"Then and Now" - December 6, 2019

[DrTom]

(Barbara was asking what's on Commodore's pictured punch card.)

Oops - probably true. I missed that.

I wonder how many people on this list knew what a punch cards were and had ever used them. And how many had dropped their deck

Know what they are, first thing I ever had to program with in Analytical Chemistry. As for the last question - Harumph, way too personal

[AnnP]

As an early Boomer I never would have gotten this. Turns out I was TOO mature for this one, but I'm having fun reading today's comments anyway. My eye kept going to I CALL, KNOW-ALL and LOVE ALL which led nowhere.

I have started an archive of metas by cutting, pasting and printing the solution (from this forum or crossword fiend) on the reverse of my paper copy. Very geeky, I know.

[tim1217]

I wonder if Matt/Mike considered wording the prompt as "a cartoon duo that would complete the theme" or something like that. This seems particularly tough for newer solvers who haven't seen something like it before.

I thought the same thing. Would this meta have been more palatable if the prompt was "A cartoon duo that could be the fifth theme entry"? Or would it still be criticized by most for having too obscure an answer?

(For the record: Though I'm GenX and remember this cartoon, I still couldn't have solved this without Googling. But I thought it was a great meta!)

I think a better worded prompt would have helped. My main issue with this meta is that there was no way to be 100% sure you had the right answer. If the prompt was better worded (as suggested above) then you would be able to get to 100%.

[DrTom]

I have never solved a WSJ contest rated this high before!

I am a later boomer (64) and I have heard of and watched the Wonder Twins.

Figured out the “Then and Now” pretty quickly. I tried the used remaining letters in a few ways. Didn’t notice I hadn’t accounted for won/win. Came to message board to see how other people were doing with it. Saw DrTom’s original post about two words not being used. I didn’t think it was a spoiler. Just confirmed I had two words I couldn’t do anything with in the grid.

Saw many post about being older being a help. Little did I know that meant me!

Did a google search. Came up with the answer but kept looking for a mechanism to get there. Finally noticed won/win again which made me feel pretty certain I was right even without a mechanism.

Well you're a better Meta than I am Carla Din! (definitely a Boomer reference, hope you get it!). I should have at least realized that there were two words I could NOT use, instead I just blindly kept trying to use them. Although I am glad it was not a spoiler, I wish I had benefited from it somehow, even if while nursing my lashes it had hit me, "hey, what if the fact that I CAN'T find them is a message in and of itself". But I did not and you did - good for you. I will always WONDER if I had the information To WIN.

[Joedbee]

Posting on Monday morning. This is the first time this has happened to me: I solved the grid, I saw the trick to the meta, I was looking for a WON/WIN cartoon duo. I couldn't think of one. I did an internet search and came to a page of "most famous cartoon duos" (of which there were 81) and there was no mention of WONder tWINs. I submitted, almost certain it wasn't right, "Wonder woman and WInnie the Pooh." Does anyone agree with my criticism that the answer is too obscure to be fair? (after posting, I'm coming back to edit and note that others do agree with this.)

I found the same web page of cartoon duos and Wonder Twins was not there. We have had unfairness before when we had "famous" associated with comedienne Margaret Cho, Peruvian soprano Yma Sumac, and TV organizer Marie Kondo). And then there is the NFL referees week in and week out.

We also had a Meta answer a few years ago that was to be a 'famous' monument. Many Muggles objected to the answer ' Four Corners Monument' as being famous. When does one move from 'reasonably well known' to 'famous'?
While I, as many Muggles did, got to the '80% point', I was then stymied. Being of a pre-Gen X era, I never heard of the Wonder Twins. When Saturday cartoons became available, I was either working or golfing.

[ChrisKochmanski]

I had never heard of Wonder Twins, but I suspected the answer might involve "Wonder," so my googling, on something like "Wonder cartoon duo," led to Wonder Twins fairly quickly.

[Tina]

Well, this one really hit my sweet spot! What fun to uncover the Wonder Twins, one of my favorite cartoons as a kid! I'm 50, so probably the exact age for this nostalgia-gasm. My brother and I (not twins, but close in age) would pretend to be the Wonder Twins. I always thought it was cool that Jayna (the girl) could turn into cooler things than Zan (the boy). "Wonder Twin powers, activate!" And Jayna would take the form of, say, a raging saber tooth tiger, and Zan would take the form of, say, a bucket of water!!!

[MarkL]

I, too, had all the basics but couldn't find a Win/Won combo. Never occurred to me to find a path to them outside the grid--which would have meant Mr. G as I have never heard of the Wonder Twins. Quite clever but I spent way too much time on it. When I was stuck, I then saw IRAN, ILIED, IFED and thought I had to be missing something else. Congrats to you solving Muggles. Good luck on the mug.

Not to mention a fair number of Greek letters spread about (eta, theta, mu, chi, phi, xi)!

