You know what we could do?" Mogey interrupted. "Says here there's a performance by the world famous Famiglia Fantoccio marionette troupe down at the Palladium."

"Nope! No thank you. No more puppet shows. Not after last time."

"Come now, Smush. That was the old me! I'd never get up to such childish antics nowadays. Besides, the Famiglia Fantoccio advertisement also notes they'll have ten cent pickled eggs - you won't find those at Buxby's honesty stall!"

"Alright!" Smush acquiesced. "I'll do it for the eggs. But - and I really mean it, old chum - you had better not even THINK about 'Senor Queso' making an appearance." 

From the moment the curtain went up that afternoon, the audience was enthralled. The Famiglia Fantoccio performers used their intricate marionette creations to weave a moving story of longing, betrayal, and sick dance moves. And the pickled eggs tasted divine. 

At last the play reached its denouement, a heartbreaking ballad sung by the story's heroine.

"And though I fall," sang La Contessa Feroce, "I may hope you live on! For the death of this war... is the breaking of the--"

"CHEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!" a voice in the balcony bellowed, upstaging the puppeteer's final note. Every eye in the Palladium swiveled toward the offender, a crude sock puppet with googly eyes and a pink mohawk. This rude creature sat upon the fist of none other than Mogey.

"Oh no," groaned Smush. 

 "That's right!" the sock puppet continued. "Senor Queso is back and cheesier than ever!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 33

"Care to join me for some morning calisthenics tomorrow?" asked Beefy Boeuf Herman, the world's buffest rat and the pal's houseguest for the month.

"Calisthenics?" demanded Smush.

"Morning??" demanded Mogey even more vociferously.

"Certainly," Beefy Boeuf replied. "Come now, chaps - it'll be a laugh!"

Somehow - and it may have had something to do with Beefy Boeuf's ability to wiggle his ears and flex his triceps simultaneously - the pals agreed to join their guest for exercise at dawn. 

"Good day, chaps!" Beefy Boeuf Herman greeted his red-eyed, tousle-haired, growl-stomached hosts the following morning.

"Garumph," Mogey and Smush growled in unison. 

"Impressive," said Beefy Boeuf. "But what seems to be the problem?"

"We haven't put on our gym socks in ages," Smush admitted.

"And they're a skosh tight," Mogey added.

"Not to worry," Beefy Boeuf rejoined. "I'll pitch in!" 

But the task was not easy. In the time since Mogey and Smush had last donned gym socks, their ankles had increased three-to-four hundred percent in girth, and the fibers of the socks had become as inelastic as their owners. With Beefy Boeuf's help, they heaved and they hoed, they pulled and they pulled, until finally, foreheads glistening, they got to their freshly-socked feet.

"Whew!" Mogey exclaimed immediately after donning his socks. He clapped Beefy Boeuf on the back. "Good workout!"

"What are you--," Beefy Boeuf began, but he was interrupted by Smush, who was in the process of peeling his gym socks back off.

"Agreed," Smush commented. "Now what kind of post-exercise recovery meal are we having? I've heard chocolate milk is quite helpful... would a double fudge frappe not be even more helpful?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 32

"You hungry, Smush?" Mogey enquired. "I'm making up a pot of rice."

"Oh indeed," Smush replied. "I'm hungrier than a man who's just eaten an entire Christmas goose."

"Uh... huh. So you're hungry, then?"

"Very. I'm so hungry I could eat the world's smallest whale."

"Then how much rice would you like?" said Mogey, clearly still parsing his pal's words.

"Lots!" said Smush. "At least eight."

"Eight... grains of rice?" 

"Well, at least eight, yeah. I could easily eat more than a thimbleful."

"Who taught you how to make analogies?" Mogey demanded.

"You did," said Smush. "At our weekly lunch-and-learn. Remember?"

"Well I clearly did a terrible job," Mogey replied. "Because I'm more confused than a celebrated mathematician taking a freshman-level algebra quiz."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 31

By the time they neared the front of the line, Mogey and Smush had been waiting for a half hour, which was about 29 minutes longer than they traditionally waited for food.

"I think my body is going into shock," Mogey murmured, clutching the wall despite the fact that he and Smush had consumed multiple "line snacks," including an entire roast chicken. 

"Stay strong, Mogester," Smush urged his pal. "We're almost there, and they say these sandwiches are to die for."

At last it was their turn, and the pals approach a counter staffed by an exceptionally warty toad wearing a chef's hat.

"Puzzle or fact?" the toad enquired.

"Wot?" said Mogey. 

"I may have neglected to mention," Smush admitted, "that to order our sandwiches, we must first satisfy Riddlin' Dave, the amphibious master of this fine establishment. We choose 'Puzzle' please, Dave!"

