The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 36

The orchard was a lovely place to be on an autumn morning. That is, if you had the right attitude. Mogey and Smush did not have the right attitude.

"How can I be expected to work when it's hotter up here than the mouth of a feverish man who's just eaten the world's spiciest eggplant parmesan?" Mogey complained from the top of the ladder.

"It's a cool fall day," Smush replied. "There's a downright chill in the air!"

"Not up here, there's not," Mogey said as he mopped his brow. 

"Eat an apple or two to cool yourself down," Smush suggested. 

Always happy to try out a solution involving food, Mogey selected a red delicious from the closest tree and took a large chomp. 

"Uh oh," Smush interrupted. "Here comes the boss! We're not supposed to be munching the product - quick, eat the evidence!"

"Core and all?" Mogey said thickly. 

"Yes!" Smush urged him. "All of it - down the hatch!" 

"Wot's all this, then?" demanded Foreman Belch, rounding into view. Belch was a hop toad who stood four foot high, four foot wide, and four foot deep. 

"Just pickin', boss," Smush replied.

"And you?" Foreman Belch inquired of Mogey, whose mouth was so crammed full of apple parts that he could scarcely breathe. 

Mogey offered what he hoped was an enthusiastic thumbs-up. 

"Come down this ladder and open your mouth," Foreman Belch ordered. Mogey descended, but kept his pie-hole firmly shut. "Don't force me to make you laugh, young man." Still Mogey refused.

So Foreman Belch doffed his cap, inflated his dewlap, and performed the act that had earned his legendary ancestors their surname, all those centuries ago. For the first 30 seconds of the Foreman's heroic burp, Mogey held it together, but when the eructation went up an octave, it was no use. Mogey collapsed into hysterics, showering Foreman Belch in apple parts.

"You are hereby relieved of apple picking duty," Foreman Belch intoned. "I'll need your apple grabber and your badge. And may I say, you are a disgrace to the apple picker's uniform."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 35

"And who might you be?" Smushed asked, cooly leaning against the doorframe. The young man on the front stoop removed his hat and stepped eagerly forward.

"The name's Jonjamin Cooper-Schmutz," he said, extending a hand, "and I'm here to talk to you about... about... say, is that a piece of uncooked spaghetti in your mouth?"

"Linguini," Smush replied, clenching the hard pasta in his teeth like a matchstick. "Now what's your game, Cooper-Schmutz? Vacuum cleaners? Tupperware?" 

"Brownies, actually," Jonjamin Cooper-Schmutz replied.

"You're a door-to-door brownie salesman?"

"Indeed I am."

Moments later, Smush burst into the drawing room, his new acquaintance in tow. "Drop everything, Mogey!" he exclaimed. "This here is Jonjamin Cooper-Schmutz, and he's got a sales pitch that's about to blow your noggin clean off."

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?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 30

As Mogey and Smush were snorkeling at the highly-exclusive, all-inclusive, slightly-elusive resort known as Sand 'n Stuff, Smush began to struggle. At first he spluttered, then he thrashed, and in mere moments he was down. And by "down," of course we mean he was inverted, with his feet in the air and his head underwater. As has been covered in these records previously, Mogey and Smush were both excellent flotation devices. 

But bobbing at the surface doesn't matter much when your breathing apparatus - nose, mouth, and snorkel all - are beneath the waves, so Smush was in trouble. 

Luckily, Sand 'n Stuff was staffed by Flotilla the Hon, a lifeguard who was quite buoyant in his own right, and a sweetheart to boot. Flotilla sprang into action, paddling out to Smush's position, flipping him upright, and then hauling him out of the water.

"Easy there, big fella," said Flotilla, depositing Smush in the sand and inspecting his snorkel. "What seems to be the--say! What's this gunk in your snorkel?"

"Don't... touch..." Smush murmured breathlessly, "my... hot... fudge."

"Hot fudge in a snorkel?" Flotilla the Hun exclaimed. "No wonder you couldn't breathe!"

"Ahh, Flotilla," said Mogey stickily. He took a pull off his own fudgy snorkel and gave a pat on the back to the naive young lifeguard, "'tis the only way to live!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 29

"Well, Mogey," said Smush, returning from the pantry with a bundle of candles under his arm. "I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that I finally found that chocolate donut hole that rolled off the table last month." 

