The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2024 Edition - Episode 17

 Captain Mogey and Co-pilot Smush cruised through the skies in their biplane, scarves flapping in the wind, old-timey aviator's goggles atop their heads, open cans of corn upon their laps.

"Ah!" Smush announced. "Is anything more satisfying than the thrill of flying an aeroplane while munching these sweet sweet niblets?"

"It's true what they say," Mogey agreed, scarfing down an enormous mouthful. "This is nature's candy."

"I love corn as much as the next airman," said Smush. "Perhaps more. Perhaps more than anyone other than Cornelius 'Pone' Puddin, the corn baron and karaoke legend. But I'm fairly certain no one says that."

Before Mogey could respond, their little plane's engine coughed, sputtered, and died. The propeller slowed to a stop. They glided through the air in a stunned and eerie silence. 

"See if she'll restart, Mogey!" Smush urged his pal. "Turn the hand-crank!"

"I'm cranking as hard as I can! The poor gal's got nothing. This might be it, old boy."

"Need a lift, chums?" called a voice from above. 

Mogey and Smush looked skyward to see a mammoth ear of corn. It was an intricately-painted dirigible, and a man in bib overalls and a bright yellow shirt was leaning out the window of its cabin.

"Cornelius 'Pone' Puddin!" Mogey and Smush shouted in unison.

"As my mama used to say," Puddin hollered back, "'you're righter'n the hand I used to tomahawk-dunk that basketball in your face. And stop crying about it, will you?' Anyways, here's a rope."

Puddin unspooled an anchor line toward Mogey and Smush's biplane. The pals exchanged one glance, but they knew they had no choice but to abandon ship. Carefully, they began their ascent to the housing slung below Corn Pone's blimp. 

No sooner had he hauled them aboard than Puddin thrust microphones into Mogey's and Smush's hands. "I sure hope you boys know the Cher parts of I Got You Babe," he said as the opening chords started up. 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2024 Edition - Episode 16

 As Mogey and Smush strode toward Eggs Eggs Eggs: Eggceptional Eggs That'll Make You Begg for their weekly supply of butter and cream, they passed a magician plying his trade in the village square. 

Smush smirked. He loved messing with magicians, and considered himself quite the sleight-of-hand illusionist in his own right. "Greetings," he greeted the would-be sorcerer as he shouldered his way to the front of the crowd.

"Greetings, my good fellows. Fergus Munks, at your service," said the magician, removing his top hat with one hand and fanning a deck of cards with the other. "Now if you'd be so kind: Pick a card, any card."

Smush's smirk increased. Card magic was one of his specialties, and he carried at least three decks with him at all times, including one that exactly matched the deck Fergus Munks was using. Smush selected a card, but surreptitiously swapped it for a gag card: the "Queen of Turnips."

"Show it to your fellow citizens, if you please," said Fergus.

Smush did so, giving the assemblage a knowing wink to let them know they were all in on his practical joke. 

"By golly, Smush," Mogey whispered, "you're entirely too much." 

"Now then," Fergus Munks continued, "what is the suit of your chosen card? Is it hearts? Clubs? Spades? Or perhaps... turnips?"

The crowd gasped. Smush gasped. Mogey burped, but tried to pass it off as a gasp. 

"And since you seem to enjoy turnips so much, I've done you a favor," Fergus stated. "Check the other decks in your pockets."

Smush removed one deck of cards after another: Every last card he carried was now in the suit of turnips. "Mogey, I'm frightened," he said.

Fergus put his arm around Smush, pulling even more turnip cards from Smush's shirtsleeves, his breast pocket, the lobster bib he was still wearing from lunch. "Think twice," the magician muttered under his breath, "before you try to mess with one Fergus Munks."

"Unhand me, you cad!" Smush shouted.

"Ah, but were my hands ever on you at all?" Fergus asked, loud enough for the crowd to hear this time. "Take a look!" 

Smush glanced at his left shoulder, but where he thought he'd felt Fergus's hand, a bag of fresh turnips now rested. Smush shrieked, whacked at the turnips like they were live spiders, and ran from village square.

Mogey leveled his finger at the magician. "Making Smush look a fool was one thing," he admonished, "but exposing him to so many vegetables? That crossed the line, sir."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2024 Edition - Episode 15

 "Well," said Mogey, "where shall we start?"

