"Build Your Brand" - May 8, 2020

[Inca]

I am on the shore! That was a tough one but brilliant!
BTW, I got the nicest reply from Mike Miller in response to my letter to the editor a few weeks ago. He is so gracious!

Huh, you're on shore?
Why weren't holding onto my hand so that you could pull me with you???

No, seriously, really happy you got it.

[MajordomoTom]

I've thrown a random Hail Mary (Queen of Rabbits) pass off the side of the ship.

It fits the title of the puzzle, but little else.

[Dow Jones]

I'm not on the ship anymore. I submitted an answer. The explanation of how I arrived at that answer would fill a 49A. Who knows ? I might get lucky.

[Joe Ross]

[DBMiller]

There are five brands found in the clues (Not the grid!), that are confirmed to be one of the meta-related items because they also have an alternate answer in one of the long answers.

22a) Job for a SINGER = Aria/Torn Curtain
68a) Frequent openers and closers in a SUBWAY = Doors/Toaster Ovens
1d) Must-have for a MUSTANG, maybe = Oats/Premium Gasoline
55a) Useful tool when you're hitting a TARGET = Bow/Shopping Cart
6a) It has abundant LIFE = Earth/Cereal Aisle

The first letters of the original answers in order of the longer answers spells ADOBE

[camandsampowercouple]

wow what a cool puzzle. I had mustang, target, and subway underlined and i was staring at them but i couldnt QUITE piece it together today. i was so much closer than i thought!!!

[DrTom]

Wow, GREAT puzzle, even greater because I finally got a hard one. Granted it was all puns and double meanings so how could I lose! The solution is below:

Turns out that each of the theme (long answers) had a second, often better clue. So "Must have for a mustang, maybe" was OATS, but it was also PREMIUM GASOLINE and "Useful tool for hitting a target" is BOW but it is also SHOPPING CART. If you take the first letter of the "alternate" clue and put it where the "real clue" was you get ADOBE, a quite big brand and also something you can use to build! Clever Matt clever!!!

[MajordomoTom]

I'm really frustrated ... I had that idea, look at the clues for brands, found three of these, and did not get it.

GRRRR

and believe it or not, ADOBE was one of my working guesses.

But I submitted IKEA.

my three were Singer, Subway and Target. Looked at Mustang, thought "man, that's a strange clue", but didn't get that it was a brand, nor Life.

This is almost worse than solving it. It's like hitting a chip shot towards the green and bouncing it off the flag. You know you can do it, but you didn't.

[mheberlingx100]

There are five brands found in the clues (Not the grid!), that are confirmed to be one of the meta-related items because they also have an alternate answer in one of the long answers.

22a) Job for a SINGER = Aria/Torn Curtain
68a) Frequent openers and closers in a SUBWAY = Doors/Toaster Ovens
1d) Must-have for a MUSTANG, maybe = Oats/Premium Gasoline
55a) Useful tool when you're hitting a TARGET = Bow/Shopping Cart
6a) It has abundant LIFE = Earth/Cereal Aisle

The first letters of the original answers in order of the longer answers spells ADOBE

Never would have gotten this in a million years!

[lacangah]

Wow - my beach was a mirage after all.

FWIW, here's my approach. I replaced words in the longer responses:

torn curtain -> Iron curtain
toaster ovens -> toaster Pastries
premium gasoline -> High Octane
shopping cart -> shopping Network
cereal aisle -> Exit aisle

I-P-H-O-N-E -> Apple (easy peasy!)

Congratulations to all who solved it - that was a tough one!

Have a great week,

[DrTom]

Wow, and here is me thinking I'd be the first to pull the curtain off the answer. I was trying to be tricky and reveal the grid, I guess I should have known, "Silly rabbit Tricks aren't for Grids"

[MajordomoTom]

groan, you've exceeded your 140 characters for today.

[matthewmoravec]

I didn't find the answer, have to admit I was thrown off by the alliterative title and several alliterative clues (1D, 3D, 5D, 13D, 25D etc.). I saw that the first one corresponded to a theme answer but of course none of the others did.

[DrTom]

groan, you've exceeded your 140 characters for today.

I guess I'll have to get rid of a few. I think they call that character assassination (DOUBLE groan....)

[EdStrong]

Count me ashore, nudge-free.

[TPS]

I really liked the method - a few of the brands were too obscure for me. I knew Singer but also knew Singer made a Toaster Oven as well as a Sewing Machine. And believe it or not I’d never heard of Life cereal (a couple of my friends couldn’t believe that so I guess it’s a pretty well recognized brand).

So those things tripped me up.

[hcbirker]

My first rabbit hole was toaster ovens where I found OSTER. Nothing else fit. So I went to the clues and there it was! Very clever Mr. Gaffney!

[Carla]

Took me 5 minutes to understand how the answer was derived from the solution above. But hey, I had a word ladder rabbit hole going on with “ria.” Funny, at one point I wondered if the clues had something to do with the meta...

[camandsampowercouple]

I got stuck looking for other common two word phrases that might use one word from the themers.

TORN ASUNDER
TOASTER STRUDEL
PREMIUM FARE
SHOPPING SPREE
CEREAL BOX

i was trying to find clues that might be answered by the changed word. i dug deep for this puzzle and i wasnt able to solve it but i feel like i developed a lot of techniques that are going to come in handy in the future

[Inca]

Yeah, that was really never going to happen for me. Something in me resists going through all the clues to look for the solution (maybe it has something to do with aging eyes and tiny print). I kind of suspected, since it was an MG puzzle, that might be the case.

But I have to say, I was really feeling stupid when I read the solution and couldn't understand what it said the first time around. I had to read it a few times! Actually, DBMillers version of the explanation seemed much clearer to me.

To all who got this one: I'm impressed.