"Is that the source of the crumbs on your moustache?" Mogey asked.

Smush peeled off his moustache to regard it, nodded, and pasted it back upon his upper lip.

"So you didn't save any for me?" Mogey exclaimed. "I'm not sure how that's good news. What's the bad news?"

"We're out of candles," Smush disclosed. "It's time for us to call on... the chandler."

"Confound it!" said Mogey. "I can't face him again. I can't! And I won't." 

But the need for light won out in the end. After all, it is said that you eat with your eyes first, and in Mogey and Smush's case, less than an hour after their last candle guttered out, Mogey had already choked on two separate chicken bones, and Smush had accidentally swallowed an entire baby back rib. So they turned up on the chandlery doorstep, ready to face the music as it were. 

"Ah ha!" shouted Bose Bumbous as he opened the door. The sturdy chandler was only four feet tall, but it was said he once defeated a team of oxen in tug-of-war. "Two of my favorite customers." 

"Yep," grumbled Smush. "I don't suppose you've started accepting cash as a form of payment?"

"No sir," Bose Bumbous replied. "We're still a foot massage-only business. My father - and his father before him - believed that the only acceptable payment for a stack of candles was a good old-fashioned foot rub."

Mogey groaned. Bose Bumbous mistook this for a groan of appreciation. 

"Thank you, my friend," Bose Bumbous said. "You know, I do my best to carry on Papa's legacy and run an honest shop here - my prices are still the most reasonable of any chandlery in the province. All I ask is that my customers deliver all foot massages they owe upon receipt of product. Now how many candles can I get you fellers?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 28

Mogey and Smush could not swim, but it didn't matter much. The pals were so buoyant that they could safely bob in virtually any body of water for many hours on end. Bobbing they were one day off Bobbin Beach when suddenly there emerged out of the waves a merman. Specifically it was Kyle the Merman, a person of interest at both Bobbin Beach and Scotland Yard.

"What's good, boys?" said Kyle the Merman. 

"Pshh," Mogey muttered, rolling his eyes.  

"Have I done something to offend you, son?" Kyle asked, rising several inches further out of the water.

"Oh, like you don't remember borrowing my favorite Scooby Doo t-shirt? And never returning it?"

"Couple things," Kyle replied. "Firstly, I live underwater, so unless this t-shirt was made of squid skin it would be a bit impractical. Secondly, do you really think I could fit into one of your t-shirts?" 

Kyle rose fully out of the water. His upper body was what marine biologists would describe as "jacked." 

"He's got some good points there, Moge-man," Smush interjected.

"Well I'm sorry if I don't document the materials each and every one of my garments are made from, but I know you borrowed it!"

"If you disagree that strongly, there's always the option," Kyle the Merman said quietly, "of settling this with fisticuffs." 

"Let's go, Smush," Mogey said, paling slightly. It took quite a while to bob their way back to shore, but as soon as his feet were firmly on dry sand, Mogey called back to Kyle the Merman. "Not so tough now, are ya, ya great overgrown flounder?" 

Without a word, Kyle the Merman launched himself from the water, smacking Mogey across the chest with his massive tail. Mogey felt as though he'd been slapped with the world's largest halibut, and could say not a word as Kyle wriggled back into the sea. 

Smush ran off to find a lifeguard and returned with an overeager, be-speedoed chap. 

"Holy cow!" the young lifeguard exclaimed, looking at Mogey's chest. "Did you get slapped with a big halibut or something?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 27

When the messenger boy stumbled into town, more dead than alive, he brought word that an ancient and most valuable relic had been discovered high in the mountains. There was little interest from the townsfolk. Weak with exhaustion, the messenger managed to murmur that the Wurst im Mund cable car led to the very spot where the relic was hidden, and suddenly the village was alive with questers, Mogey and Smush chief among them.  

After a very pleasant ride up the Wurst im Mund, the questers followed the messenger's directions to the mouth of a dank and mysterious cave. Above the cave's entrance, an inscription had been carved into the living stone: Farcimen non Pemittitur. 

"What's that mean?" Mogey whispered to Smush.

"Probably just nonsense words," Smush replied, taking a big chomp of one of the frankfurters he'd bought at the Wurst im Mund food court.

The questers gathered at the mouth of the tunnel, but they dared not enter, for standing in the opening was a knight, his pristine armor shining in the mountain sun, a white sash stretched over his chest.  

