S.M.U.D.G.E.: Not Quite As Dumb As A Bag Of Hammers ...

S.M.U.D.G.E.: Even their logo is dippy.

One of the things we knew about S.M.U.D.G.E. (Scientific Modification Using Digital Genetic Enhancements) from the very start? They're sketchy as all get out.

And that's not just the general consensus of just The Unbelievables. That's coming from governments and other agencies world-wide, both local and international: FBI, MI5, Scotland Yard, The Christmas Island 3 1/2, The Girl Scouts of America, The Harlem Globetrotters, more. Their methodologies are not only heinous but questionable.

And The Unbelievables have first-hand experience knowledge about the organization as it turns out.

Something not generally known was the hoopla surrounding the inclusion of none other than George Takei into our little band of suave gentlemen. Long ago, S.M.U.D.G.E. infiltrated our ranks behind our backs. Remember the "Flared Jean Funk" case detailed back in January of last year? Where George Takei himself sought what it took to become a member of our ranks? As it turned out (it was something we didn't reveal to the general public at the time for rather obvious reasons) George was coerced by S.M.U.D.G.E. in an attempt to "get inside." How did S.M.U.D.G.E. do it? Just like this:

Working their so-called genetic mutation "magic" they took the real George Takei ...

... and melded his DNA with the head honcho alien from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind ...

Yeah, I know. Weird.

The result?

A "reasonable" (in their estimation) facsimile of George Takei ... which doesn't really make sense. (Actually, it's not a bad likeness. But ... they already had George, in the flesh brain-washed with their evil ways. They didn't need to clone a copy of him to try to weasel into our ranks.)

See what we mean? S.M.U.D.G.E.'s modus operandi is suspect and shaky right from the get-go. And that was and still is their undoing: Coming up with stuff that simply doesn't make sense. They have the tendency to come up with a perfect plan then tweak it in the weirdest way. Head-scratching to be sure.

But what really made the floor drop out from underneath them as legitimate bad guys was when they tried convincing the America public Mel Gibson was the inspiration for fast food giant Burger King's "The King" mascot:

You no doubt remember all the controversy that erupted on television and airwaves and office water coolers nation-wide over that one ... right?

What? You don't remember?

That's because there wasn't any controversy. Not one whit, not a hint.

It was a
 sham from the very start and it died a quick death. Not even Mel himself knew about it. He finally found out word of the scam years later. (And if it takes that long for word to come 'round, it doesn't bode well for your evil ne'er-do-well R&D department, if you know what I mean.

Thus, S.M.U.D.G.E. isn't much of an organization which knows how to pull the trigger and capitalize on its threats ...

Chalk up another one for the no-good, bumbling bad guys ...

P.S. We're seriously questioning Billy Ray Cyrus mole/informant worthiness of late ...

P.P.S. The quick among you will have noticed this particular post debuted on Sunday (rather than the usual Friday) as a wrap-up. The reason? Unbelieva-Babe fraternization. I don't think any more need be said ...

Not Clones, Exactly ... But Hideous Nevertheless ...

When Jeff mentioned S.M.U.D.G.E. was up to its old tricks,  I pooh-poohed the suggestion.

There was one thing looking into the allegations, however, that convinced me otherwise.

This:

This is obviously their work. 

Playing their nefarious reindeer games to cause someone to look like Jack Nicholson's Joker from Batman ... well ... that's taking things to the extreme.

S.M.U.D.G.E. had gone too far. Something had to be done.

I gave Billy Ray Cyrus a call ...

Send In The Clones

Something strange has been happening in Tinseltown. I mean, there's always something strange happening, but this is stranger than usual. And the weird thing about it is, we Unbelieva-types did not realise it until somebody pointed it out to us. It all started a while back when we noticed something odd about football star Luis Suarez.

He turned out to be a genetically modified mutant, created using the DNA of Erik Estrada, Adam Sandler, a piranha fish and a llama. The group responsible was called Scientific Modification Using Digital Genetic Enhancements - or S.M.U.D.G.E. for short.

We sorted it all out and thought no more of it until just recently when no less a person than Billy Ray Cyrus (another of our network of moles and informants)dropped this picture in our mailbox, with a Post-It note attached saying, "Looks like S.M.U.D.G.E. is still up to no good, dunnit?"

This got us to thinking, and we think we've come up with some pretty convincing evidence that S.M.U.D.G.E. are still out there, doing their evil mutation thang. F'rinstance...

Have you ever noticed a similarity between James Carville

 and THIS guy?

Don't you think if you took DNA from these two...

and cooked it up a little bit, you might just get

Vince Offer?

Sham-Wow! indeed. 

Not only that, but I refuse to believe that Gary Oldman was merely watching a rerun of The Simpsons when preparing to become Commissioner Gordon...

And don't even get me started on this guy...

So, folks, it would seem that S.M.U.D.G.E. are up to their old tricks. I'll let Michael fill you in on our investigations later in the week.

Oh, and by the way - they may have been up to this nonsense for far longer than we thought. Example? Well, here's famous Victorian-era poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning...

and here's this dude.

Unbelieva-failure!

Yep, it looks like for all our best intents that we have come up short this time. Undone not by anything we could control but by the mendacity of bureaucratic red tape. So here's what happens now:
- We have no need to be a sovereign nation so we're folding the whole Unbelievia thing up.
- Get ready for all your jewelry to be stolen because we can't do anything about it now. Sorry, we tried.
- You tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free (AKA wretched refuse of your teeming shore) hoping to become citizens of Unbelievia can stop filling out forms.

