"Golden Years" - January 14, 2022

[jimmyd]

Seriously BLACK + ten letters + in the news + Golden in the title = Betty White… no alternate answer for this one

[lbray53]

BLACK for WHITE. BLACK BETTY WHITE. The title was GOLDEN YEARS. BLACK BETTY was a song by GOLDEN EARRING. (Or so I thought.) That clinched it for me and I just could not ignore the BLACK BETTY ear worm.

I am a fan of Golden Earring, and particularly Twilight Zone and Radar Love. However, in checking my work later, I learned that Golden Earring did not play Black Betty. From Google: "sometimes incorrectly attributed to Golden Earring or Lynyrd Skynyrd". So I guess I am not the only one who thought that at least.

So I was happy with the right anwer for the wrong reason.

And how about the last across entry? SETT I spent a lot of time trying to make "the last entry" part of the solution.

[ship4u]

Like many of you, we wondered if the solution was going to be more complicated, and finally decided that it was simply a black and white issue.

[LittleGood]

I had no idea on any mechanism, but hail-maryed BETTY WHITE.

[Joe]

I kept looking for VERONICA as an opposite to Betty, but alas..

I have no problem with the mechanism getting us to black per se, I just wish there had been something in the title or grid hinting to the use of opposites.

[debbierudy]

My initial thought was Betty White, due to her recent passing and role in Golden Girls, but also wondered about David Bowie because of the title, and also his entire music catalogue just sold for $250 million (WJS 1/4/22). But that seemed too matchy-matchy, so I figured it was probably Betty, not knowing that today is her 100th birthday. Getting Black, then White was good enough for me, since it was only the last names in the other celebs that contributed to the solution.

[Joe Ross]

There is a clever muggle with a mechanism like this that wraps up Betty White fairly neatly. It's their work & I'm going to (hope & pray &) wait for them to post it.

Now that you got me to go back and look again, I do see references to a couple last names, also. But, like you, I'll let the person who found them first explain.

Ooh! Spill, please. From what I see, you might have a different "first name" mechanism.

[ship4u]

First you get it, then you find the why. Sweetly done, Matt.

When I first read this post I wondered if it was an unintentional reference to 14 across, but decided not to say anything.

[KayW]

Initially, I thought the celeb might be David Bowie when Google fill a page with references to his album and song 'Golden Years' from 1975. It also was recently his 75th birthday celebrated with concerts in New York and London.

That song by the thin WHITE duke has been my ear worm most of the weekend.

But I submitted BETTY. As others said: GOLDEN girls/100th birthday.

[katnahat]

I'm new at this, and this solution may be farfetched. 14 across interested me. So I found the Y's and looked at the letters adjacent to them. I came up with ENROS, an anagram for Rose N, Betty White's character on The Golden Girls. BTW, how could I have made the attachment smaller? It's huge!

[Ergcat]

The title 'Golden Years' wasn't used in the mechanism, so once we have the last name WHITE, we can assume it points to Betty White because she is known for her role in "The Golden Girls" and for being almost 100 years old. For me, that was enough to lock it in, but I can understand people wanting additional confirmation.

I thought I might have something with BEAST and ESTAR as symmetrical clues that could point to her Golden Girls co-stars BEA Arthur and ESTelle Getty, but since RUE McClanahan isn't found anywhere, I wrote it off as a weird coincidence. Even if Rue had been there, it would have been nothing more than a wink, not a real mechanism for finding BETTY.

I saw the same thing with BEA and EST and spent a lot of time trying to find a RUE. I was also searching for Betty White’s character names. For a long time, seeing the BEA in Beast prevented me from “seeing” the B-EAST connection! In the end, I got BLACK and was content that I didn’t need to find BEtTY!

[TheCatt]

I've been so busy on the home front that I didn't even have time to solve the grid, but once I read the title Golden Years and the 10 letter clue, I answered BETTYWHITE.

This was exactly what we did. We didn't solve at all

[haydendog]

I was very frustrated by the fact that the first name couldn’t be found and confirmed. The title is something I always look to and in this case I thought “Golden Years” could refer to Olympic years. So I submitted Shaun White because he has been in the news in the run up to the Winter Olympics.
I get why the answer is probably Betty White but again why? I did try to morph Dottie into Betty but no luck.

[femullen]

I saw the last names, wrote down the opposites, and...stared and stared. Betty White was the obvious best guess, but I never figured out why. If I win the mug this week, it should come with a hole in the bottom.

[CPJohnson]

I kept looking for VERONICA as an opposite to Betty, but alas..

I have no problem with the mechanism getting us to black per se, I just wish there had been something in the title or grid hinting to the use of opposites.

I think this is one of those metas where the solvers are supposed to notice something after examining the theme answers, especially if all are 2 words....compare the first words, compare the second words, take the initial letters of both words and see if that spells anything, etc. In this case, we were supposed to notice that all the second words had an opposite. (I guess)

[cbarbee002]

My (minor) issue with the puzzle is that it made no use of the word "Years" in the title. I accept that since that's the path I went down (to no avail), of course I would have an issue with it. . . I had Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" (year), etc. (other theme names had some connection with "gold", either a song, golden globes, etc.). Oh well, I now know more about Charlie Day than before. he thought was that the years would translate somehow to grid entries. Uh, no. But did do the hail Mary and submitted Betty White Thursday afternoon before even trying the grid. Ultimately found my way with assistance from my meta phyician.

[patpatchica]

My first glance at the puzzle name brought the song Golden Years by David Bowie to mind which didn’t make sense as he has not been in the news. My next thought was Betty White. After that, I quickly found the mechanism for WHITE. Betty White was definitely a celebrity in the news recently, a Golden Girl, and lived well into her golden years. That’s what I submitted.

I searched for a mechanism for Betty but could only come up with the old Ram Jam song Black Betty. It was really difficult to be satisfied with a half mechanism. My OCD has been screaming all weekend, “Find Betty!”

[Streroto]

I'm surprised so many people were unsatisfied with this one. Like so many I knew the answer before I made a single entry in the grid. Having found the elegant opposites mechanism and BLACK, the celebrity in the news clue plus WHITE plus Golden in the title were a 100% solid click for me and I submitted without hesitation. I am certain there have been other puzzles where not every word of the title has been relevant. I can see if the word golden was not in the title how the click would not be there, but it is...jimmyd summed it up more succinctly at #301

Stay well all

[flyingMoose]

I also considered Shaun. I decided he was a close second in “celebrity in the news.” This will be his fifth Olympics - three golds and a fourth in the previous ones. Hopefully, no close second in this one.

[JeanneC]

I also considered Shaun. I decided he was a close second in “celebrity in the news.” This will be his fifth Olympics - three golds and a fourth in the previous ones. Hopefully, no close second in this one.

I went for Betty White like many others but you may well be right. I think I hear a marching band and see floats turning the corner… .