The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 7

Mogey and Smush's wagon rumbled through a crossroads that was unremarkable except for the odd preponderance of skulls laying about, an ominous swirl of mist, and the sound of a creaking hinge, though there were no rusty gates to be seen.

Suddenly there appeared between them on the buckboard a creature of pure malice, from the tips of its crimson horns to the knuckles of its goat-like hooves.

"Uncle Eugene?" Mogey exclaimed.

"No, Mogey, ya numbskull!" Smush admonished his pal. "It's the fellow we've been waiting for." With that, Smush whipped a green-tinted visor onto his head and pulled out a pad of paper and a grease pencil. 

"You've been... waiting... for me?" the demonic being inquired uncertainly.

"Why d'you think we've been driving by this crossroads where people are constantly emerging with boots full of gold, unlimited knowledge, and extremely fresh jump shots?" Smush demanded.

The horned beast's look of brash confidence faded almost completely. Its eyes darted from Smush's shrewd note-taking on its right to Mogey - who raised his eyebrows conspiratorially - on its left. But a job is a job. "How'd you like to..." gulp "make a deal?" the fiend asked. 

"I'd like that very much indeed," Smush replied, licking the tip of his pencil. "Now I have two questions off the bat: 1) What's the smallest fraction of soul you're willing to barter with? And 2) What's the exchange rate between, say, one tenth of a soul - a very pure soul like Mogey's, here, mind - and baconator sandwiches?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 6

 "A query, if I may," Mogey submitted as the pals strode through a section of the woodland known as Fungus Alley. "Why are they called toadstools?"

"How d'you mean?" Smush replied.

"Well," Mogey asked, gesturing to the bed of mushrooms that surrounded them, "I've never seen a toad sit on one." 

"I knew it!" declared Smush. "I knew those sunglasses weren't to 'help you bear the blinding white light of the scripture.' You've been napping during church!"

"Nuh uh," Mogey blustered. "I-- it's-- it's the reflection of the candlelight off the vicar's bald head as well. It gives me headaches something awf... alright how could you tell?"

"Because Brother Squoot from the Order of Wart & Slime - that's the all-toad monastery, you know - has been sitting in on services all this month. And what does he sit upon? Nothing more or less than a toadstool."

"I don't believe it," Mogey insisted.

"It's true," croaked a voice nearly beneath their feet. The pals looked down to observe a spadefoot toad perched upon a red-capped toadstool.

"Brother Squoot?" they exclaimed.

"Nay," the toad replied. "Tis I, Brother Buns, but I too am a member of the Order of Wart & Slime. And I must say, I know you young pipsqueaks like to sit on all manner of contraptions these days: your bean bag chairs and your pickup truck liftgates. Your skateboards and your stacks of Texas toast. Call me old-fashioned, but a toadstool is where my rear end belongs."

Mogey and Smush simply blinked at him.

"Welp," said Brother Buns, "I'd better get back to the monastery. The next batch of hallucinogenic tea isn't going to brew itself." 

And with that, Brother Buns hopped away.

"I think," opined Mogey, "that was the clearest answer I've ever received to a question I posed in Fungus Alley."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 5

 Fritz Twist Grist Mill was the best flourmaker in the district, a local institution that Mogey and Smush visited frequently. Counterintuitively, however, they usually kept their modest cereal crop at home and turned it into just that - cereal (Froot Loops, or occasionally, Sugar Smacks) - so the pals rarely had any grains for Fritz Twist to grind. The product they really came to traffic in was the second specialty of Fritz Twist and millers everywhere: gossip.

"Oy oy, Fritz," said Smush as the pals strode into the grist mill, "what's the good word?" 

"Grmph," grunted the be-overalled artisan without looking up from his spinning millstone.

"Got some news for us then, Twisty my boy?" Mogey queried.

"Ech," Fritz replied, even gruffer than before.

