Episode #332 Contest: What's At The End?

[bcimmet]

There's a new contest puzzle from Fill Me In. I'll rate this one 2.8 bananas on a scale of 5 bananas. (Bananas has nothing to do with the puzzle, it's just a 1-to-5 scale we made up.) As you may know, I'm terrible at assessing difficulty. I thought this would be quite challenging, but it turns out our test solvers flew through it. So who knows!

The puzzle is called "What's At The End?" and was constructed by me (Brian Cimmet). The solution to the puzzle is a two-word phrase.

The crossword can be downloaded from here. You're welcome to solve, you're even welcome to join in the chat about the puzzle -- but if you want to be eligible for a prize, you have to listen to the podcast for this week's password. The podcast can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, our own website, or wherever you collect your podcasts.

Once you've solved the puzzle, submit your answer and this week's password by email to fmi@bemoresmarter.com. You can also contact us with any suggestions, questions, comments, or ideas. Thanks for playing along!

[Meg]

Pretty sure I got it. Nice puzzle.

[boharr]

Banana peeled.

[oldjudge]

Solved—fun puzzle! I got it pretty quickly but I think I was fortunate to see what I needed to almost immediately. If you don’t see it it could take a while.

[BarbaraK]

Banana peeled. Very nice puzzle. Not too hard, but not the first thing I looked at either.

[Abide]

! I had to try a few different things before the peel.

And late kudos for NOTORIETY, that was very well done.

[ChrisKochmanski]

I really will, literally, peel a banana when I finish posting this. They’re sitting on the fridge and they just turned ripe.

Got it with nudging.

[Schmeel]

It took a while, but I got it.
Banana's peeled!

[Laura M]

Ooh, I liked this one!

[lbray53]

FINALLY! I have been looking at this and could not figure it out even with a nudge. I guess the 30th time is the charm.

[bcimmet]

Hello solvers,

The solution to this contest was FINISH LINE.

There are six across entries and four down entries that end in the letter Z. If you look at the clues for these ten entries, the last letters spell (in order), FINISH LINE.

• 10A CHEZ [In restaurant names, it means "at the home of"]
• 34A LORENZ [Lyricist Hart who used to write with Richard Rodgers, before Rodgers teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II] (that's an awkward "i" ending, which was many solvers' entry point)
• 41A FEZ [Hat for Aladdin]
• 46A HAARETZ [Newspaper read by many an Israeli]
• 65A RITZ [Famous name of hotels and crackers]
• 67A HEINZ [Popular brand of ketchup, mustard, and relish]
• 19D BLITZ [Quick defensive attack in football]
• 32D ORTIZ [Hall of fame designated hitter David known to his fans as "Big Papi"]
• 45D BLINTZ [Crepe's cousin]
• 58D GEEZ ["___ Louise!"]

1-Across provided a teeny hint (the answer was START), and of course, the title question is satisfied by the final answer as well.

Thanks for playing! There's another contest puzzle and another post in the forum for it. I hope you give it a try!