"Ribbit," Riddlin' Dave replied. "In the morning I march, in the evening I waltz, and the entire time I move not an inch. What--Ribbit!--am I?"

"What sort of torture chamber have you brought me to?" Mogey demanded, searching his pockets for any chicken bones he hadn't gnawed fully clean.

"It's ok, Moge-man, we can do this!" Smush said. 

"Ribbit!" Riddlin' Dave agreed. But though the pals thought and thought and ate a king-size bag of cheddar & onion crisps from the shelf beneath the counter and then thought some more, they didn't have the faintest idea how to solve Riddlin' Dave's riddle.

"Thirty--Ribbit!--seconds remaining before I move to the next--Ribbit!--customer," Riddlin' Dave said. 

"Wait a second, that's it!" Mogey exclaimed. "Riddlin' Dave is no frog - he's a toad! And I've never known a toad to ribbit before. He's been giving us a clue this whole time. The answer must be a bit of rib!"

"Mogey, you genius, you've done it again!" Smush shouted. "Riddlin' Dave, our answer is: a 'rib bit.'"

"You know," said Riddlin' Dave, "I've--Ribbit!--never actually seen a customer get the answer so spectacularly wrong, and with such confidence. You have my respect and my concern in equal measure. What--Ribbit!--kind of sandwiches can I get you boys?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 30

As Mogey and Smush were snorkeling at the highly-exclusive, all-inclusive, slightly-elusive resort known as Sand 'n Stuff, Smush began to struggle. At first he spluttered, then he thrashed, and in mere moments he was down. And by "down," of course we mean he was inverted, with his feet in the air and his head underwater. As has been covered in these records previously, Mogey and Smush were both excellent flotation devices. 

But bobbing at the surface doesn't matter much when your breathing apparatus - nose, mouth, and snorkel all - are beneath the waves, so Smush was in trouble. 

Luckily, Sand 'n Stuff was staffed by Flotilla the Hon, a lifeguard who was quite buoyant in his own right, and a sweetheart to boot. Flotilla sprang into action, paddling out to Smush's position, flipping him upright, and then hauling him out of the water.

"Easy there, big fella," said Flotilla, depositing Smush in the sand and inspecting his snorkel. "What seems to be the--say! What's this gunk in your snorkel?"

"Don't... touch..." Smush murmured breathlessly, "my... hot... fudge."

"Hot fudge in a snorkel?" Flotilla the Hun exclaimed. "No wonder you couldn't breathe!"

"Ahh, Flotilla," said Mogey stickily. He took a pull off his own fudgy snorkel and gave a pat on the back to the naive young lifeguard, "'tis the only way to live!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 29

"Well, Mogey," said Smush, returning from the pantry with a bundle of candles under his arm. "I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that I finally found that chocolate donut hole that rolled off the table last month." 

"Is that the source of the crumbs on your moustache?" Mogey asked.

Smush peeled off his moustache to regard it, nodded, and pasted it back upon his upper lip.

"So you didn't save any for me?" Mogey exclaimed. "I'm not sure how that's good news. What's the bad news?"

"We're out of candles," Smush disclosed. "It's time for us to call on... the chandler."

"Confound it!" said Mogey. "I can't face him again. I can't! And I won't." 

But the need for light won out in the end. After all, it is said that you eat with your eyes first, and in Mogey and Smush's case, less than an hour after their last candle guttered out, Mogey had already choked on two separate chicken bones, and Smush had accidentally swallowed an entire baby back rib. So they turned up on the chandlery doorstep, ready to face the music as it were. 

"Ah ha!" shouted Bose Bumbous as he opened the door. The sturdy chandler was only four feet tall, but it was said he once defeated a team of oxen in tug-of-war. "Two of my favorite customers." 

"Yep," grumbled Smush. "I don't suppose you've started accepting cash as a form of payment?"

"No sir," Bose Bumbous replied. "We're still a foot massage-only business. My father - and his father before him - believed that the only acceptable payment for a stack of candles was a good old-fashioned foot rub."

Mogey groaned. Bose Bumbous mistook this for a groan of appreciation. 

"Thank you, my friend," Bose Bumbous said. "You know, I do my best to carry on Papa's legacy and run an honest shop here - my prices are still the most reasonable of any chandlery in the province. All I ask is that my customers deliver all foot massages they owe upon receipt of product. Now how many candles can I get you fellers?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 28

Mogey and Smush could not swim, but it didn't matter much. The pals were so buoyant that they could safely bob in virtually any body of water for many hours on end. Bobbing they were one day off Bobbin Beach when suddenly there emerged out of the waves a merman. Specifically it was Kyle the Merman, a person of interest at both Bobbin Beach and Scotland Yard.

