19. It's a Hit!

[MikeyG]

PDF and PUZ

Crosshare

Meta fans of the universe, unite!

We set a record last time with over 40 solvers, and I'm honored! This one looks like it will come in at about a Level 2, at most, I'd say, but who knows anymore, haha.

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The answer to the meta is an eight-letter, two-word phrase.

Deadline: Tuesday, April 5 at noon Eastern

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Leaderboard of Destiny

1. Frankie
2. whimsy
3. ChrisK
4. boharr
5. Meg
6. Joe
7. LuckyGuest
8. andeux
9. Bird Lives
10. KayW
11. Small Wave Dave
12. woozy
13. Laura M
14. mindle
15. DJB
16. C64
17. Abide
18. Darth
19. lbray53
20. DIS
21. oldjudge
22. mindle
23. Julia
24. benchen71
25. markhr
26. Philip Chow
27. Hector
28. Tyrpmom
29. DrTom
30. Shmuel

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Mikey G

[benchen71]

I see some things. And I've tried a few things. But nothing is emerging consistently. And after spending so long looking for an eight letter, two word phrase in this week's MGWCC, I'm not sure I have the meta energy to find another eight letter, two word phrase.

Will there be nudges? Please tell me there will be nudges!

[MikeyG]

I see some things. And I've tried a few things. But nothing is emerging consistently. And after spending so long looking for an eight letter, two word phrase in this week's MGWCC, I'm not sure I have the meta energy to find another eight letter, two word phrase.

Will there be nudges? Please tell me there will be nudges!

There will be down the line!

I laughed when I saw the Gaffney prompt; mine are prepared ahead of time, so that was just a complete coincidence!!

[whimsy]

Yum.

I just have to UPDATE this post. Sometime In the wee hours, I realized that while with probably a bit of luck, I'd been able to discover the solution, I was not appreciating all the parts that made this such a great and fun puzzle! So glad I took the time to ponder on it a bit more after the fact and get the whole picture!

[ChrisKochmanski]

I’m thinking of many fitting phrases for “Got it!”, but I don’t want to give anything away. Thanks, Mikey!

[boharr]

I got the answer but, like whimsy, had to go back to ponder the path.

[Meg]

That took waaaaaaay too long! But with a stiff nudge, I got it.

[Bird Lives]

Great idea. My cultural ignorance slowed me down in one place. My cultural arrogance tempts me with a couple of quibbles. All that aside, I thought the clue for 39D (Ancients, for instance: Abbr.) was brilliant.

[KayW]

Great meta and clues. Thanks!

[woozy]

Don't over think it, woozy, don't overthink it.

Good one!

[lbray53]

Fun one!! Took longer than it should have. Twice.

[benchen71]

Thanks to a gentle nudge I finally got to the answer. I went down several rabbit holes that I found hard to escape.

[MikeyG]

Great idea. My cultural ignorance slowed me down in one place. My cultural arrogance tempts me with a couple of quibbles. All that aside, I thought the clue for 39D (Ancients, for instance: Abbr.) was brilliant.

I wonder if they're the same as my quibbles, haha. (No spoilers in here, of course!)

[MikeyG]

March/April meta answer: PLAY BALL

Solvers: 30

Winner!: LuckyGuest

Solution:

There's little to say, haha. I have five PLAYs (though you could definitely argue that the musicals aren't technically plays - there are apparently a lot more one-word musicals than one-word plays out there, from what I've seen!), followed by five BALLs (I am of the GOOF variety - well, GOOF/CHEESE hybrid). Thus, PLAY BALL, in honor of my love of baseball (so expect one of these every year, haha).

Good to see people rooting on their teams in the comments! I'm pretty much healed over the dismantling of my beloved Cubbies, with only three players (Contreras, Hendricks, Heyward) still on the team from the 2016 franchise. (For what it's worth, I was rooting for the Cubbies since the early '90s, so I was not a bandwagon fan, haha.) I don't necessarily believe we'll contend this year, but we looked halfway decent in spring training, and we have some exciting new players in the mix.

May your best teams win or, if you're not a fan, may baseball season pass by swiftly so you can stop hearing me talk about it. Happy puzzling, and I'll see you in a week-and-a-half or so for the mini-meta!

Mikey G

[DrTom]

I was sure I had posted, but evidently I had not. Loved the puzzle (that took me a "DOH" to get the first part). I had figured from the title that the one of the words was BALL but didn't really know why. I was going to go for either PLAY or FOUL when Mikey said to split the pairs up and then BALL became apparent and later (MUCH later, after trying to tie second words that fit all the categories) it hit me "NO, they are all stage productions, or PLAYS!

You have to love Mikey's humor and his grids which I end up chuckling like a GOOF BALL over every time. Wow, who would have ever figured I'd like bad puns or twisted humor?

Great fun Mikey

Now this is what you meant by Play Ball isn't it?