"So can we, erm, go in? Or what?" asked Toadly Punt, a tailor from the village who was part frog and part monkey. 

"First I must assess whether you are pure of heart, my funky friend," the knight announced. 

"Hey, how'd you know I was part frog and part monkey?" 

"The knight knows all," the knight stated pretentiously. "But I was referring to your tie-dye vest." 

"Alright then," said Toadly, satisfied by the funkiness of his vest, "do your thing."

The knight stood motionless for several moments, then thundered, "you desire to use the relic for personal gain. Your heart is impure! You may not enter."

Toadly walked away blubbering. One by one, the other questers stepped up, but each was met with a similar judgment by the knight. When finally Mogey and Smush's turn arrived, the knight paused longer than he had for any of the other questers.

"C'mon, Mogey - let's go," Smush muttered at last.

"Wait!" the knight called out. "Your hearts were difficult to assess, I admit. You," he pointed to Mogey, "have an entire buffalo chicken eggroll lodged in your left ventricle somehow. Yet that does not mean your hearts are impure. You may enter!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 26

Mogey and Smush lingered at the back of their tour group, doing what they often did when they found themselves in premises as dignified as the Museum of Okay Art: plotting. 

"Surely we can have but one goal today, Mogey?" said Smush.

"Agreed." 

"We are in agreement then?"

"Surely," Mogey concurred. 

"The Room of Disgust!" they both stated in unison.

And so the pals snuck away from the group and made their way toward the dingiest corner of the Museum of Okay Art. In the hallway leading up to the infamous exhibit stood a tall rat constructed of plywood. One gnarled paw held a sign that read "You must be at least THIS TALL to enter the Room of Disgust" - the other claw stretched out to demonstrate a height at least a foot above the pals' heads.

"We'll never make it," Mogey lamented. "Even on our tiptoes and wearing platform shoes." 

"But look who's guarding the door," Smush said, pointing further down the hall.

"Is that Snooze McGee?" Mogey exclaimed.

Smush's nod confirmed that the guard was, in fact, the ninja sloth of legend. The tales of his eleventh-degree black belt were exceeded only by his reputation for being sleepy even by sloth standards. 

So the pals squeezed past the snoring guard and stole into the Room of Disgust, trying not to let their eyes linger overlong on Snooze McGee's nunchucks as they passed. Their enthusiasm heightening, Mogey and Smush gazed about the room... and almost immediately their faces fell. The entire contents of the exhibition space seemed to be a still life painting of cabbages, kale, and cauliflower.

"Well this is a bust," Mogey grumped. "What's so awful about a pile of produce?"

"I dunno," Smush replied. "The idea of eating cruciferous veggies certainly gives me the creeps." 

"Come to think of it, you're right. Let's get out of he--wait! What's that noise?"

But the sound was unmistakably the eerie whoosh of nunchucks being twirled by a drowsy - but now very much awake - ninja sloth. 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 25

One damp, grey day, Mogey and Smush could be found in a rowboat, doing what people normally do in a rowboat: cutting a meandering path through the water because they're facing the wrong direction. 

Their destination? A peculiar bakery called Doug H. Nuts' Bagels, Pies, & Cakes that supposedly only served you if you could perform 10 pushups or owned a moustache. Now, the former was a literal impossibility for Mogey and Smush: Mogey's arms were so short that his belly touched the ground even when his elbows were locked, and the term "pushups" made Smush recall Flintstones Push Ups Sherbet Treats so vividly that he inevitably slipped in a puddle of his own drool. 

The pals couldn't grow their own moustaches either, but they had found a way around that by visiting the finest periwig-maker in the community, a hostile young elf named Conrad Phoont who could make you a heck of a fake moustache if you could put up with his constant name-calling.

"Hang your 'secret rowing method!'" Smush exclaimed after their rowboat had described a massive circle in the middle of the lake at Mogey's hand. His tummy was rumbling with desire for bagels, pies, and indeed, cakes. "I'm taking over!"

"You'll have to take these oars from me if you want 'em, you gollumpus!" Mogey replied. 

"One person, and I mean one person only, calls me a gollumpus and gets away with it. That person is Conrad Phoont. And you, my friend, are no Conrad Phoont!" 

Smush lunged at his pal and commenced to pummel him with a vicious combination of open-palm slaps and closed-fist noogies. Mogey returned the favor with a flurry of monkey bites. 