"What's good, boys?" said Kyle the Merman. 

"Pshh," Mogey muttered, rolling his eyes.  

"Have I done something to offend you, son?" Kyle asked, rising several inches further out of the water.

"Oh, like you don't remember borrowing my favorite Scooby Doo t-shirt? And never returning it?"

"Couple things," Kyle replied. "Firstly, I live underwater, so unless this t-shirt was made of squid skin it would be a bit impractical. Secondly, do you really think I could fit into one of your t-shirts?" 

Kyle rose fully out of the water. His upper body was what marine biologists would describe as "jacked." 

"He's got some good points there, Moge-man," Smush interjected.

"Well I'm sorry if I don't document the materials each and every one of my garments are made from, but I know you borrowed it!"

"If you disagree that strongly, there's always the option," Kyle the Merman said quietly, "of settling this with fisticuffs." 

"Let's go, Smush," Mogey said, paling slightly. It took quite a while to bob their way back to shore, but as soon as his feet were firmly on dry sand, Mogey called back to Kyle the Merman. "Not so tough now, are ya, ya great overgrown flounder?" 

Without a word, Kyle the Merman launched himself from the water, smacking Mogey across the chest with his massive tail. Mogey felt as though he'd been slapped with the world's largest halibut, and could say not a word as Kyle wriggled back into the sea. 

Smush ran off to find a lifeguard and returned with an overeager, be-speedoed chap. 

"Holy cow!" the young lifeguard exclaimed, looking at Mogey's chest. "Did you get slapped with a big halibut or something?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 27

When the messenger boy stumbled into town, more dead than alive, he brought word that an ancient and most valuable relic had been discovered high in the mountains. There was little interest from the townsfolk. Weak with exhaustion, the messenger managed to murmur that the Wurst im Mund cable car led to the very spot where the relic was hidden, and suddenly the village was alive with questers, Mogey and Smush chief among them.  

After a very pleasant ride up the Wurst im Mund, the questers followed the messenger's directions to the mouth of a dank and mysterious cave. Above the cave's entrance, an inscription had been carved into the living stone: Farcimen non Pemittitur. 

"What's that mean?" Mogey whispered to Smush.

"Probably just nonsense words," Smush replied, taking a big chomp of one of the frankfurters he'd bought at the Wurst im Mund food court.

The questers gathered at the mouth of the tunnel, but they dared not enter, for standing in the opening was a knight, his pristine armor shining in the mountain sun, a white sash stretched over his chest.  

"So can we, erm, go in? Or what?" asked Toadly Punt, a tailor from the village who was part frog and part monkey. 

"First I must assess whether you are pure of heart, my funky friend," the knight announced. 

"Hey, how'd you know I was part frog and part monkey?" 

"The knight knows all," the knight stated pretentiously. "But I was referring to your tie-dye vest." 

"Alright then," said Toadly, satisfied by the funkiness of his vest, "do your thing."

The knight stood motionless for several moments, then thundered, "you desire to use the relic for personal gain. Your heart is impure! You may not enter."

Toadly walked away blubbering. One by one, the other questers stepped up, but each was met with a similar judgment by the knight. When finally Mogey and Smush's turn arrived, the knight paused longer than he had for any of the other questers.

"C'mon, Mogey - let's go," Smush muttered at last.

"Wait!" the knight called out. "Your hearts were difficult to assess, I admit. You," he pointed to Mogey, "have an entire buffalo chicken eggroll lodged in your left ventricle somehow. Yet that does not mean your hearts are impure. You may enter!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 26

Mogey and Smush lingered at the back of their tour group, doing what they often did when they found themselves in premises as dignified as the Museum of Okay Art: plotting. 

"Surely we can have but one goal today, Mogey?" said Smush.

"Agreed." 

"We are in agreement then?"

"Surely," Mogey concurred. 

"The Room of Disgust!" they both stated in unison.

And so the pals snuck away from the group and made their way toward the dingiest corner of the Museum of Okay Art. In the hallway leading up to the infamous exhibit stood a tall rat constructed of plywood. One gnarled paw held a sign that read "You must be at least THIS TALL to enter the Room of Disgust" - the other claw stretched out to demonstrate a height at least a foot above the pals' heads.

"We'll never make it," Mogey lamented. "Even on our tiptoes and wearing platform shoes." 

"But look who's guarding the door," Smush said, pointing further down the hall.

"Is that Snooze McGee?" Mogey exclaimed.

Smush's nod confirmed that the guard was, in fact, the ninja sloth of legend. The tales of his eleventh-degree black belt were exceeded only by his reputation for being sleepy even by sloth standards. 

