"I Spy" - November 19, 2021

[Jace54]

I originally was sure that “enne”, “see”, and “andi” by the theme entries were hinting at letters in the solution, with “andi” meaning the last letter of the answer is “i”. But after nothing materialized there, I decided to look for crossing words to the theme entries and noticed the “ol” and “eo” intersecting the middle of the yellow answers. Figured that would be an amazing coincidence, then noticed “dove” and quickly found the rest of the colored items.

Brutal four weeks, feels good to get 50% of them! Are there any Muggles who solved all four without assistance?

[PQ63]

EATSUP becomes CATSUP (red) and TOILAT becomes TOILET (white) - did anybody go down that rabbit hole?

[JeanneC]

Can’t complain. Neat puzzle and meta. Should have seen it. Didn’t. It’s on me. Congrats to the solvers!

[hoover]

I learned that the flag of the Seychelles is green, yellow, red, blue, and white, and so are the flags of the CAR, Comoros, and Namibia.
I knew I was looking for other things of X color close by, but I couldn't find anything. Also I got stuck on EATSUP -> CATSUP (which is red)

[LadyBird]

EATSUP becomes CATSUP (red) and TOILAT becomes TOILET (white) - did anybody go down that rabbit hole?

That was my rabbit hole! And SEE becomes SEA and TWAS becomes (green) TEAS. Yellow was a problem--PALE STONE anyone?

[Richard]

My rabbit hole was to put letters in the blanks.
VA in front of Nilla to get Vanilla White
and EE after the ch in Putsch to get cheese yellow
My words were close to the second word in the puzzle with the color.
'
Then I saw apple and was guided that it was right and mine were wrong.
oleo was hard for me to fine.

Not sure of the mechanism to get the letters in order to spell WALDO. Was this an anagram?

[woozy]

EATSUP becomes CATSUP (red) and TOILAT becomes TOILET (white) - did anybody go down that rabbit hole?

I saw it but gingerly stepped away so as not to muddy my shoes.

[Scott Lindholm]

Man, I wasn't even in the same universe as this puzzle. But my wife sent me this pic (it's a birthday cake).

Happy Thanksgiving to all, we live in a great country.

[woozy]

Not sure of the mechanism to get the letters in order to spell WALDO. Was this an anagram?

As per Joe Ross's graphic, I think the "getting close" means you spiral in from the four sides to the center to find WALDO in the black square. ... maybe... hindsight is amazing.

[Relic]

Okay, good learning experience. My initial rabbit hole was there must be other examples of the mentioned colors hidden in the grid. I went off the rails by adding an R to abide making "a bride" (white) and then making eatsup to catsup (red). I did try going across the blacked out spaces but didn't look for words within. I would have never gotten wasabi as I'm completely unfamiliar with it. My other rabbit hole was tracking all the occurrences of the letter I - I think there were 15 which seemed like a lot - but no fruit.

BTW, Maggie gave me a nudge at 6PM, but it was not a meta hint, it was a reminder of her dinner time.

Overall, a satisfying meta. Good job Matt, we'll meet again.

[mheberlingx100]

Kudos to those who solved this!

I got hung up on the “getting closer” parts of the clues. I was maybe too focused on that. Having seen the answer, I really don’t understand how the second answer for each color is closer than the first.

I expected the green item would be something seen in a field, the red in a vase, the yellow on the road, etc. I dug deeply in that rabbit hole and of course came up empty.

[Anita]

EATSUP becomes CATSUP (red) and TOILAT becomes TOILET (white) - did anybody go down that rabbit hole?

That was my rabbit hole too! I also had BEANO becoming BEANS (green), and SEE becoming SEA (blue). I also thought that maybe it should be PAIL / HAIL for white. But I couldn't come up with yellow.

[Darth]

Some creative minds among us with all of that fancy substitution! I started with the straightforward "I Spy" game. Seeing SEEDLING, I thought there must be some trees around -- either an elm or an ash or an oak -- nice simple words starting with vowels. Well, then there was VISHNU, not a common crossword answer, and reclining in his sea of blue, so that struck me as intentionally placed. I saw LA KE first, but I dismissed it for some reason, either because of Vishnu or because of those gaps.

But then I spied DO VE for white and immediately scanned across to the other side and spotted AP PLE. Then remembered LA KE and with three with that gap pattern happening, I knew I had the rest! Just needed to bridge those gaps. Oh, and @MaineMarge the Tom Hanks movie on Isaac's list? It made me chuckle due to its appropriateness to the mechanism: "Bridge of Spies"

[Jeremy Smith]

EATSUP becomes CATSUP (red) and TOILAT becomes TOILET (white) - did anybody go down that rabbit hole?

That was my rabbit hole too! I also had BEANO becoming BEANS (green), and SEE becoming SEA (blue). I also thought that maybe it should be PAIL / HAIL for white. But I couldn't come up with yellow.

Yep. And PAIL can become TAIL (Yellowtail wine). Or PAIL can also become HAIL (white). EATSUP, TOILAT, and BEANO seem red herring-ish, rather than rabbit holes.

[TeamDoubleTow]

I got hung up on the “getting closer” parts of the clues. I was maybe too focused on that. Having seen the answer, I really don’t understand how the second answer for each color is closer than the first.

I did the same thing but the clue says "you're getting close" not "closer." So you might say that having both words helps you get close. That realization helped reorient me.

[Dplass]

I was hoping for a more colorful name, like Tawny or Graye.

[BarbaraK]

Synonyms, anagrams, homophones
TV show, board game, Pantone
So many rabbit holes I’ve known
I’ve looked at “I Spy” that way

But now it’s just another meta
Another week that I won’t getta
But that’s OK, it’s time to let a
meta slip away

I’ve looked at “I Spy” from both sides now
From grid and clues and still somehow
It’s all the dead ends I recall
I really haven’t solved “I Spy” at all

[femullen]

What's wasabi?

[RDaleHall]

Congrats to solvers - another week rowing in a slightly off course direction. Knew it was something like this, but kept coming back to red CATSUP (for EATSUP) and green/yellow BEANS (for BEANO). I even spent time turning DOUG into DOVE -- just needed to look 90 degrees south instead of east... Happy US Thanksgiving to all coming up -- take time to celebrate!

[patpatchica]

I found the biggest rabbit hole I’ve ever encountered to get a solid wrong answer. There are five clues that allude to the five colors. 31A paper money - green, 73A sorrowful - blue, 5D shucks - yellow, 7D egg - white, 51D fire - red. When you go back to the grid and pull out the first letter of each answer, you get fives letters that will spell ISAAC. I thought that could not be a coincidence, but apparently it was.