The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2026 Edition - Episode 21

"Smush! Smush!" Mogey chortled. "Tell Bahbara that hilarious one-liner you told me the other day."

Smush looked into the expectant eyes of his best pal and one of the most educated sheep in town. "One... liner?" he asked.

"You remember," Mogey encouraged him. "The thing that made me laugh so hard grape soda shot out of my nose?"

"BAH?" Bahbara inquired.

"Yes, Bahbara, it really came out of my nose," Mogey insisted. "Honest!"

"Horrifying scene," Smush confirmed.

"But the one-liner was simply that funny," Mogey said.

"BAH!" Bahbara rejoined.

"Ha! Good one, Bahbara," Mogey chuckled. "But listen to Smush's!"

"Um," said Smush, "there... once was a man from Caroliner / Who was known far and wide as a whiner / But he didn't complain / He popped some champagne / When he crossed the sea on a one-liner." 

"What?" said Mogey.

"BAH!" said Bahbara.

"I have to be honest, Mogey," Smush said. "I haven't any clue what a 'one-liner' is."

"You haven't?"

"No. And I can't recall what I said that made grape soda shoot out your nose."

"You can't?" said Mogey. Smush shook his head. "And your solution was... to make up a poem - an admittedly excellent poem - on the spot?"

"Yes?" said Smush.

"A poem that could not possibly have made grape soda shoot out of my nose the other day... because once again you made it up on the spot?"

"Mmyes..." 

"A poem that by definition contains five lines, rather than one?" 

"Gurg," Smush grunted, at this point too embarrassed to form words.

"Just checking," Mogey replied, seeming satisfied. "C'mon Bahbara, let's go get some funnel cake." 

"BAH!" said Bahbara. 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2026 Edition - Episode 20

Mogey and Smush ran a mouse food shop. It was the only mouse food shop in town, so they had few competitors except for that old antagonist of mouse food purveyors everywhere: crumbs. 

Mogey had inherited the shop from his great uncle Spy C. Brown. Unc Brown had found great success in the mustard industry later in life, but it was only his first business venture, the mouse food shop, that he'd bestowed upon his great nephew. Over the years, Smush had attempted to convince his pal to expand the shop's offerings, at the very least to include other rodent foods, but Unc Brown had made his wishes very clear. 

"Today's the day, Moge-man," Smush said, ting-a-linging the shop's bell as he entered. "You promised me that if we didn't see a customer for 30 straight days, we could finally sell this shop and use the proceeds for those balloon-tying courses we've been wanting to take."

"Gosh, I hope someone comes in today," Mogey groaned.

"Why? Don't you want to be rid of this albatross around your neck once and for all?"

"Albatross? The island prison?" 

"No, Mogey, it's an idi--"

"I suppose it does sometimes feel like the shop is surrounded by shark-infested waters," Mogey said thoughtfully. "If by sharks you mean crumbs."

"Forget the albatross! I just meant--"

"And I even look at myself as a bit of a birdman from time to time," Mogey stated. "Although instead of raising birds, I'm producing foods for mice that are both tasty and nutritious UNLIKE crumbs. Those darn free crumbs."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2026 Edition - Episode 19

Mogey and Smush's race around the world against their archrival pals - Benny and Fergus - was not going well. 

"I think we might've gotten on the wrong train again," Mogey whispered. 

"What makes you say that?" Smush asked.

"What I thought was the caboose turns out to be the engine. We're going the wrong direction entirely!"

"You thought that big steaming iron machine was the caboose?"

"It's been a long eight months," Mogey replied. "And we can't be more than a quarter of the way around the world yet. Here: ask the steward where we're going, would you?" 

"Pardon me," Smush inquired of the dapperly-uniformed young man. "What's your name?"

"Stuart."

"Right - I know you're a steward, but what's your name?" 

"Stuart is my name. Stuart the steward."

"Steward?" Smush asked quizzically.

"Stuart."

"Stuart?" Mogey ventured.

"The steward, yes," the young man answered. "What can I do for you?"

"What is this train's final destination?" Smush asked.

"Ankara."

"See, Mogey? Maybe it's not so bad - we'll end up in Anchor-something. We've been talking for weeks about shifting this journey from land to sea, and surely this Anchorville is right upon the ocean."

Mogey nodded vigorously at this, but Stuart the steward interjected.

"Hate to be the bearer of bad news," he said. "But Ankara is the capital of Turkey. It's many miles from the sea."

Both Mogey and Smush's ears perked up at the mention of Turkey.

"Turkey, you say?" Mogey exclaimed. "That's even better than a port city. We've been talking for weeks about how a good club sangwich might turn this whole race around for us, and surely anyplace called Turkey is packed to the gills with club sangwiches!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2026 Edition - Episode 18

"Smush! Smush! You'll never believe it!" Mogey exclaimed, bursting into his pal's study.

"Mmyes?" Smush replied, peering over the tops of his spectacles. 

Mogey's breathlessness caught up to him - he held up a hand in a plea for time. Smush waited for his doubled-over pal to recover. A minute passed. Two. Smush returned to his book. He read one paragraph. Two.

"Someone... finally... wants to see it!" Mogey gasped at last. 

"See wha-- YOU MEAN THE BALL?" Smush leapt from his chair. His spectacles collided with a taxidermied alligator and shattered into hundreds of pieces, but he paid them no mind. "We have a paying customer for the World's Largest Gumball?" 

Mogey and Smush led the impatient family of tourists - who had been waiting, as you may recall, for at least two minutes plus two paragraphs - out to the barn. With obvious pride, Smush yanked on the curtain pull to reveal their roadside attraction to its first ever visitors.

"What's wrong?" Mogey asked, seeing the obvious dismay on the faces of their guests.

"Um," began the tourist dad uncertainly, "when we saw your billboards we were imagining something a bit less... chewed-on."

"Well you've got to chew the gum or it won't stick together, see?" Smush demonstrated by spitting out the slice of gum he was chewing and adding it to the thousands of other little wads that made up the beach ball-sized sphere.

"But a gumball is its own thing," declared the tourist mom. "You know, like from one of those big gumball machines. It's not a ball of used pieces of gum." 

"This is better than anything you'd find in an old gumball machine," Mogey assured her. "Tell you what: how'd you like to add your very own pieces of gum? You can be part of history! Fruit Stripe or Hubba Bubba?"

The tourist children looked intrigued, but the tourist dad held them back. "I'm not sure..." he began. 

"Oh you've got to add some gum to the ball!" Smush entreated. "Then we'll do commemorative photos. And you really must stop by our gift shop."

One look at the gift shop's World's Largest Gumball earrings, whose packaging proclaimed Made With Genuine Pre-masticated Gum, was enough for the tourist parents to grab their tourist children by the elbows and hustle out of that barn faster than a baby's foot finds the inside of a dirty diaper.