Do You Wanna Play a Game?

[Cap'n Rick]

OTC. Fun one!

[Cinny]

I am finally off the couch - thanks to my husband!! After several wrong answers, I asked him to look at it and he got it right away. Seems so obvious to me now.
Great puzzle in spite of my frustrations!

[Abide]

Friday Night Lights:

33. Cap'n Rick
34. Richard B.
35. Cinny

[Abide]

And just under the wire (1 minute before deadline)

36. Al Sisti

Winner, reveal, and write-up in the morning.

[Abide]

Answer: The name of the game wasTwenty Questions with the variant Animal Vegetable Mineral also being acceptable.

Credit: Joe Ross


The three long theme entries represent examples of their respective "Categories". Before the game starts, you declare which Category the answer falls into. There is also a nudge at 51-Down. While cluing this last Saturday, I got the idea of spreading (?) clues throughout the puzzle. Interesting that some solved by question marks alone, and others got there without noticing the marks.

Interesting trivia I learned:

UHURU: Michelle Roberts had the book with her when auditioning for the Star Trek part. When Gene Roddenberry learned what it meant (Freedom), he changed the character name to Uhura.

DLS: After over a century, MLB changed their "disabled list" to "injured list" last year after requests from disability advocates.

EVABRAUN: I knew she died in the bunker by cyanide capsule, but didn't know about the wedding 40 hours before. Cue "shotgun wedding" pun by Dr. Tom.

Thirty-six solvers made it to the finish line. The random winner is Cindy "solved" Weatherman!

Stay tuned for next Monday's MMM by Bird Lives....

[Al Sisti]

Cindy had a pretty good week or two!

[boharr]

Fun puzzle. I solved it using .puz, but when I began counting question marks I printed out a pdf. I kept coming up one question mark short. Turns out my pdf printout cut off the question mark in 9D. Finally realized I needed to go back to looking at the pdf online.

[DrTom]

Great puzzle, and as always we manage to learn things we did not know. I did however know that Hitler Married Eva, and although I like the Shotgun Wedding, I'll bet Hitler thought it was a Shogun Wedding. Still at the end they had to say Cyonara...(I know, bad, but then you were expecting sophistication?)

[DrTom]

I remember that I said I had a funny (maybe just odd) story to tell about this puzzle.

So there I was, dutifully filling in the GRID with all the “obviously” correct answers. I struggled a bit in one section because I do not watch Ozark but the rest came pretty easy:

I mean old MTV hosts on Sirius (46A) are MCs, who hasn’t found all kinds of spare change in their car (47D), and stereotypical crossword solver (60A)…sorry to say I’ve heard JERK (and other 4 letter words) several times as I labored away ignoring everything else. But what “Charming Practice” (46D) is MOOKOO, that HAS to be wrong! So, I immediately go to the breaker of all ties, Google and find:

NO, not possible, how in the heck does Abide ever think anyone will know that, what crappy cluing, etc, etc, etc. Then of course I look at 55D UJDO – WHAT? Reverse in Word, which I thought might be some magic key combination (tried it and of course it doesn’t reverse anything) was UNDO, making the crossworder a NERD (and yes I’ve heard that too, but about LOTS more things), the coin collector a JAR, the DJs became VJs and Yiwu Yike slinks back into a footnote on the web jewelry highway. I mean REALLY Tom, MOOKOO, but it seemed so RIGHT at the time.

Oh, and Peter’s third possible answer once you finished counting his 20 questions and found that he had an Animal a Vegetable (OK a flower) or a Mineral (well DUH, that was right there must have missed it due to the glare from the charms at MOOKOO) he also had the game we have played in cars and parlors everywhere. You are given two choices, such as “Would you rather be an Anteater or an Ant”. The game is called, not surprisingly This or That.

[Abide]

Bonus puzzle for tonight's Zoom call!

https://crosshare.org/crosswords/L64APzLRgPbuseH4vQvy

[DrTom]

I hope all of you try the Bonus Puzzle - I am TRULY honored that Pete took the time to honor me with a puzzle,. For you that thought - "NO, I'm puzzled out" you missed a "humdinger":

[Joe Ross]

Am I the only one who starts humming the Beatles' Dear Prudence every time I see DrTom's name?

I think that I might be, with apologies for future earworms.