So the pals squeezed past the snoring guard and stole into the Room of Disgust, trying not to let their eyes linger overlong on Snooze McGee's nunchucks as they passed. Their enthusiasm heightening, Mogey and Smush gazed about the room... and almost immediately their faces fell. The entire contents of the exhibition space seemed to be a still life painting of cabbages, kale, and cauliflower.

"Well this is a bust," Mogey grumped. "What's so awful about a pile of produce?"

"I dunno," Smush replied. "The idea of eating cruciferous veggies certainly gives me the creeps." 

"Come to think of it, you're right. Let's get out of he--wait! What's that noise?"

But the sound was unmistakably the eerie whoosh of nunchucks being twirled by a drowsy - but now very much awake - ninja sloth. 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 25

One damp, grey day, Mogey and Smush could be found in a rowboat, doing what people normally do in a rowboat: cutting a meandering path through the water because they're facing the wrong direction. 

Their destination? A peculiar bakery called Doug H. Nuts' Bagels, Pies, & Cakes that supposedly only served you if you could perform 10 pushups or owned a moustache. Now, the former was a literal impossibility for Mogey and Smush: Mogey's arms were so short that his belly touched the ground even when his elbows were locked, and the term "pushups" made Smush recall Flintstones Push Ups Sherbet Treats so vividly that he inevitably slipped in a puddle of his own drool. 

The pals couldn't grow their own moustaches either, but they had found a way around that by visiting the finest periwig-maker in the community, a hostile young elf named Conrad Phoont who could make you a heck of a fake moustache if you could put up with his constant name-calling.

"Hang your 'secret rowing method!'" Smush exclaimed after their rowboat had described a massive circle in the middle of the lake at Mogey's hand. His tummy was rumbling with desire for bagels, pies, and indeed, cakes. "I'm taking over!"

"You'll have to take these oars from me if you want 'em, you gollumpus!" Mogey replied. 

"One person, and I mean one person only, calls me a gollumpus and gets away with it. That person is Conrad Phoont. And you, my friend, are no Conrad Phoont!" 

Smush lunged at his pal and commenced to pummel him with a vicious combination of open-palm slaps and closed-fist noogies. Mogey returned the favor with a flurry of monkey bites. 

"Oh no," Mogey panted when the fracas finally subsided. "I've lost my moustache overboard. We'll never get into Doug H. Nuts' now!"

"We've got bigger problems," Smush replied. "The oars are gone too."

Some say Mogey and Smush are floating out there still. But some are wrong. What really happened is that they paddled to shore with their hands, then sat on the front porch of Doug H. Nuts' blubbering so severely that Doug H. Nuts himself brought them a bagel, pie, and cake apiece. 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 24

"What are you two numbskulls doing lurking around my front garden?" hollered Wizard Mike, Mogey and Smush's next door neighbor.

"We're not lurking!" Mogey insisted.

"Loitering, maybe," Smush acknowledged. "Lingering, certainly. But not lurking."

"Whatever you're doing, why are you doing it on my walk?" Wizard Mike asked.

"We were hoping you might have some work for us," Mogey rejoined.

"We're ten pieces of silver short for admission to the new zoetrope show at the civic center," said Smush.

"They've got a zoetrope of a monkey eating a cupcake that'll blow your mind, supposedly," Mogey added. 

Wizard Mike regarded the pals thoughtfully. He muttered as if trying to convince himself of something, then leafed through his day planner.

"Alright," he said at last. "If you weed my sunflower patch, I shall pay you the sum of ten pieces of silver."

Mogey and Smush glanced at the sunflower patch, which appeared to have only a single weed growing in it. 

"Make that ten pieces of silver," Smush negotiated.

"Deal," replied Wizard Mike. 

The pals approached the sunflower patch.

"This'll be the easiest ten pieces of silver we've ever made," said Mogey, gripping the offending plant. He pulled and the weed came up easily, but its roots seemed to be longer than its aboveground parts. Mogey was standing now, weed in hand, but the roots still trailed down into the soil. He pulled and he pulled, dragging up yard after yard of roots, but still he had not reached the bottom.

"I probably should've mentioned," said Wizard Mike, striding over with his nose still in his day planner, "how that there is a Neverending Knotweed. It was planted - I suspect - by my mortal enemy, Warlock Greg. But do your best, boys, alright?"

Hours later, Mogey stood beside a coil of knotweed root stacked twelve feet tall. His hands were raw, his back ached, his Kiss the Cook t-shirt was filthy. 

"Fight through the pain, Moge-man!" Smush encouraged. "Surely we're almost there by now. Just imagine how cool it's going to be to watch that monkey eating that cupcake!"