"Then and Now" - December 6, 2019

[lacangah]

I would assert that the Wonder Twins were part of the GenX Saturday morning cartoon zeitgeist.

Wonder Twin powers activate! Form of… a mug!

Good luck to all

[oldjudge]

I had an alternative answer. Like everyone else I got the first four pieces. Like most everyone I could see won/win as the fifth, but it is not in the puzzle. HOWEVER, if you read the four that you do have —ate was lay ran, eat is lie run— it sounds a lot like it was/is Lauren. A famous British cartoon duo is Charlie and Lola, which was created by Lauren Child. When you Google cartoon duo and Lauren that is what you get. I think my answer makes as much sense as Matt’s.

[Richard]

This has to be the worst meta ever. I got to WON/WIN and that's as far as I could go. I'm supposed to infer Wonder Twins, an obscure cartoon if there ever was one, from that? Margaret Cho and Marie Kondo move over --- you have been evicted!

I agree completely. This was a test of your ability to Google. Sorry that I wasted my time on this on.

[DrTom]

Well I don't feel so bad, this was a KAS 5, never would have gotten. I had WON/WON of course because it made sense but could not combine the first letters of the names to make another name. I even tried CLAY ALI as another pair because (1) it was Then and Now (2) he did PREVAIL against the odds against him (3) there was a "perhaps" hint of Boxer in 49D. Still that large stretch did not help because I did not get any further with the letters I garnered that way. Similarly BEAT/BEAT did not give me any better letters

I also struggled with IRAN and ILIED wondering if there was something there since they contained puzzle pieces, as I did with CATE, SIP, ETTA, and LIRE because of their "one offedness".

As to whether I would have ever gotten WONder Twins from WON/WON, the answer is categorical no. Even if I had googled "cartoon with WON in its name", or "cartoon duo with WON in its name" (both of which I just did) I would not have gotten WONDER TWINS. I'd have to say that of all the puzzles in the past year or so this is my least favorite and involves the most obscure of final steps. Nothing taken away from the Meta Mavens, I admire your craftiness and Sherlockian arrival at the answer, but I would not be sad if this convention never came up again.

This answer left me WONdering, but at least my inadvertent "hints" would have helped nobody because everyone who got stopped seems to have gotten stopped at about the same place- still won't do it again, but I am feeling a lot less remorse.

[ericharrison1969]

I didn’t need google to find Wonder Twins. I had that on my list as a possibility. I also had WON/WIN. But seeing the “answer,” I still can’t make the leap from WON/WIN to Wonder Twins. I’ve done these metas since the beginning, and I’ve seen good, bad, too easy, too hard ..... but I’ve never seen one that still doesn’t make sense even when I’ve seen the answer. I am beyond disappointed.

[KayW]

Phbbbt.

Total KAS5+ for me. I got the 80% step that so many others got and started searching in the grid, the clues, and google for WON/WIN. Never heard of Wonder Twins (I'm a tag-end boomer). I was even googling things like "cartoon woncha winchi" because I thought the CHACHI answer was a bit unusual and might have been meta-related. Googling "cartoon won win" did not turn up Wonder Twins. Since Google searches don't support pattern matching there was no way to google for cartoon characters containing those letter patterns in their names. So I guess my fail was not to check to see if wikipedia had a list of animated duos as Eric Porter suggested, and then wade through that. (Brilliant strategy, BTW. Wish I thought of that. But that process would just be very tedious proofreading rather than an inspired meta solve.)

It's a clever enough meta construction - especially that 80%! - but I don't like the fact that there was no real way to derive the answer if you never heard of the characters. That's one thing I really appreciate about Pete Muller's music meta - I often haven't heard of the answer, and while I don't have a great track record solving his contest, at least there's a way to derive the answer even if you don't know it. Then you just have to google to make sure that what you derived (i.e. Wonder Twins) exists in the meta answer category (cartoon duos).

My Hail Mary was Mr. Peabody and Sherman. I couldn't tie it to anything in the 80%, but I thought their wayback machine fit nicely with the THEN and NOW meta title.

Kudos to those who solved this puzzle! ...especially any who weren't born in the right time window to have heard of this show.

[Joe Ross]

I had an answer on Thursday that I thought I could backsolve, which I'm too embarrassed to publish.**

I didn't come close to the 80% point, not to mention the penultimate 10%, WON/WIN, nor the final 10%, WONDER TWINS.

I didn't identify all of the correct meta clues, since I didn't value the oddity of FRANK BRUNI and rejected it as not "belonging" with the others. Losing F. B. made me also reject WASHED DISHES, based on symmetrics. Ignorant, right?

Given the above, I hesitate to offer forensics on the final 10% and an unsubstantiated peek into the creator's mind, but bear with me, please.

