MOOSE BLASTS OFF!

Moose challenges Duck to an “imagination-off” after discovering that Duck doesn’t quite have the hang of make-believe.

Sitting on a boulder, Moose loves pretending to be an astronaut blasting off into space and is shocked by Duck’s clueless question about pretending: “What’s that?” Moose responds that imagination allows one to do anything or be anything, but when Moose invites Duck to give it a go, Duck takes the whole idea in different directions…first envisioning the arrival of a whole crowd of other ducks. Then, instead of compliantly playing “astronaut” according to Moose’s rules, Duck insists that Moose’s boulder isn’t a rocket but a time machine. So it is, while Moose stubbornly sticks to visualizing science fictional elements, that Duck conjures up an array of wildly fanciful dinosaurs from a “roller-skating caveduck” to “a disco-dance megaloduck”—until, with a mighty POW, the scenarios blend to produce a helmet-wearing dinosaur astronaut. The rivals agree that they have better ideas together than apart. In the simply drawn cartoon panels, Moose’s fantasies manifest in translucent blue, Duck’s in pale yellow, and the combined notions in (natch) green. As in their last outing, these two pals set a good example, demonstrating that friendship requires compromise and give-and-take.

A worthy proposition that effortlessly achieves liftoff.