"Oh no," Mogey panted when the fracas finally subsided. "I've lost my moustache overboard. We'll never get into Doug H. Nuts' now!"

"We've got bigger problems," Smush replied. "The oars are gone too."

Some say Mogey and Smush are floating out there still. But some are wrong. What really happened is that they paddled to shore with their hands, then sat on the front porch of Doug H. Nuts' blubbering so severely that Doug H. Nuts himself brought them a bagel, pie, and cake apiece. 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 24

"What are you two numbskulls doing lurking around my front garden?" hollered Wizard Mike, Mogey and Smush's next door neighbor.

"We're not lurking!" Mogey insisted.

"Loitering, maybe," Smush acknowledged. "Lingering, certainly. But not lurking."

"Whatever you're doing, why are you doing it on my walk?" Wizard Mike asked.

"We were hoping you might have some work for us," Mogey rejoined.

"We're ten pieces of silver short for admission to the new zoetrope show at the civic center," said Smush.

"They've got a zoetrope of a monkey eating a cupcake that'll blow your mind, supposedly," Mogey added. 

Wizard Mike regarded the pals thoughtfully. He muttered as if trying to convince himself of something, then leafed through his day planner.

"Alright," he said at last. "If you weed my sunflower patch, I shall pay you the sum of ten pieces of silver."

Mogey and Smush glanced at the sunflower patch, which appeared to have only a single weed growing in it. 

"Make that ten pieces of silver," Smush negotiated.

"Deal," replied Wizard Mike. 

The pals approached the sunflower patch.

"This'll be the easiest ten pieces of silver we've ever made," said Mogey, gripping the offending plant. He pulled and the weed came up easily, but its roots seemed to be longer than its aboveground parts. Mogey was standing now, weed in hand, but the roots still trailed down into the soil. He pulled and he pulled, dragging up yard after yard of roots, but still he had not reached the bottom.

"I probably should've mentioned," said Wizard Mike, striding over with his nose still in his day planner, "how that there is a Neverending Knotweed. It was planted - I suspect - by my mortal enemy, Warlock Greg. But do your best, boys, alright?"

Hours later, Mogey stood beside a coil of knotweed root stacked twelve feet tall. His hands were raw, his back ached, his Kiss the Cook t-shirt was filthy. 

"Fight through the pain, Moge-man!" Smush encouraged. "Surely we're almost there by now. Just imagine how cool it's going to be to watch that monkey eating that cupcake!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 23

There was no other way to say it: Mogey and Smush were lost. In a classic spelunk-gone-wrong, they'd gotten turned around in the Spookum Caves. Then Mogey had accidentally eaten their backup candles (assuming, as one does, that they were very chewy sausages), so their only source of light was now down to a guttering stump. 

"Look!" Smush exclaimed, a modicum of hope entering his voice for the first time in hours. "Is that light up ahead?"

"By gum, I think you're right!" Mogey replied ecstatically. 

The pals entered a cavern of glowing green just as their candle gave out. Seated in the center of the chamber were two gnarly goblins: their faces knobbled, their knuckles warty, their feet pruny from how many sick waves they'd surfed in their careers.

"Who goes there?" asked the first goblin, pointing ominously.

"It's us," said Mogey, "Mogey and Smush."

"I see," said the second goblin. "Can I interest you in some grilled cheese sandwiches?" 

"Don't touch a thing, Mogey," Smush urged. "It's a well-known fact that if you eat any food cave goblins offer, you'll be magically imprisoned in their cavern for a score of years."

"Interesting," Mogey replied. He turned back to the goblin duo. "And could I expect a reliable supply of said grilled cheese sandwiches over the course of this 20 year period?"

"As many as you can eat," the first goblin confirmed. The second goblin held out a plate heaped high with buttery, crispy grilled cheeses.

"Tell you what," Mogey said, taking a massive chomp out of the top sandwich. "You make it a life sentence and you've got yourself a deal."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 22

The altercation started in the schoolyard during recess, when Mogey and a young man by the name of Beezums Borg each wanted to use the swing that went extra-high. It continued in Social Studies class, when Beezums Borg landed (in what was, candidly, a world-class shot) a spitball on Mogey's ear. And now, behind the bleachers after the final bell, it had truly come to a head. 

