XWord Muggles Forum

I submitted.

Lots of golf this weekend! Running out of time here in Columbus. I got the AHA somewhere in the back nine. I am on Shore and am enjoying a tasty old fashioned!

woozy wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2023 6:42 pm

Nycerjohnnie wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2023 6:16 pm

Jeanrosz wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 4:26 pm I got an answer but had to look it up since I never heard of it….

People asking what made me think others somehow got the answer without having heard of the show. I was referring to posts like this. What “answer” could you even google? How could you have even arrived at the actual “answer” if you never heard of the show. Something doesn’t make sense

I *suppose* the dedicated could look up shows by ranking and go through a list 500 shows or so and it could stick out.

Also google does do "suggestions" of things you don't enter.

And if some solvers automatically do analysis. So some people may have noticed the essential thing that most of as at first thought was too mundane to notice.

And... if you do an IMDB search on ##### there was a show in the with that title. But it was *very* obscure. And not in any sense a "classic". But if you had never heard of the show you might not know it wasn't a classic. ... actually as this was a first page poster I suspect the *was* a wrong answer.

Jeanrosz said they got the answer THEN looked it up. That’s the part I can’t picture

Thank goodness for Last call! Our one 30%guess is now 100%. Nice to be on shore! Thanks for the assist!

On beach

I’ve attempted to solve the WSJ contest for several weeks, but this week is the first where I come up with an answer to submit. Assuming I’m correct, it was a fun and clever puzzle. Thank you.
If I’m incorrect, then bah humbug.
After solving part1, I immediately thought of ****, a show I remember watching. It took a while to figure out the other “clue” to confirm my guess. Thanks again.

Good evening muggles

Our final count is 10 on the ship and 202 on the shore. Good luck winning the mug

And welcome to our newest muggle @Twilly57. Great to have another muggle.

Figured out that I've been sitting on shore since Thursday. I hadn't submitted it because I couldn't figure out how to get there from what I had, but took another look and found the click.

Just got home from being out of town with 2 hours until the deadline. Printed the puzzle out and was ashore before finishing the grid. Being only a handful of years younger than Mr. Gaffney probably helped a great deal on this one.

MMe wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2023 9:22 am I dunno, once you discover that the most obvious thing to google doesn't hit paydirt, ... . Still gettable but definitely a big jump in difficulty if you haven't heard of it. I don't often think about how targeted these are to the cultural knowledge of Americans of a certain age until I try one of those puzzle hunts where it's all video game characters and fourth-generation rappers.

I generally enjoy puzzle hunts but boy, a lot of them have taken a hard right turn into nerd culture. I gave up on one in frustration at a puzzle that required a preposterous amount of knowledge about specific Magic: the Gathering cards. After spending 2 hours on some MTG website I just chucked it.

If a solver doesn't know the subject matter, they should be able to get there by Google (says the guy who constructed a meta involving movie titles that I thought most people knew... Nope).

Nycerjohnnie wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2023 6:16 pm

Jeanrosz wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 4:26 pm I got an answer but had to look it up since I never heard of it….

People asking what made me think others somehow got the answer without having heard of the show. I was referring to posts like this. What “answer” could you even google? How could you have even arrived at the actual “answer” if you never heard of the show. Something doesn’t make sense

I had heard the name of the TV show before, but had to Google whether it was a show or a movie, as I'd never seen it. Once I confirmed it was indeed a show, I saw how it fit perfectly. Had I never even heard the name before, I'm not sure I could have solved.

Very lame.

Went from PLENTY to clue that was closest to it (3D) and so guessed Three’s Company. Also thought Brady Bunch might be an option per 3D. Obviously, neither was strong.

I have some grievances with this. I figured out PLENTY almost immediately (it’s like basically part of the puzzles gimmick, I could even see this just being a set of practically normal theme answers on a NYT-esque puzzle). I looked through a list of “classic TV shows” looking for a backsolve bc I couldn’t for the life of me find PLENTY in the puzzle itself (HEAPS and something related to hundreds of notes seemed of interest). I have never heard of this show. Whoever said you either know this or you don’t: I wish I saw your comment earlier. Maybe the title is referring to what Matt Gaffney would’ve said to me if he saw me trying to solve this. I’ll be sober this week I spose.

EDIT: I take back everything. I was too spiteful, in hindsight it was actually a good meta...

PLENTY led me to RHODA, a classic 70's spinoff. What other actor than Mary Tyler Moore had PLENTY of spinoffs?

Eight is Enough was key to another Gaffney puzzle, "Show Them The Way", from October 9, 2020. See page 17: https://www.xword-muggles.com/viewtopic.php?t=599

My first thought was Bonanza, then thought of other synonyms for “plenty” which led to “enough”. That was when I noticed all the theme answers were 8 letters. Watched this show every week growing up! Had an interesting flashback a few years ago when I saw Hello Dolly in Chicago with Betty Buckley in the lead role.

It is true that this required some “classic” knowledge, but that is true of any puzzle.

People do the Music Meta which I can never do because of a general lack of knowledge.

Other constructors have done puzzles with more topical clues like rappers, performance artists, TV shows aimed at a non-boomer crowd, etc. I try them all because that is how one grows their database and gets better. The things I have learned from puzzles has made me a better conversationalist, has helped me understand some other written or broadcast work and has made me entirely annoying to my wife when a question on Jeopardy comes up and I answer it. “How in the world could you know that?” she cries. “Crosswords!”

My point is that we should probably not criticize something outside our comfort zone, but embrace it for what it is, enlightenment.

In doing my usual run through of possible solve mechanisms, I counted the number of letters in each of the themers. Each had EIGHT letters. As I thought about it I actually said "There's only EIGHT letters but that's ENOUGH to solve." Added in that PLENTY and ENOUGH are synonyms and that pretty much clinched it.

I know a number of people submitted an incorrect show, perhaps based on PLENTY? I hope they'll post what their alternative was.

Although I didn't really watch the show, in our blended family that was the running gag when our youngest was born. Three kids each from previous marriages and two together.

Jace54 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 23, 2023 12:26 am My first thought was Bonanza, then thought of other synonyms for “plenty” which led to “enough”. That was when I noticed all the theme answers were 8 letters. Watched this show every week growing up! Had an interesting flashback about a few years ago when I saw Hello Dolly in Chicago with Betty Buckley in the lead role.

Law and Order, CSI, Cheers, Star Trek , JAG, All in the Family, Scoobie Doo, Happy Days….

To me the clincher was “Just Stop” or another was to say “Enough!”. Along with PLENTY, and CAP I got Eight is Enough even without realizing all themers were 8 letters, which was enough….