The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 628

No one had ever come so close to completing the El Dorado Pizzeria Impobstacle Course before. Smush had stunned onlookers with his ability to swim leisurely across the pit of molten lava. He had amazed them when he literally hoisted the main gladiator, Brutalator, on his own petard. He had even inspired tearful surprise at an obstacle called the Poetry Guillotine when he recited a moving soliloquy from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

"Ok, Smush!" Mogey called from the sidelines. "Only one obstacle left, and it's the easiest of them all! You just have to hop onto that six-inch-high platform and hit the red button. C'mon, buddy, win us that medium pepperoni pizza!"

"What do you mean, 'hop?'" Smush asked, examining the platform.

"Just jump up there, two-footed. Like a bunny! Or a kangaroo! Or Pepe Le Pew!"

"I don't know how to do that...."

"Come on, Smush, stop fooling around!" Mogey cried desperately. "Time is running out!"

Smush tried several of the most uncoordinated hops in Impobstacle Course history before finally falling flat on his face as the clock expired.

"Nooooooo!" Mogey howled, falling to his knees. "Our pizza!"

"I knew he didn't have it in him," muttered Brutalator from the top of his petard.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 627

"Ahoy, Mogey!" Smush said as he came inside and stamped the snow off his boots. "What did you get up to this fine day?"

"Not too much," Mogey replied, rolling out of his hammock with a thunk. After more than a dozen attempts at exiting the hammock gracefully, he'd resorted months earlier to padding the landing with a bed of stolen ketchup packets and using a barrel roll technique to escape.

"Didn't you do anything productive?" Smush asked disdainfully.

"Of course I did," Mogey replied with a frown of resentment. "I made the most realistic looking plate of play-doh spaghetti you ever saw. It looked so good that I offered Ferdie a bite to see what would happen; he ate the whole thing before I could stop him!"

"Ferdie... our prize hertfordshire pig?"

"Yes. On a related note, I hope you're in the mood to have blue-tinged porkchops for dinner."