"Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

[Janet P]

KAS 5 for me two weeks in a row. I don't think I've ever had that happen before.
Just could NOT get past that there were two SKYs in the puzzle but only one in the actual lyrics. And YOUWISH had me chasing a cricket around Gepetto's workshop for a while.
Oh well, Thursday will come around way too quickly anyhow

Congratulations to all the solvers and good luck on winning that mug!

[C=64]

Here were my convoluted solving steps:

7. Go back to looking for stars. Play Boggle with the grid (my favorite rabbit hole that never works) and find SIRIUS in the northwest corner.

You (fortunately) missed some 3-letter diagonal stars: LEO (ok, that's a constellation and a DiCaprio), BEA (Arthur, um, I guess), JEN (Aniston? Lopez? This is clearly not working.).

[michaelm]

Weekend rabbit hole tales really make Mondays better.
Love the gentle self-deprecating humor!

[Tony S]

If solving a meta involves printing out sheet music, creating spreadsheets, or creating ear worms with children's songs it's gone beyond what I'm willing to do in my spare time. Awhile ago I described the Wonder Twins as the "worst meta ever." I spoke too soon.

[SewYoung]

For a while there, I was wondering if this was April Fools Day and the correct answer was NONSENSE - because that's all I was finding, and it certainly describes some lyrics.

While scouring the grid, I did spot this shoutout to our hosts

WSJ in WSJ.jpg

I was going to submit NONSENSE at the last minute if I never figured it out. I didn't figure it out, but I forgot to submit.

[Hidden in 3D]

Here is the sad, sad story from Sara-la-la-land. Even as a child I noticed the similarities in the tunes of ABC's, Twinkle, and Baa Baa. This little factoid was further cemented in my brain because all three songs became part of an oft-repeated repertoire (along with many other children's songs) which was sung or hummed as I walked the floor with three fussy babies. (Luckily at three different points of my life.) One of the very first things I did when attempting to solve was to write the words/letters of each song in columns. It frustrated me that they didn't "line up" perfectly, as others have noted, so I quickly dropped that line of reasoning and spent the rest of the weekend stuck in the same rabbit holes that other Muggles have mentioned. After looking at the solution in the WSJ this morning, I laughed out loud and went back to look at my columns. Had I bothered to study them at all on Friday I would have seen the solution staring me in the face. I've said it to myself so many times, yet I still don't follow my own advice, TRUST YOUR FIRST INSTINCTS!

[femullen]

Awhile ago I described the Wonder Twins as the "worst meta ever." I spoke too soon.

I still go with Wonder Twins. Utterly obscure. Who on earth (besides Wendy, apparently) ever heard of Wonder Twins?

[Commodore]

60D - MIND BLOWN. WHOA!

Had correct theme entries quickly, then wildly tacked off to port with 8 "explicit" statements. [Frying pan-to-head]
ARE WE CLEAR | SO THERE | MUST I | WHAT NOW | GIT | I WONT DO IT | YOU WISH | WHOA

Hmmm. Searching on Interwebs for lyrics. Words describing lyrics. Led to Tipper Gore and "PARENTAL ADVISORY" Stickers. Hmm. More 8 letter words. Stare at puzzle for hours over several hot days. Brain cooked. Hail Mary is the 8-letter EXPLICIT that had entered my head before doing the grid, of which I could not rid my addled mind.

From Davy Jones' Locker, congratulations to all you musical solvers at the Tiki Bar.

[Jeremy Smith]

I am just not a music person - so these puzzles that involve notes or inflections are probably always going to be KAS 5 for me.

I AM a music person (piano for 60 years). If memory serves me correctly, this is the third recent meta involving the notes of the scale. I was not able to solve any of the three.
Matt’s current MGWCC is entitled HARMONIZE!. I have yet to solve it. I shudder to think that I may be required to add consonance (and dissonance) to the grid to be able to solve the meta.

[Wendy Walker]

Awhile ago I described the Wonder Twins as the "worst meta ever." I spoke too soon.

I still go with Wonder Twins. Utterly obscure. Who on earth (besides Wendy, apparently) ever heard of Wonder Twins?

I hadn't! I had to spend a LOT of time on Google to get that one! (I confess I had heard of both Margaret Cho and Yma Sumac, though.)

[BethA]

Shame on me! I should have gotten this one. I noticed the importance of 74-Across, I wrote down the lyrics of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and the 8 theme answers on my scratch sheet, but couldn’t put it together. I am fairly musical, and on other metas have even wished that they would involve using the notes more!

