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?"