A small crowd surrounded the two belligerents, who were circling each other, issuing disses of epic proportions. 

"Are you actually attempting to grow a moustache?" Beezums Borg sallied. "Or is your face just as dirty as your fingernails?"

"Neither!" Mogey rejoined, while attempting to subtly wipe chocolate ice cream off his upper lip.

"Get 'im, Moges!" Smush encouraged his pal.

"And anyway that's pretty rich coming from a fellow with a giraffe neck!" Mogey added. 

The students gasped, but Beezums Borg smiled.

"Oh you just wait," he said. "You just wait until my big brother hears. You're dead meat when he finds out what you said."

"Who's your brother?" Mogey mocked. "I know he's not--"

But Mogey stopped in his tracks, because at that moment, "Grr" Raffy Borg, the leader of the world's first all-giraffe biker gang, rounded the bleachers. He was bedecked in a black leather jacket, spiked at the shoulders and with "The Spotted Demons" stitched across the chest. 

"Hmm?" said Beezums Borg. "You know my brother's not who now?"

"'Grr' Raffy is your... brother?" Mogey said with a gulp.

"Sure is. I was adopted."

"You were adopted?" Mogey asked.

"By giraffes?" Smush added. 

"He sure was," came a voice from behind them. 

Mogey and Smush whirled to see The Spotted Demons' two most legendary lieutenants, who also happened to be "Grr" Raffy's parents: Tall Celeste and "Even Taller" Barnabus. Tall Celeste tossed her famous sharpened horns menacingly, and "Even Taller" Barnabus cracked the knuckles of his front hooves.

"Now," said "Grr" Raffy Borg, who had covered the distance to the crowd of students in a pair of his enormous strides. "What'd you say about my baby bro's neck?"

 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 21

"Servants!" cried Emperor Mogey. "I feel excessively warm. Mildly 'uncomfy' if I may speak in such crude terms. I require a breeze!"

Immediately a crowd of attendants scrambled to fan the emperor, but something caught his lordly eye.

"You there!'

"Me, sir?" said Servant Smush nervously.

"Yes, you," Mogey confirmed. "Why are you doing that with your hands?" 

"Well, erm, you see, sir--" 

"You may call me Il Grande Ragazzo if it makes you feel more comfortable." 

"Oh, sure. Well you see, Il Grande Ragazzo, it's my first day here as a member of the fanners and lemonade fetchers. And my boss, he told me that if you requested a breeze, I should wave my palms at you."

"Uh huh," said Emperor Mogey, "and you thought he meant the palms of your hands, did you?"

"I did have a backup option in case I misunderstood?" suggested Servant Smush.

"That sounds like a good idea."

Smush scurried off and returned with what appeared - to Mogey's eyes - to be about 150 sheets of tattered parchment, which he then began to wave all around in the emperor's personal space.

"What are you doing now?" Mogey demanded.

"Fanning you with psalms!" said Smush with enthusiasm.

"Have those even been written yet?"

"The timeline is unclear, sir," Smush acknowledged.

"Well, in any case I'm quite certain that psalms are not an approved fanning implement for the king of kings!" Mogey exclaimed. "I hope you have a second backup option?"

"I certainly do, sir!"

"One moment," Mogey said, catching Smush's arm before he could run off again. "Let's get one thing clear. If you return to this dais with a set of pom-poms, your first day on the job will be your last... not just as a fanner, but as a lemonade fetcher as well." 

The entire court gasped. 

"No problem, Il Grande Ragazzo," said Smush, awkwardly nudging a cheerleading uniform back under the table with his toe. 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 20

"Smush?" Mogey said as the two pals hoed the beans one summer afternoon . "Have you ever considered getting a tattoo?"

"A bit of body art?" Smush rejoined, mopping his brow.

"That's right."

"Some 'ink,' if you will? How do you know I haven't got one already?"

"The terminology you're using, for one," Mogey replied. "But also remember how you made me attend the Mr. North Ratville pageant last year?"

"They're called bodybuilding competitions!" Smush exclaimed. "Not pageants!"

"The fact that 'Beefy' Bob McGeary won the 'Best Evening Dress' sash would call that into question. But either way, the contest didn't leave much to the imagination - there's no way you were hiding a tattoo on the Mr. North Ratville stage." 