WON WIN to WONDER TWINS demands the inference of five additional letters: D E R T S.

The five (d) clue answers, are Devour, Dart, Rest, Exist, and Prevail with initials D D R E P, or rearranged as D E R P D.

***Is it possible that there was an intent to have the initials of the five (d) clue answers elegantly fill in the missing five letters between WON WIN and WONDER TWINS, but only three of the five, D E R, could be created within the grid?

I am amazed by everyone who solved this. Well done! The mug should be emblazoned with 5 gold stars.
________________________________________________________
Edit: **At least other muggles were chumming the same incorrect waters with me. My answer appears within the also rans.

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?

________________________________________________________
Edit: ***Another total whiff:

Matt Gaffney. (TY, FrankH)
December 9, 2019

Hmm, I’m surprised this was such a tough Google for some solvers. I agree that any Googling required on a meta should be a)brief and b)you should know just what you’re looking for, i.e. no tedious list-combing.

I figured people unfamiliar with the Wonder Twins would at least know they’re looking for a two-word phrase with WON in the first and WIN in the second, Google “cartoon duos wikipedia,” and this list comes up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Animated_duos, and done.

I thought WIN being in the second word and looking for a duo would strongly hint toward “twins” as well.

[MarkL]

Had won/win then hit a wall, even with Google. Just plain missed it.

So it wasn't "Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har??"

[MaryCC]

This was like an early Christmas present from Matt Gaffney to us Gen Xers. If you were born before or after that, you were probably scratching your head. But if you grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons in the late 70's and early 80's, you are very familiar with the Wonder Twins. You may not remember their names were Zan and Jayna, but you probably remember their pet monkey, Gleek!

I got a big kick out of this one. Thanks for the nostalgia, Matt!

Completely agree--wonder twin powers, activate!

[jag]

I got the right answer - having grown up in the 70s, I did watch the Wonder Twins. In fact, I've educated my daughters about the catchphrase "Wonder Twin powers...activate", but have spared them from watching more than 60 seconds of that campy cartoon.

Back to the meta - I thought the inclusion of past tense/present tense in the long answers was pure brilliance - "then and now" - just wow!

The only piece I felt was missing was one small guidepost clue - such as having one or two of the other answers point us toward the Wonder Twins. e.g. having "Justice" or "Hall". That's my only minor wrinkle, and is perhaps a judgment call as to how much help to provide in these "inferred" metas such as this one, or the recent Simon Says".

Good work, Matt!

[Bob cruise director]

I gave this meta a two thumbs down. I have never heard of the Wonder Twins and even with googling various combinations of "cartoon", "duo", "won", it did not produce the right answer. And I tried all sorts of things within the grid to try another approach. Even 24A with ADDY taken as adding a Y to something got me nowhere.

I polled my Gen-X kids and daughter in law and got an "of course". Where were they in my time of need???

I agree with others on a MEH and move on

[howardl]

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.)

[Julie O]

This was like an early Christmas present from Matt Gaffney to us Gen Xers. If you were born before or after that, you were probably scratching your head. But if you grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons in the late 70's and early 80's, you are very familiar with the Wonder Twins. You may not remember their names were Zan and Jayna, but you probably remember their pet monkey, Gleek!

I got a big kick out of this one. Thanks for the nostalgia, Matt!

I watched them on Saturday mornings as a child, too. Which is probably why I figured this one out away from the grid.

[FrankieHeck]

I'm probably about 10 years too old to be really familiar with them, and the search was a little annoying. But once I found them and saw that they were obviously popular at the time, I was fairly confident.

[Colin]

Spent the weekend in a right fix,
Shoehorning Asterix and Obelix,
Then tried for Victor and Valentino,
But Isaac and Bulleit were my twins... oh no!

[LesY]

It’s pretty rare for Xers to get a turn in the spotlight (smaller market between 2-3 or 4? big ones). So thank you Matt!

The discussion is fascinating. For me, this solve was at least some reward for all the pre-Gen X knowledge I’ve needed to learn while solving crosswords over the past 20+ years.

For an alternate scenario and discussion, check out the MGWCC message thread from just 2 weeks ago (Directors Meeting). Without learning so much pre-X info I never would have solved that one!

[ImOnToo]

I usually stick with the puzzle all weekend if the solution isn’t readily apparent to me.
I wearied of this one by early Saturday morning and threw it away. Glad I did as I would NEVER have figured it out.

[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.

[BarbaraK]

I'm also too old for Wonder Twins. When I got to won/win, I looked to see if Wonder Woman had had a sidekick with "win" in his/her name, but no. Then I started thinking about the win side and realized that a duo could be twins, and google confirmed it. Also found out that the series originally came out in the 70s and there was a new edition released this year, so that worked nicely for the whole Then and Now theme.

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.

[Bob cruise director]

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.