MEOW #174 Cover Story

A weekly meta crossword on the forum started by member Josh (aka madhatter5). These puzzles are often very creative with solving mechanisms out of the norm and skewing towards the more challenging. Puzzles are posted every Wednesday, and the solution appears the following Tuesday.
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pchow13
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#21

Post by pchow13 »

34 solvers have let the cat out of the bag thus far yay!

I want to apologize for a rather nasty unintentional red herring that is tripping up some solvers so I'd like to add a hint that the celebrity in question is not Prince.

FrankieHeck (TS)
DrTom (TS)
1. benchen71
2. Gutman
3. LarsCaine
4. rjy
5. boharr
6. Darth
7. Hector
8. kymike
9. MatthewL
10. I K Snamhcok
11. Carolyn
12. Tyrpmom
13. DIS
14. Meg
15. Cindy Weatherman
16. JM
17. markhr
18. Mwoychick
19. Ergcat
20. Dave C
21. woozy
22. heidi
23. Cindy Heisler
24. ajk
25. SJMcK
26. Laura M
27. CPJohnson
28. hoover
29. LB800
30. Berto
31. damefox
32. lbray53
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HeadinHome
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#22

Post by HeadinHome »

My cat is out as well, decidedly UNfamous, just like me. We’re good with that.
The other Wendy. :roll:
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DrTom
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#23

Post by DrTom »

I am so glad everyone is finding this puzzle as much fun as I did during test solving. Phillip keeps giving you slight peeks at the answer until (like the original game of concentration) you can put together the solve. Fun puzzle with talented construction.
NUDGES!I am always willing to give nudges where needed; metas should be about fun, not frustration. Send me what you have done so far because often you are closer than you think!
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whimsy
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#24

Post by whimsy »

Solved roundaboutly.
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Thanks, Phil!
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Qmark
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#25

Post by Qmark »

Cat's out...thanks Phil!
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KayW
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#26

Post by KayW »

:crossed_swords: :rabbit: :cat: The cat is out and hobnobbing with celebrity pets. Wow, what a clever and fun metanism - thanks, Phil!
Contest Crosswords Combating Cancer (CCCC) is a bundle of 16 metapuzzles created to help raise money for cancer-related charities. It is available at CrosswordsForCancer.com.
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pchow13
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#27

Post by pchow13 »

Friday nudges

Note: The central entry is relevant but the celebrity is not Prince.

hint #1: Four entries have the same clue... another way to clue these four entries is "Cat named for a country that no longer exists"

hint #2: Find the new name of the old countries... the first letters of the new countries in grid order spell out a relevant word

hint #3: Can you figure out how this relevant word relates to the puzzle's title?

hint #4: Hopefully TIME and "Cover Story" will get you thinking about a magazine that oftentimes feature celebrities on its cover

hint #5: The pet is a cat that appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine last year with a celebrity named Person of the Year

hint #6: The celebrity is mentioned in the clue for 52-Down
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pchow13
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#28

Post by pchow13 »

pchow13 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 10:01 pm 34 solvers have let the cat out of the bag thus far yay!

I want to apologize for a rather nasty unintentional red herring that is tripping up some solvers so I'd like to add a hint that the celebrity in question is not Prince.
18 more solvers successfully found the meta answer bringing our grand total to 52!

33. BarbaraK
34. Sendhil Revuluri
35. Abide
36. Dow Jones
37. HeadinHome
38. whimsy
39. dannyvee
40. Qmark
41. DCBilly
42. KayW
43. Bird Lives
44. kurtalert
45. LCC17
46. BuzzingCow
47. Rick
48. Danny K Bernstein
49. Johnny Luau
50. potemkinish

Solution below - SPOILER ALERT:

Answer explanation: Answer explanation: there are four cat breeds in the puzzle with the same clue "one that meows"... they are in grid order SIAMESE, PERSIAN, BURMESE, ABYSSINIAN... each of these cats is named after a place with an old name (as hinted by the central entry FORMERLYKNOWNAS)... if we take the new country names for these places we get SIAM --> THAILAND, PERSIA --> IRAN, BURMA --> MYANMAR, ABYSSINIA --> ETHIOPIA... the first letters of the new country names = TIME... the title of the puzzle "Cover Story" hints at Time Magazine covers... Taylor Swift (referenced in 52-Down) appeared on the cover of Time magazine as 2023 Person of the Year with her cat Benjamin Button, making him the answer to the meta 🐱

Constructor notes: this puzzle was inspired by JeffsPuzzles on Crosshare... I was doing one of his crosswords and his clue for SIAMESE was “cat named for a country that no longer exists” and I confidently plopped in PERSIAN with no crosses at all only to find out that I was wrong T_T... I thought hey that's pretty nifty that this clue can work for two different cat breeds... I looked up if there were any other cat breeds like that and that's how this meta was born... A bit of a leap to get from TIME to the meta answer but hoped that the title would steer you toward magazines and the Easter Eggs would poke through for confirmation.

Easter eggs:
52-Down KARMA: Taylor Swift song with the lyric "Purring in my lap 'cause it loves me"
42-Across AGE: What Brad Pitt's character does backwards in a 2008 film (this is a reference to "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" in which Benjamin Button ages backwards)
20-Across BIGSPENDER: One who drops BENJAMINs like they're nothing at all
64-Across SEWED: Affixed some BUTTONs, say

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