The pals stood before the fallen remains of Pop Lardo, the oldest and widest tree in the district. Pop had fallen prey to the pepperoni weevil, an invasive insect made all the more destructive by the fact that its bore-holes smelled like fresh-baked pizza (and thus people were reluctant to exterminate them). Now Mogey and Smush would be tasked with clearing the enormous quantity of felled timber from their property.

"Tell you what," Smush replied, "you take the left half and I'll take the right. I guarantee my half will be cut, chopped, and stacked before yours." 

"You're on!" Mogey shouted, hefting an axe and scampering to Pop Lardo's left, where the mighty tree's root system now extended eerily sideways, an alien spaghetti of wood hanging above a yawning hole of fresh earth. 

Mogey got to work immediately, his axe ringing out through the countryside as he hacked at Pop Lardo's carcass. He didn't stop, nor even look up, until the sun had touched the horizon and he'd sweat through (and removed) four separate shirts. Despite all that work, he'd scarcely made a dent: Mogey had removed one of Pop Lardo's larger roots, but only one. 

He walked around to the tree's other side to see how Smush was faring. As he saw his pal's progress, Mogey's jaw dropped. His trousers dropped. (To be fair, his trousers were weighed down by several gallons of sweat, and unlike shirts, he hadn't brought any backups.)

"How in the world have you done this?" Mogey demanded, hurriedly hauling his trousers back to their designated location. 

Smush sat in a plaid lawn chair, an icey, umbrella-bedecked drink in hand, paging through the latest issue of AARP: The Magazine. An entire half of Pop Lardo - dozens and dozens of cords of firewood - stood neatly stacked nearby.

"The weevils," Smush said with a cackle. "No one is better at dismantling lumber, and their chief owes me a favor." 

"I've got to hand it to you, Smushly. This time you've outdone-- wait, what favor?"

"Oh I gave him directions the other day. He and his friends were looking for... they were looking for a..."

"Yes?" Mogey queried.

"I believe their exact request," Smush stammered, "was 'A nice juicy tree. Ideally one so big that it has a name.'"

"Pop Lardo!" Mogey exclaimed. "Smush, you blunderbuss: you've betrayed us!"

"Nay!" Smush countered, though his face flushed scarlet with shame. Mogey and Smush's language always became more old-fashioned in times of turmoil. "It was I who was betrayed! By Boss Stromboli, the chief pepperoni weevil!" Smush pointed at a tiny six-legged insect in a hard hat, who stood atop one of the new firewood stacks. 

"And I'd do it again, too!" Boss Stromboli cackled in his impossibly high voice. He rubbed his thorax with satisfaction. "Your tree was most succulent. Most succulent indeed!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2024 Edition - Episode 14

Mogey and Smush stood together on the highest branch of the tallest tree on the most precarious cliff of the most whimsical mountain in all the Hoemonthaw Range. The wind rushed upward across the rock faces, blowing Mogey and Smush's hair back nearly past their jowls.

"Today," Smush announced, "we fly!"

"But how?" Mogey inquired.

"All our days we've lived earthbound, but dreamt of the skies. Today that all changes!"

"Oh we've dreamt alright. Dreamt galore. Oftentimes you'll stumble into my chambers in your nightclothes, muttering about how you dreamt of flying. And then I'll be like 'No way! I dreamt about flying too!' But again I ask: how?"

Smush reached a hand out into the void. "It's all about reading The Wind," he said dreamily, "and confidence."

"I am no aeronaut," Mogey replied, "but I'm quite certain that's not accurate."

"No, it is," called their guide, Mitch Floatley, from the hot air balloon that hovered nearby. The ballooner stared through a pair of leather aviation goggles and gave them an unmistakable "get on with it" gesture.

"It's time," Smush exclaimed, and he leapt from the limb.

"NO!" Mogey shouted as his pal plummeted earthward from their impossible height. "I can't believe it. He's gone!"

"Hmph," mumbled Mitch Floatley, looking vaguely disappointed.

Suddenly Smush reappeared, balancing awkwardly upon the back of a very put-out looking buzzard. 

"What'd I tell you!" Smush shouted gleefully. "It's all about reading The Wind. Meet Bertie 'The Wind' Buckley, the world's only boxing condor. He's a mediocre boxer, but his wingspan is upwards of 10 feet!" 

"Reading my flight pattern might've helped you land on my back," panted Buckley, "but it's because of your doggone confidence that I allow you to stay."

"That's right!" Smush agreed. "I believed in myself. And more importantly, I believed in you, The Wind."

Despite looking exhausted from the effort of carrying Smush, Bertie "The Wind" Buckley gave a very un-condor-like purr of delight.