[MaineMarge]

My hand is raised to request advancing to the head of the still long line awaiting a good ship’s flogging for not tuning in on this won.
I regularly dip into Steven Pinker’s devilishly entertaining tome*, “Words and Rules”, on how our many irregular verbs have evolved. So I could see we had been dealed/dealt those in the theme answers, and should probably look for more such verbs for the meta answer. Somehow I lost focus on this, even when searching for the invisible win/won for prevail.
Best of many red herrings led/leaded to 24a telling us to add a “y” to a word.
Yabba? Huey? Wally?
Now, in the title, is won spelled/spelt backwards. Wally, aka Waldo, and his evil twin spelled backwards Odlaw might have given Mike a chuckle, had I not drifted off before hailing.
I’m one of the more ancient mariners aboard and had never heard of them. But all that googling down cartoon memory lane was actually fun for me.
p.s. Fun fact from *:George Washington still catched a cold long after the rest of the country had already moved ahead and caught theirs.

[MarkL]

With a few more data points we might be able to figure out what the over/under is for age/demographic on this one. As a '61 model and a daughter born in '90, I don't recall the Twins in our routine. Given some earlier comments, I suspect the line is around '65 to '68 for Muggle birth year.

Cheers to those who recognized the answer or divined it with Mr. G. All's fair in love, war and metas! Onward to the next one to be WON1

[MikeMillerwsj]

Kudos to all of you who solved this very tricky contest! We had 796 entries, about 73% correct. (Your correspondent was among the solvers who had never heard of this show--but I made it to WON/WIN, suspected a duo might be TWINS, and that was enough to Google my way to the show.)

Incorrect answers included TOM & JERRY (23), REN & STIMPY, CHIP & DALE, ROCKY & BULLWINKLE (14 for all those), WILE. E. COYOTE & ROADRUNNER (12), BATMAN & ROBIN (11) and many others. Were those all stabs in the dark or did they go down a logical path?

Congrats to this week's winner: Anna Hargan of West Allis, Wisc.!

[MajordomoTom]

They have a Heroclix figure:

http://www.hcrealms.com/index.php?page=units&id=an059

[tim1217]

Kudos to all of you who solved this very tricky contest! We had 796 entries, about 73% correct. (Your correspondent was among the solvers who had never heard of this show--but I made it to WON/WIN, suspected a duo might be TWINS, and that was enough to Google my way to the show.)

Incorrect answers included TOM & JERRY (23), REN & STIMPY, CHIP & DALE, ROCKY & BULLWINKLE (14 for all those), WILE. E. COYOTE & ROADRUNNER (12), BATMAN & ROBIN (11) and many others. Were those all stabs in the dark or did they go down a logical path?

Congrats to this week's winner: Anna Hargan of West Allis, Wisc.!

Not noted above, but my ‘guess’- Mr. Peabody and Sherman, at least made sense with the theme (using the Wayback machine to go back in time to THEN and returning to NOW).

[MikeMillerwsj]

PS I forgot to give special congrats to four solvers who named the Wonder Twins. (Zan and Jayna!)

[Joe Ross]

When I'm googling for a meta, I often use a private/incognito window so that any initial bad paths will not contaminate my later results.

Excellent advice. I tend to steer clear of Google and use DuckDuckGo for similar reasons. If I am underwhelmed with the results, which is not often, I will try searching on Bing! & Google.

[Here since Cheers]

Mike, I submitted Coyote and RR. I got as far as WON/WIN and converted that to "One win". My mind immediately went to the Super Genius as my Chuck Jones encyclopedia (in my head) said that the coyote has captured the RR exactly once. Made a lot of sense...to me at least. Then again, maybe my name is "Mud".

Anyway, keep up the great work. I'll keep checking my email and spam folder every Monday morning...

[Janet]

I forgot to check in last night to list myself as lost at sea. I never heard of the wonder twins. I have heard of (and used) punch cards.

[Julie O]

With a few more data points we might be able to figure out what the over/under is for age/demographic on this one.

I was born in 73. Remember watching this along with several other Sat. morning cartoons in the late 70's/early 80's. The cartoon itself was never one of my favorites, but the catch phrase has always stuck in my head, and has on inappropriate occasions popped out of my mouth.

[Deb F]

I, too, had all the basics but couldn't find a Win/Won combo. Never occurred to me to find a path to them outside the grid--which would have meant Mr. G as I have never heard of the Wonder Twins. Quite clever but I spent way too much time on it. When I was stuck, I then saw IRAN, ILIED, IFED and thought I had to be missing something else. Congrats to you solving Muggles. Good luck on the mug.

Not to mention a fair number of Greek letters spread about (eta, theta, mu, chi, phi, xi)!

You are absolutely right but, thankfully, I spent no time in THAT rabbit hole. It was bad enough on the others!!

[SewYoung]

As an early Boomer I never would have gotten this. Turns out I was TOO mature for this one, but I'm having fun reading today's comments anyway. My eye kept going to I CALL, KNOW-ALL and LOVE ALL which led nowhere.

I have started an archive of metas by cutting, pasting and printing the solution (from this forum or crossword fiend) on the reverse of my paper copy. Very geeky, I know.

I was doing that as well until I printing Monday's puzzle on a separate sheet and cutting the solution off and taping to the bottom of the meta puzzle page.