"Surely you've heard some update about who poisoned Oink O'Dooley's prize pig?" Smush asked. "Or the Pickleburt twins: which one chose true love and which one chose to inherit their father's duck, bean, and oatmeal farm?" 

"Meh," Fritz responded, with a shrug of his shoulders. But just then, Byron Pickleburt himself entered the mill carrying an immense sack of oats, his normally immaculate hat covered in bean vines and duck feathers.

"Oh ho ho!" Mogey exclaimed, pointing at the twin and tsking his tongue. "I see we have our answer. Choosing money over love - it's no wonder they call you 'Buy-ron.' But how can you live with yourself, knowing that the lovely Miss Dahlia Chung will be on the arm of your infernal twin Pepper Pickleburt forever more?" 

"Wot?" said Byron in a daze. 

"Everytime I think you can't possibly out-tittle-tattle yourself..." Smush murmured to the grist mill's proprietor. "Fritzy, you old scandalmonger, you've done it again!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 4

 "Shhh," Mogey shushed Smush as they crept through the gloomy wood. On this moonless night, the forest lay darker than the skin of an avocado so ripe it would scarcely be suitable for guacamole. And yet, Mogey and Smush searched. 

What could draw these (admittedly torpid) pals from their chambers on such an evening? There was a good reason. Rumor had it that the Nuisance Nine, the famous prankster group, was meeting in secret this very night in this very wood to plan their annual ruse. Mogey and Smush wanted desperately to find out what prank was coming so they could ensure that this year, for once, it would not involve them. Also Smush believed he had dropped half a zagnut bar during his afternoon constitutional. 

A bluish-whitish glow amidst the trees ahead further increased the pals' caution, and after a few more moments' walking, they came upon a creature most peculiar. In a small clearing stood a unicorn, its pearly form emanating the radiance that had drawn them near. And yet it was translucent. Through its body, the friends could see - though palely - the shapes of trees that rose directly behind the mysterious animal. From this description you may be imagining a beautiful being, awe-inspiring in its ethereal presence. But nothing could be further from the truth: The unicorn was ugly as heck.

"Are you Malicious, the ghostly unicorn?" Mogey whispered.

"Nay," the horned horse whinnied. Mogey and Smush shrugged.

"Well, any idea where the Nuisance Nine are hiding out?" Smush queried.

"Nay," the unicorn repeated.

"D'you think you could give us a nod of the head or something if you know the answer to our questions?"

"Nay."

"Maybe he's just an odd-looking ordinary horse?" Mogey hypothesized. 

"An O.L.O.H.?" Smush acknowledged. "Possibly. Are you a real unicorn?"

"FINALLY!" the unicorn exclaimed. He spoke with a powerful voice and an even more powerful lisp. "Yeth, I'm a unicorn! Duh. My name ith Pernicious, the unicorn ghost. Malicious, the ghostly unicorn, ith my archrival and longtime crush."

"But why did you keep nay-ing before?" Mogey inquired.

"It'th part of my curthe. If I'm asked yay-or-nay quethtions and the answer ith no, I can only rethpond with a 'nay.'"

"Curse?" Smush asked.

"Indeed," said the unicorn. "The sorcereth who thent me to the grave wathen't thatisfied with taking my life. She had to curthe me too!" He (somehow) heaved a hoof around Smush's shoulder conspiratorially. "To be honetht, I probably detherved it. Yep, when old Pernicious wath alive, he wath a bit of a withe guy."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 3

It was a conundrum. Mogey stood at the counter of Sir Up E. Sugarman's candy store trying to decide between a chocolate-chocolate mallowbun and a double scoop of liquorice allsorts.

"I promised Smush I'd get him a mallowbun," Mogey said aloud, "but Sugarman's got a double scoop of liquorice allsorts for the price of a single scoop of liquorice allsorts."

"We know," grumbled the increasingly flustered young candy clerk. "You've been over this several times."

"Smush has been talking for ages about a fresh mallowbun," Mogey continued, "but I only have coin enough for one or the other. And who knows when a liquorice allsorts deal like this will come around again?"

