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Porky Says "Stuff It" to Local Legend

MUDCAT FALLS -- This week's town council meeting was gavelled to a premature close as rioting overran Robert's Rules of Orders, when town elders opened hearings into the local "urban legend" of a twenty-foot long, one thousand pound albino catfish long believed to inhabit the deep pooling currents up stream of Spider Rapids in the waters warmed by discharges from the Tornado Alley Nuclear Power Plant.

"Old Moby Bruce is our very own Loch Ness Monster," pleaded Madeleine Goulash, President of the Mudcat Falls Woman's Auxiliary Historical Society during her impassioned PowerPoint presentation to the Town Council. "He represents the enigma that is Mudcat Falls."

Controversy was spawned when Porky Chumwater, local sport fishing legend and proprietor of Willie's Downtown Taxidermy and Bait Shoppe, claimed to have caught the steroidially disproportioned catfish while noodling with his long suffering sidekick and bait caddy, Harold "Happy" Triptafyn. After stuffing, mounting and displaying the catch in his establishment, Chumwater has reported record sales of Moby Bruce logoed t-shirts, ball caps and related memorabilia, as well as inquiries from Hollywood for his story.

"I think "The Rock" would be good casting for me," said Chumwater, referring to professional wrestler Duane Johnson. "Or maybe that Triple X guy, Vin Diesel."

Recurrent river monster sightings, often of dragon-like creatures, have been recorded locally since the early nineteenth century, but the legacy of Moby Bruce was born in the Sixties when a group of stoned Pistol Creek University undergraduates reported that a ghostly white catfish the size of a Volkswagen jumped up out of the river and swallowed their pet dachshund whole as if it were naught but a Hormel Vienna Sausage.

Although initially discounted as a college prank, the legend grew with persistent sightings and disappearances by more reliable witnesses, including swimmers, boaters, skin divers, fishermen, firemen, EMTs and law enforcement officers. An investigation in 1993 by the National Geographic theorized that a returning Vietnam Veteran may have released a baby Mekong Giant Catfish from Thailand, species pangasianondon gigas, into the river, but discounted the reports of its unusual size as being greatly exaggerated, even with radiation exposure.

"Moby Bruce is Mudcat Falls's very own Namazu and possesses mystical powers, having accurately predicting the Arab oil embargo in the Seventies, the death of Disco in the Eighties and the rise of conservative talk radio in the Nineties," explained Goulash. "And now we are losing our community's heritage and spirituality to crass commercialism. That fish isn't the real Bruce. It's just a fraud perpetrated by Mr. Chumwater for his own personal gain and letting him cash in on the phoney death of Moby Bruce represents an insult to our intelligence as well as our local local culture."

The riot between anglers and archivists erupted when Chumwater tore up a cease and desist order secured by the MFWAHS, tossing it into the air like confetti. He was later arrested. The stuffed fish in question was taken into protective custody and is being held at an undisclosed location. The Town Council announced they will continue their inquiry in closed sessions.

Spokesmen for Amblyn Entertainment, Peter Benchley and the WWE all denied any interest in acquiring the movie rights to Moby Bruce.



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