"Oh no?" Smush said, grinning wickedly. "What do you call this?" He leaned his head to the right, exposing his neck in the midsummer sun.

"That birthmark?" asked Mogey. "I'd call it a birthmark. Maybe a large freckle if I was feeling generous." 

"Oh ho!" Smush announced. "Well you needn't ask if maybe I was born with it. Because I wasn't. And no - I know what you're thinking - it ain't Maybelline neither." 

"I wasn't thinking that." 

"Well don't think it now! For it is a tattoo!"

"You tattooed a birthmark on your neck?" 

"I most certainly did," Smush replied. "I always wanted a birthmark, and so for my last birthday I thought: shoot, might as well splurge and give myself the gift of ink." 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 19

One gorgeous summer's afternoon, Mogey and Smush sought some refreshment after a long and toilsome day of picnicking. Luckily, the Herr Sigmund Sauerbraten Pärk contained a popular biergarten. The pals procured two refreshing mugs of refreshment, then joined a trio of grizzled-looking fellows at one of the long tables.

"Afternoon, gentlemen," Mogey said cheerily. "Picnicking hard or hardly picnicking... am I right?"

The men simply stared at him grizzlishly. 

"And what are your names, my dear chums?" Smush ventured.

"They calls me Knifey 'The Knife' Knifington," said the first man, "on account of I'm a stabber." 

"Fascinating," said Mogey. "And you?" he asked the second man.

"Mick 'The Stick' Stickler, at your service."

"And what might that service be?" Smush inquired.

"Smackin' people," said The Stick. "With sticks." 

"Well now we must complete the set," Mogey said to the third and final resident of their table. "By what moniker are you known?"

"Rocky 'The Rock' Crockpot," the man replied.

"Let me guess," Smush interjected, "you bonk people over the head with rocks?"

"What? No," said The Rock, looking rather hurt by the accusation. He pulled an acoustic guitar from beneath the table and began strumming it sadly. "I play soft rock. And occasionally guest DJ at 103.9 Lite FM."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 18

Step after torturous step the pals climbed. Hour after harrowing hour they slogged. All the way up to the tip top of the public walking path nicknamed E-Z Strider by the Department of Parks and Recreation. 

"False advertising," Smush panted as they reached the pinnacle. "Not one of those strides was E-Z." 

"The Department of Parks and Recreation should be ashamed," Mogey agreed. "But look: we made it." 

For under the tree just ahead of them sat a wizened man with a crow perched upon his shoulder. 

"Pergola the Sage," whispered Mogey. 

The pals walked forward and sat cross-legged before the honored elder.

"O most ancient and wise Pergola," Smush began. 

"Most WHAT and wise Pergola?" Pergola exclaimed.

"Erm... O most wise Pergola..."

"Better," said Pergola.

"We come seeking your opinion on a question to which my friend and I simply cannot reach consensus," Smush continued. "If a pig were to walk through a puddle so deep that his belly touched the water... what would he do?" 

"He'd freak out, right?" Mogey added. Smush elbowed him. 

Pergola considered for a moment. His crow cawed several times. 

"Well," said the reputed guru, "what would you do if you were to walk through a puddle so deep that your belly touched the water?"

"Freak out," Mogey replied.

While at the same time Smush said, "not much at all." The two pals looked at each other and grinned.

"You see?" Pergola intoned. "The question is not of the pig, but of yourselves." 

"No," said Mogey, "I mean - the question literally was about a pig. You see we have these big potholes in our dooryard, and Sir Oinks-a-lot keeps breaking out of his sty, and I'm just real worried he's going to freak out." 

Pergola shrugged. "Pergola the Sage has spoken," he concluded.

"Can I ask you one more thing?" Smush requested. "Does the crow, like, help you come up with your answers?"

"Crow?" asked Pergola.

"Yes, that's right - the crow on your shoulder. I noticed he made some noises when you were considering our question."

"There is no crow on my--" said Pergola, turning his head. "AGHHHHHHHH!" he screamed when he caught sight of the bird.

"CAWWWWWW!" screamed the crow.

"AGHHHHHHHHH!" screamed Mogey and Smush.

"AGHHHHHHHHH!" screamed the class of nursery school students who happened to be walking by on E-Z Strider.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 17

Mogey and Smush stood near the statue of Admiral Herm Herman and surveyed the scene. The Midsummer Ball was the social event of the season, and the pals had worn their dapper best: top hats, tails, and cargo shorts (camouflage, of course). 