"As I have stated," said the clerk, "this deal is available every Thursday."

"I just can't decide!" Mogey exclaimed, when suddenly he felt a weight descend on his left shoulder. 

"Choose the allsorts," whispered a seductive voice in his ear. "C'mon. You deserve it." 

Mogey turned to behold a tiny man perched on his trapezius. The little fellow wore a red top hat and a devilish grin. A prodigious quantity of chest hair spilled forth from his shirt collar.

"You think?" Mogey queried. "But what about Smush? He loathes liquorice."

No sooner had he asked this follow-up question than a second mini-man appeared, this one on his right shoulder. The newcomer wore a similar top hat, though white in color, and his upper body was equally hirsute.

"Forget about Smush," said the white-capped character. "Go with the double scoop."

"Aren't you supposed to convince me to do the right thing?" Mogey asked him.

"Two points. First: why in the world would you think that? And second: liquorice is always the right thing, baby!"

"Well if my conscience says it's ok..." 

"Whoa, whoa whoa," interrupted the red-hatted fellow. "Conscience?"

"You know," Mogey explained, "the angel and devil on my shoulder?"

The diminutive creatures burst out laughing so hard that milk shot out of both their noses, though Mogey hadn't seen them drink any milk. 

"Devil?" the one in the red hat guffawed. "Angel? We're Allsorts Sprites, ya knucklehead! We're here for one reason and one reason only: to convince you you to buy liquorice and then mooch relentlessly."

Mogey turned his attention back to the candy shop clerk. "I'll take the double scoop of liquorice allsorts whenever you're ready," he said. 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 2

 Once per month, Mogey and Smush would enjoy what they called a Tin Can Supper: a smorgasbord of delicacies from many cultures and climates, with the unifying factor that everything they ate came from a can, jar, or bottle. Also, beans would always be present. 

For some, the very premise of such a meal would've been a low point in the month, but Mogey and Smush awaited Tin Can Supper with great enthusiasm. After all, the tradition featured three of their favorite dining elements: name brands, discount prices, and beans.

"Have you ever thought about what other kinds of food could be tinned?" Mogey queried as he laid a sardine carefully on a piece of brown bread.

"That's what I think about in the shower every morning," Smush replied, scarfing down a spoonful of sweetened condensed milk topped with fruit cocktail. 

"And?" asked Mogey. "What conclusions have you come to?" As he spoke, he dunked a pair of baked beans into some refried beans.

"Croissants," Smush said, pronouncing it qua-sahnts.

"Croissants?"

"Cold canned croissants," Smush confirmed. "Every morning I dream of them, and every morning I am disappointed to remember that they do not exist." 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 1

 Mogey arrived at Smush's cottage one foggy morning clad in galoshes, woolen overalls, and a diving mask. Smush opened the door at Mogey's knock, his look of groggy confusion a perfect facsimile of Eli Whitney's face the first time he ever saw cotton candy.

"What are you up to?" Smush asked. "And what's with the snorkeling goggles?"

"How dare you?" Mogey exclaimed, hands on hips.

"Oh biscuits. What've I said this time?"

"Snorkeling? Goggles? I've never heard such profanity before 10 o'clock in the morning."

"For biscuits' sakes," Smush muttered, "those aren't rude words. I was talking about your eyewear! People call those things 'goggles' after their inventor, Federico di Goggliano. And many use them to go snorkeling, a watersport named after its inventor, Federico di Snorkeliano. What in the world do you use 'em for?" 

"These?" Mogey replied. "These are my skunkhuntin' specs."

"Holy biscuits! You're hunting for... skunks?"

"Aye," Mogey stated. "Are you in? You'll need some eye protection like me - fumes, you know. But a foggy morning like this is when skunks are easiest to track. I know they don't smell so good, but I promise, you've never had a meat so tender and succulent as a braised skunk haunch."