Those are our regrets as an international crime-fighting organization. But as Michael mentioned the other day, as a sports collective (albeit short-lived) our biggest regret is disappointing our fans. Specifically, these fans.

Let a long, intense, sweaty period of mutual consoling begin.

World Cup: Denied

In the end, our popularity remained intact. We showed it by walking with our heads held high out of the press room after the announcement.

We won our match handily over The Sultanate of Brunei as Jeff previously mentioned (17-2 was such a ridiculously one-sided score it wasn't even funny) and we edged Andorra 2-0 (both Jeff and Clark snagging a goal each, superb strikers that they are) ...

... but that's where the glory ended.

We were called on a technicality and ousted from competition. Our records were erased, we were unceremoniously ejected from the field and our accomplishments stricken from the record books.

It wasn't because our pre-game training methods were illegal or underhanded in any way ...

In no way did the use of

"Wonder Sauna (Short) Hot Pants"

violate any drug rules set in place by FIFA

nor did it give us an unfair advantage in World Cup competition.

(They did look fabulous during our training regimens, however.)

It wasn't because Clark is a sports reporter in The States. (Rumors flew he harbored "an unfair advantage" with a head full of knowledge and names and numbers, a poor excuse to try and shunt us from public adoration, let me tell you.)

And it certainly wasn't because Jeff's passport wasn't in order. (It wasn't. Not by a long shot. But we worked it out without breaking any rules and without pulling any favors. Everything on that front was on the up and up and there was never any question of wrong doing, something the media - try as they might - attempted to sensationalize.)

No ... it was nothing more than an aggravating little technicality, a blip of a line in the FIFA rule book stating a country had to be established - and not with a mere couple week's worth of history beneath its belt. That being said, the wheels were put in motion by the FIFA Powers That Be to quash our little micronation of "Unbelievia" from its meteoric rise on the world stage of sporting events. We were ousted from competition ... and there was nothing we could do about.

FIFA, it claimed, had a responsibility to its fans:

"It would go against the grain of sports and would be viewed as impartial if we did not not see through to removal of unqualified participants in The World Cup. Our decision to remove Unbelievia from the competition is final."

Yet ... Luis Suarez continues to remain a name of import in the sport despite his "appetite" for other players. And FIFA turns in the other direction whenever S.M.U.D.G.E. is mentioned. Go figure.

We grouped together as a team and came to this conclusion: The little men on their little thrones who run FIFA simply couldn't come to grips with the fact a suave, well put together cohesive unit such as we could so overwhelmingly dominate the 2014 World Cup in the fashion we displayed. (Which was fabulous, by the way.) So they brought the hammer down in the form of a stupid technical aside to save face.

The tragedy here is that our fans are being denied. That's the sad fact of the matter. So, to them we say we're sorry ... sorry FIFA decided to take their balls (so to speak) and go home. They have that ability, obviously, but it makes them look like whiny, snotty-nosed brats for doing so. They just couldn't handle the truth. We're sorry, too, for the efforts of our coaching staff and additional team members. Their tireless contributions will not be forgotten.

Regardless, our heads are held high. We know the blood, sweat and tears we put out in realizing our dream. 

And, as far as we're concerned, we accomplished it.

Soccer Shenanigans

Clark is correct - I don't particularly care for soccer, perhaps in part because I was made to play it at school in all weathers, or at least all the types of weather that seem to occur during soccer season, which is to say Autumn, Winter and Spring. Yep, you guessed it. Muddy, wet, cold, miserable outside, and you want me to run around a field and kick a ball if it comes my way? Well, mister P.E. teacher man, it's all very well for you, sloping off to the staff room every 45 minutes for a nice warm mug of cocoa and a sly ciggy, telling us lads to 'get stuck in'. See how you like it when I set the fire alarm off while you're mid-sip.

So as you can see I am not a keen footie fan. So when the boys decided we were going to play in the World Cup in order to protect the world from a band of jewel thieves, I was doubtful as to how we were going to achieve this. But I must admit, I was impressed with the boys' can-do attitude and never-say-die spirit.

We are currently entering the knockout stages of the tournament and even though we struggled against Equatorial Guinea and the mighty Tonga, we won through (despite some dodgy calls by the ref) and are looking forward to our next match where we face the fearsome Sultanate of Brunei. In the meantime, the world is experiencing a distinct lack of diamond heists, and only we know why. Michael will explain it all in fearless and pantsless detail (as he always does) on Friday.

Meanwhile, I embarked on a side project which I can now tell you about.

I discovered a gruesome project being undertaken by a secret klatch of scientists specialising in various fields such as cloning, genetic modification and similar disciplines, with an evil purpose - to rid the world's football teams of their star strikers. It all started many years ago when this group developed a technique known as Scientific Modification Using Digital Genetic Enhancements - or S.M.U.D.G.E. for short.

They started by taking some tissue samples from both Erik Estrada and Adam Sandler (how they got them, I have yet to ascertain) and combined these with DNA from a llama and a piranha fish.
What they ended up with was then secretly placed in a small village in Uruguay, where it grew up to be a naturally talented soccer player, with an added extra talent. 

It went something like this...

+

+

+

=

Yes, Luis Suarez, the result of that fiendish experiment years ago, put here to bite as many opposing players as possible. Now, with last night's incident still fresh in our minds, FIFA is considering legal action against this hideous FrankenStriker. And it's all thanks to The Unbelievables.

You are welcome, world.