"Who've you got your eye on for the first waltz?" Mogey asked. 

"Well, there's Miss Cellaneous," Smush began, nodding at a gaggle of young ladies gathered 'round the punch bowl. "I'm intrigued by her interest in all things random. But on the other hand, Miss Shun's focus on the matter at hand is quite appealing." 

"What about Miss Take?" Mogey inquired.

"Too clumsy," Smush said, as he unknowingly dropped several sauce-covered shrimp down the front of his shirt. "Miss Chief, on the other hand, likes to live dangerously. I think I'll go ask if she's got an open slot on her dance card for the likes of one Smush von Smush." 

"I thought he'd never leave," said a voice as Smush marched off. Mogey turned to see a lady in a laurel dress standing behind him. "Miss Construe," she introduced herself. Mogey held out his hand to shake, but Miss Construe dangled her palm into his, clearly expecting her hand to be kissed.

"A pleasure to meet you," Mogey said as he obliged. "Miss Construe... I don't suppose you often find yourself confused by what people are--"

"Dancing?" Miss Construe interrupted. "Not at all. For example, I'm quite confident that this is Augustin Pickler's famous 'Crab Legs Waltz.'"

"That's not exactly what I meant. I was only asking if you--"

"Wanted to borrow your shorts? I might just take you up on that. I'm hunting for jungle ducks next week and that camouflage pattern would be perfect." 

"Jungle ducks, eh?" Mogey asked, regarding Miss Construe as if for the first time. "How do you capture those?"

"We pan-roast them with sausage and herb butter," Miss Construe replied. "And there's no more succulent meat in all the land."

"Crab legs waltz it is!" Mogey announced, leading Miss Construe to the center of the ballroom for the first of many puzzling dances. 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 16

 "I say," Smush said. "Is that a dirigible?"  

"A what?" Mogey inquired. 

"You know... one of those big airship thingies."

"A blimp?"

"Yes, that's right," Smush agreed.

"Why didn't you just call it a blimp then?" Mogey asked. "What's all this dirigible fancy-talk?"

"Well, I didn't want to offend you."

"And why, exactly, would I be offended by the word 'blimp?'" Mogey demanded.

"Erm," Smush said awkwardly, "no reason."

Mogey stared at his friend as a man who hasn't yet made up his mind about whether or not to eat a healthy lunch might glare at Enrico Baloney, the Owner/Operator of the famed 58th Street hot dog cart.

"Alright," said Mogey at last, "better make it five dogs with extra mustard. But no buns on 'em: I'm eating a healthy lunch." 

"What?" Smush asked.

"Ahem! What I meant to say was: point me in the direction of the dirigible. I've got to lay eyes on this plump beauty."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 15

Mogey and Smush were picking their way along the railroad tracks one gloomy day when the Teethington to Tongueborough freight train came rumbling along. As it passed, Mogey and Smush couldn't help but notice that one of the railcars was piled high with golden lemons. They further could not avoid observing that the trapdoor beneath the lemon car hung a tad askew, trailing a long line of citrus in the train's wake. And finally, it was simply impossible to miss the fact that no one aboard the train seemed aware of the lemon leakage. 

As the Teethington to Tongueborough rolled out of sight, the pals greedily began to sweep lemons into their haversacks.

"You know what they say," Smush stated. "When life gives you lemons...."

"Find yourself some limes, sodium citrate, and yellow dye number 5, and cook up a batch of homemade lemon-lime gatorade," Mogey concluded. 

"Exactly." 

"But where are we going to find limes, sodium citrate, and yellow dye number 5?" Mogey inquired. 

"We won't have to move a muscle," Smush announced sagely. "The Sugarville to Sweatburgh freight is due in 45 minutes, and you know what Sweatburgh is famous for, don't you?" 

"Isn't that where the..." Mogey began, and his eyes widened with delight, "...enormous gatorade factory is located?!?"

"Indeed it is," Smush said. "That train is going to be loaded! It'll have at least two gondolas full of limes, an entire boxcar jam-packed with sodium citrate, and the caboose? Brimming to the gills with yellow dye number 5." 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 14

 While strolling through the park one day in the merry, merry month of April, Smush was accosted by an extremely impassioned Mogey. 