Instead I continued my pattern of submitting a guess when it’s wrong, not submitting when it’s right. My answer was NONSENSE, inspired by the Name Game song, and suggested by sounds of several grid entries like HULU, TOJO, HAPA, and especially OBAMA!

Gaffney! Gaffney, Gaffney
Bo-baff-ney, bo-na-na fanna
Fo-faff-ney. Fee fi mo-maff-ney, Gaffney!

[TPS]

If memory serves me correctly, this is the third recent meta involving the notes of the scale.

Yep - 3 w/in the past 2 months - KT OLSIN, A PLUS, & PUZZLING have all have to do w/ inflection, notes, and/or music. Amazingly I’m 1 for 3 - mainly because I got lucky and thought to google “List if Musical Notes” for the KT OLSIN one.

[TPS]

I still go with Wonder Twins. Utterly obscure. Who on earth (besides Wendy, apparently) ever heard of Wonder Twins?

I would be very surprised of anyone between the age of 35 - 45 who didn’t know of the Wonder Twins - it’s definitely a child of the 1980’s specific reference.

Also little known fact the characters names were based on Tarzan and Jane but they modeled their voices and personalities off the Osmonds!

Wonder Twin powers activate!

[lacangah]

Good luck to all in winning the “whAT-SO-STAR”!

[MattGaffney]

I was surprised this one played so tough. I didn't think solvers would need to use anything but pencil and paper -- write down the letters A through Z on the left, then sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and write down the corresponding words on the right. The only tricky part was LMNOP, but that's why you sing those fast -- since you're cramming five one-syllable letters in where there are only three one-syllable words ("what you are") in the song. So it had to be L-N-P there.

[C=64]

Hail Mary is the 8-letter EXPLICIT that had entered my head before doing the grid, of which I could not rid my addled mind.

I also thought of EXPLICIT, and as I lay on a camping cot staring up at the treetops, my mind wandered to other words with the same root: explicate, implicit, implicate, duplicitous, duplicate, replicate, complicit, complicate, supplicate, multiplication... The root word is the Latin plicare, to fold. Source: https://www.etymonline.com/

Speaking of multiplication, I was also trying to remember how many cubic inches are in one cubic yard -- the campground dumpster was marked "2 YD" -- and knew that I could get it by multiplying 1728 (12 cubed) by 27 (3 cubed) but decided that doing 36 cubed would be easier. I already knew that 36 squared is 1296, and to do 1296 times 36, I did 1300 times 36 minus 4 times 36 which I broke down as 1300 times 30 plus 1300 times 6 minus 4 times 36...

Anyway, after all that noodling around in my head, I flipped over on the cot and stared at the puzzle again (for about the fifth time) and figured it out.

Ok, I have to teach a geometry class on Zoom in a couple of minutes, so I'll stop responding to everybody's posts now.

[Dplass]

If solving a meta involves printing out sheet music, creating spreadsheets, or creating ear worms with children's songs it's gone beyond what I'm willing to do in my spare time. Awhile ago I described the Wonder Twins as the "worst meta ever." I spoke too soon.

I have similar feelings. Also, if the answer isn't literally in the grid, I get a bad taste in my mouth.

[Dplass]

I still go with Wonder Twins. Utterly obscure. Who on earth (besides Wendy, apparently) ever heard of Wonder Twins?

I would be very surprised of anyone between the age of 35 - 45 who didn’t know of the Wonder Twins - it’s definitely a child of the 1980’s specific reference.

Also little known fact the characters names were based on Tarzan and Jane but they modeled their voices and personalities off the Osmonds!

Wonder Twin powers activate!

Form of: AN EAGLE!
Form of: A bucket of water!

[Deb F]

This one may be my undoing. After the years of doing these, and having varying degrees of success, the last several weeks have found me so Lost At Sea that I may hang up my Meta hat. It's been fun hanging with all you Muggles. Good luck!

[TPS]

if the answer isn't literally in the grid

There is probably a less than 5% chance I am going to solve it.

That said this one didn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth - I liked it. Would have NEVER solved it but - I liked it.

I get a bad taste where the mechanism and or the clues or misleading. Like I loved the concept of the RICHARD III with the checkers I just thought the execution was flawed just because if you tell me their are some checkers - I presume they are my checkers not my opponents.