"Smush! SMUUUUSH!" Mogey howled from the other side of the gazebo. 

Smush doffed his top hat and peered at his pal with a not insignificant amount of mortification: this was no way to be seen in public, let alone along the refined paths of Snoot Park. "What is it, Mogey?" he inquired as his chum breathlessly approached, holding a large box before him.

"Thank goodness I've found you!" Mogey panted. "I have the most incredible business plan. There's not a moment to lose!" He whipped a cloth from the top of the box to reveal a still life scene in three dimensions.

"Are you pitching me your business plan in diorama form?" Smush asked.

"Don't be daft, Smush. This is just a dry run. You and I are going to use this diorama to pitch Baron Houlawhoop together. Now, I call it..." Mogey paused for dramatic effect, "Mogey's Frog Farm." 

Smush blinked several times, but said nothing.

"What's everyone farming these days?" Mogey continued. "Cattle? Sheep? Potatoes? Been there; done that!"

"No you haven't--" 

"But what's no one farming?"

"I'm guessing... frogs?" Smush ventured.

"FROGS!" Mogey exclaimed. He waved vaguely at the diorama, which Smush now realized depicted a figure wearing hip waders (very likely representing Mogey himself) standing in a pond, surrounded by half a dozen tiny frogs. It wasn't very good. "Introducing: Mogey's Frog Farm."

"But what do they... y'know... do?"

"What's it matter what they do?" Mogey snapped. "Didn't you hear me tell you this is the only farm in the world with no competitors?"

"I'll be seeing you, Mogey," Smush replied, un-doffing his hat.

"Wait!" Mogey cried. "I didn't even tell you about the best part: the name of our website!"

"Go on then," Smush said, pausing despite himself.

"Our website. Is... (drumroll please)... MogeysFrogFarm dot com!" 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 13

"You own this guy, champ," Mogey encouraged Smush. "He's got nothing on you."

"I dunno," Smush replied, bouncing on his toes, "he seems pretty good. He's got an undefeated record, after all."

"Naw, champ," Mogey assured him. "He's only gone against tomato cans, I promise you that. And have a seat, would you? You'll tucker your toes right out with all that bouncing."

Just then, Smush's opponent passed by, casting an ominous pall over the dressing room. Wrigglin' Rip Bankins wore a pompadour combed half a foot high, and carried a pair of his trademark ostrich feathers. Smush snatched up his own iconic microfiber duster and gave Wrigglin' Rip a stink-eye stinkier than the eye of Pablo Underhill, skunk-breeder extraordinaire. Despite his private words to Mogey, as reigning champion of the world-famous Tickle Tilt, Smush would not be going down without a fight. For the Tickle Tilt had but one rule, a rule that ensured almost any outcome was possible from any given match: Don't laugh first.

The opponents entered the ring - metaphorically speaking, of course. The actual Tickle Tilt field of play was more akin to a children's sandbox than a boxing ring. As the challenger, Wrigglin' Rip would be tickling first, which is how Smush preferred it. Smush was a strong tickler and a decent ticklee, but his truly elite skill was trash talk. Trash talk was never banned in Tickle Tilts (and in some tournaments it was outright encouraged), but the young challengers who came up through the prep school circuit had never encountered the likes of Smush before. He knew how to cut deep.

"Egads," Smush intoned as Wrigglin' Rip approached, ostrich feathers wriggling vigorously. 

"Get him, champ," Mogey said from Smush's corner (again, metaphorically - Mogey was sitting upon an upturned bucket of fried chicken a few feet away).

"You, sir," Smush announced, gritting his teeth as the feathers brushed against his neck with monumental tickling power, "are a ruffian... a beast... a...." he hesitated, and the crowd gasped, "a blighter."

Wrigglin' Rip fainted dead away. As he lay there, Smush calmly removed one of his opponent's polished oxfords and put his microfiber duster to work on the challenger's manicured toes. When Wrigglin' Rip revived, he was already laughing uproariously, and the legend of Smush continued to grow.

Some called him "The Untickleable," others "General George Armstrong Duster." A rhyme became popular among local children: Smush, Smush, respectfully hush / He'll tickle his enemies' dreams down the flush! 

But Smush? Smush remained humble. As humble as one can after seven straight Tickle Tilt championships. Humble enough to retire to a quiet life of teaching youngsters that most ancient art of tickling and trash talk.